Chapter 11 - The Fire and the Iron
Nathan expected Emma to cower. For seventeen years, whenever his temper flared into shouting matches, Emma had retreated—speaking quietly, de-escalating, absorbing the blow to keep the household from fracturing.
He didn't realize that the woman who had absorbed those blows was dead.
As Nathan brought the crowbar down with wild, uncoordinated fury, Emma didn't flinch backward. She stepped hard to the left, pivoting on her heel. The crowbar whistled through the empty air, embedding itself deeply into the polished wood of the mantelpiece with a violent crack.
Before Nathan could pull it free, Emma brought the heavy iron fire poker around in a tight, vicious arc.
The iron struck Nathan square across his left ribs with a sickening crunch.
Nathan screamed, dropping the crowbar, clutching his side as the air was violently expelled from his lungs. He stumbled backward into the shattered glass of the coffee table, his boots slipping, crashing heavily onto his back against the floor.
Emma stood over him, raising the iron rod, her chest heaving, her eyes burning with an ancient, unforgiving rage.
"Get up," Emma commanded.
Nathan wheezed on the floor, coughing blood onto the hardwood, staring up at her with unadulterated terror. For the first time in his life, he was looking at a predator who was bigger, smarter, and infinitely more dangerous than him.
"Emma... please," he choked out, raising two trembling, bloodied hands. "Don't... please don't kill me..."
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't," she whispered, her voice colder than the blizzard rattling against the glass. "You broke into my home carrying a weapon. You smelled of gasoline. You came here to burn this house down with me inside it, didn't you?"
Nathan looked away, weeping pathetic, choking tears into the floor.
"You wanted the insurance money," Emma realized aloud, a cold wave of disgust washing over her. "You thought if the house burned down in a blizzard and I died inside, the entire trust would revert to your estate as the primary beneficiary. You weren't just coming here to hurt me. You were coming here to murder me for a payout."
Nathan curled into a fetal position, shielding his head, sobbing into the rug.
Emma didn't hit him again. She didn't need to. He was already broken, reduced to a weeping pile of wet wool and shattered ego on the floor of the room he had once claimed to rule.
She stepped over him, walked to the antique desk, and pulled a flare gun from the emergency storm kit she had prepared three days earlier. She walked to the front door, kicked it open into the howling whiteout, and fired the bright red magnesium flare high into the snowy night sky.
Three minutes later, the flashing blue and red lights of an Evanston police patrol cruiser cut through the snowstorm. The private security detail Sarah had hired to watch the perimeter had seen the flare and intercepted the local precinct.
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Four officers burst into the living room with weapons drawn.
They found Nathan Caldwell face down on the floor in broken glass, weeping uncontrollably, while Emma sat calmly in the armchair by the dying fire, sipping cold water, the iron poker resting across her lap.
