Chapter 13 - The Trunk in the Driveway
The sharp, rhythmic thudding sound echoed clearly across the quiet driveway, stopping Thomas in his tracks just as he was about to close the car door for Elena. Elena froze, her hand hovering over her seatbelt as she stared out the rear window toward Marcus’s luxury sedan parked near the fountain.
"Did you hear that?" Elena whispered, her heart skipping a beat.
Thomas frowned, his brow furrowing as he turned away from the vehicle and walked cautiously toward the black sedan. The muffled scraping sound came again, louder this time, accompanied by a desperate, guttural groan from inside the vehicle's trunk.
Thomas motioned to one of the nearby federal agents. "Hold on a second. Cover me."
The agent raised his sidearm, stepping up beside Thomas as they approached the rear of the locked car. Thomas reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy set of master keys he had confiscated from Marcus’s jacket earlier, and quickly found the trunk key. He slid it into the lock and turned it with a sharp click.
With a heavy hydraulic hiss, the trunk lid popped open.
Elena gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. Bound tightly with thick duct tape across his mouth and zip-tied at the ankles was Detective Vance, drenched in motor oil and shivering violently from the cold basement air.
"Get him out of there!" Thomas yelled, immediately reaching in to help the agent haul the injured state trooper out of the cramped, dark space.
They laid Vance gently down on the gravel path. Thomas quickly sliced through the zip ties on his ankles and ripped the duct tape away from his mouth. Vance coughed violently, gasping for fresh air as his face twisted in pain.
"Marcus... and David... they blindsided me down in the basement," Vance rasped, his voice rough and strained. "They... they weren't alone. There's someone else still inside the house."
Elena’s blood ran cold. She sat up straight in the back of the security vehicle. "What do you mean someone else? Who?"
Vance grabbed Thomas’s jacket sleeve with a desperate grip, his eyes wide with genuine panic. "Julian’s brother... Arthur. He’s been locked away in the east wing attic for ten years. Marcus and Clara kept him drugged so he wouldn't contest the original will. And... and he’s loose right now."
Before anyone could process the horrifying revelation, a terrifying, guttural roar echoed from the upper-story windows of Linden House, followed by the sound of heavy furniture being hurled through a second-story glass window.
Glass shattered across the front lawn as a heavy wooden chair smashed into the ground just feet from the car. Elena looked up toward the darkened balcony above the grand entrance, and her breath caught entirely in her throat.
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Standing on the edge of the stone balcony, draped in a tattered bathrobe and holding a glowing red-hot fireplace poker in his bare hand, was a wild-eyed, emaciated man staring directly down at her with an insane, chilling smile.
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