Chapter 11 - The Ultimatum in the Woods
The dust settled slowly around the silver pickup truck, filtering through the shafts of sunlight piercing the dense pine canopy above. Clara looked over at David, whose eyes were glued to the glowing screen of his smartphone mounted on the dashboard.
“What is it?” Clara asked, her heart dropping back down into her stomach. “Who texted you?”
Without a word, David turned the phone slightly so the screen faced her. Displayed on the display was a live high-definition video feed streamed directly from the security cameras mounted on the exterior of Clara’s suburban home.
In the frame, Evelyn stood on the front porch, flanked by two uniformed police officers and Marcus. But what made Clara’s breath stop entirely was what—or rather, who—was standing beside them. It was a local news van, its satellite dish raised toward the sky, broadcasting live to the entire metropolitan area.
Evelyn was speaking into a cluster of microphones held by reporters, her face a masterpiece of calculated maternal anguish. She dabbed a lace handkerchief at her dry eyes, projecting an image of a devastated grandmother pleading for the safe return of her mentally unstable daughter and her precious, endangered granddaughter.
“My daughter Clara is suffering from a severe psychotic break,” Evelyn’s voice projected clearly through the video stream’s audio. “She is irrational, she is off her necessary medication, and she has taken my infant granddaughter into the wilderness without formula, diapers, or proper medical care. If anyone has seen them, please contact authorities immediately. Clara, if you’re watching this, please come home. We only want to help you.”
“The lying, manipulative bitch,” Clara choked out, hot tears of pure fury spilling over her eyelashes. She gripped the edge of the dashboard, her knuckles white. “She’s framing the entire kidnapping as a rescue mission. By the time anyone hears our side of the story, she’ll have had us committed and Maya placed into her private adoption pipeline.”
David put the truck back into gear, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line. He pulled a burner phone from his jacket pocket and tossed it into the deep mud beneath his seat, crushing it under his boot before stepping back on the gas.
“She’s betting on the fact that society will always trust a wealthy, respectable woman over a young, distressed mother,” David said grimly as the truck surged forward down the logging road. “It’s a classic play from her playbook. She did the exact same thing to your father before he died under ‘mysterious circumstances’ two years ago.”
Clara froze, turning her head so fast her neck popped. “What did you just say about my father?”
David kept his eyes dead ahead, navigating a hairpin turn as the trees grew thicker and the terrain steeper. “Your father didn’t die of a sudden heart attack, Clara. Two weeks before he passed, he discovered that Evelyn was liquidating his entire estate to fund her private adoption front. He threatened to go to the FBI. The autopsy report was signed off by a corrupt county coroner who owed your mother half a million dollars in gambling debts.”
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Clara clutched Maya tighter to her chest, the baby letting out a tiny sigh in her sleep. Every memory of her father’s sudden funeral, Evelyn’s stoic grief, the sealed medical records—it all snapped into place like the final pieces of a puzzle stained in blood.
May you like
Before Clara could process the horrific magnitude of the revelation, the truck’s engine sputtered violently, coughed twice, and died.
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