Chapter 8 - The Boathouse Confrontation and the Final Secret
“Arthur, you fool! You can’t lock me in here, Miller is already at the boathouse with Evelyn, and the police have the perimeter surrounded!” Victoria screamed from the corridor as Mrs. Gable shoved her bodily into the freezing vault, slamming the heavy wooden door shut and throwing the manual iron security bolt into place.
The muffled sound of Victoria’s frantic pounding against the reinforced wood faded as Arthur turned his attention back to the service stairs, his breath pluming in the freezing air of the corridor.
“Mrs. Gable, take the master key ring and get Maya out through the old drainage tunnel to the highway. Find Chief Inspector Vance—my cousin at the downtown precinct—and give him the black ledger,” Arthur instructed firmly, handing the housekeeper his remaining ammunition clips.
“What about you, Mr. Vance?” Mrs. Gable asked, her old eyes shining with tears as she gripped his sleeve. “You can’t go down to the boathouse alone to face Miller and Evelyn. It’s suicide.”
“It’s not suicide, Mrs. Gable; it’s an accounting audit,” Arthur said with a grim, humorless smile, turning toward the storm-lashed path that led down to the rocky shoreline.
The wind off the Atlantic was howling like a trapped animal as Arthur sprinted down the winding wooden boardwalk toward the historic boathouse, the driving rain soaking his ruined tuxedo and chilling him to the bone.
The boathouse door was half-open, a sliver of warm yellow light cutting across the churning, black waves of the storm-tossed bay outside.
Arthur crept silently up the ramp, his revolver raised, and slipped through the gap in the heavy oak doors.
Inside, standing by the dry-dock cradle where Claire’s old sailboat was still stored, were Evelyn and Miller. Miller was clutching his bleeding shoulder with one hand while holding a heavy marine wrench in the other, glaring furiously at Evelyn.
“You told me Vance didn’t have the gun, you bitch!” Miller snarled, his face twisted in pain and anger as he towered over Evelyn.
Evelyn looked entirely unfazed, her royal blue evening gown stained with mud and seawater, her dark hair plastered across her face by the mist blowing in through the open bay doors.
“Quiet, you incompetent fool,” Evelyn hissed, turning sharply as she heard the soft click of Arthur’s boots on the wooden planking behind them.
Arthur stepped into the light of the overhead work lamp, the nickel-plated revolver aimed squarely at the center of Evelyn’s chest.
“The game is over, Evelyn,” Arthur said, his voice cutting through the roar of the surf outside. “Victoria is locked in the sub-basement, the ledger is in the hands of the police, and your little corporate coup is dead in the water.”
Evelyn slowly turned around, her dark eyes flashing not with fear, but with a chilling, triumphant madness that made Arthur’s trigger finger twitch.
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“You think the ledger is the worst of it, Arthur?” Evelyn whispered, stepping closer despite the dark barrel of the gun. “You never did understand why Claire had to die that night on the cliff, did you?”
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