Chapter 9 - The Highway Crash
The breaking news alert flashed ominously against the dark background of my phone screen. I stared at the headline, my breath catching in my throat. Clara hadn’t been safely tucked away in a municipal holding cell downtown. She had managed to break free during the transport van transfer, hijacked a vehicle, and was now involved in a catastrophic highway pursuit that had ended in a high-speed collision on Interstate 95.
“Sarah!” I yelled, rushing out of the nursery toward the hallway where the packing was underway.
Sarah poked her head out of the guest suite, holding a half-zipped duffel bag. “Sir? What’s wrong?”
“Change of plans,” I said, my voice urgent as I swiped through the live news feed on my phone. The local news chopper was broadcasting shaky aerial footage of a mangled white sedan crushed against a concrete bridge abutment on the interstate. Sirens wailed in the background as emergency personnel swarmed the wreckage with hydraulic rescue tools. “The transfer is compromised. We aren't going to the chalet.”
“Why? What happened?” Sarah dropped the bag onto the floor, her eyes wide with mounting terror.
“Clara escaped the police transport,” I explained rapidly, pacing down the hallway. “She’s at the center of a major accident on the interstate right now. If she’s conscious, there’s no telling what she’ll tell the state troopers about the estate, the tunnels, or Elena.”
“Should we call Officer Miller?” Sarah asked, reaching for her own phone on the mahogany console table.
“No,” a cool, calm voice answered from the top of the grand staircase.
I spun around. Elena was standing there, having re-entered the main living quarters through the service elevator I thought I had locked. She had ditched the messenger bag, and her hands were tucked neatly into the pockets of her dark sweater. She looked entirely too relaxed for someone whose primary accomplice had just crashed a stolen car on live television.
“How did you get back in here?” I demanded, closing the distance between us in three long strides. “I locked the service lift from the inside!”
“Nathaniel, darling, you really need to brush up on your nineteenth-century architecture,” Elena said with a patronizing smile. “The service lift has a manual override lever behind the fuse box. A child could operate it—or, in this case, a very prepared sister.”
“Your sister is dying on the interstate right now,” I snarled, grabbing her by the wrist. “The news chopper just showed the jaws of life tearing open the driver’s side door. If she names you before she flatlines, your entire grand scheme collapses in thirty seconds.”
Elena didn't flinch. She simply twisted her wrist out of my grip with surprising strength, smoothing her sleeve with immaculate calm.
“Clara won’t talk about me,” Elena said softly, her eyes glinting with dark amusement. “She’s far too proud to admit that her brilliant little sister was the mastermind behind her entire downfall. She’ll spend her final breath cursing your name, Nathaniel. She’ll tell the state troopers that you drove her to it.”
“You’re a psychopath,” I breathed, the sheer coldness of her calculus staggering me.
“I’m a survivor,” Elena corrected. She stepped closer to me, lowering her voice so Sarah couldn't overhear from down the hall. “Which brings us to our new timeline. Since Clara is currently occupying the attention of every emergency responder and news crew in the tri-state area, nobody is paying attention to what happens inside this estate over the next two hours.”
“What are you talking about?”
Elena reached into her pocket and pulled out a heavy brass master key—the one I kept locked in my private desk drawer downstairs.
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“I’m talking about expediting the financial transfer, Nathaniel,” Elena said, her smile turning razor-sharp. “Right now. Before the state police realize Clara wasn't working alone and send a tactical unit to sweep the property.”
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