Chapter 18 - The Boardroom at Midnight
I didn't drive toward Telfair immediately. Telfair was sixty miles south along Route 17, an hour’s hard drive through flooded county backroads.
First, I had a stop to make.
The Suburban’s tires tore through the rain as I turned onto the tree-lined avenue of the Highlands, the most exclusive gated community in Savannah. This was where Arthur had built his palace five years ago—a sprawling, white-columned antebellum monstrosity paid for with the sweat of Ethan's logistics algorithms and the blood of my children.
The front gates of the community were open; the storm had knocked out the gate's hydraulic motor.
I drove the heavy SUV right up the manicured drive, crushed the front lawn's imported rose bushes beneath five thousand pounds of American steel, and slammed the front bumper straight into the double mahogany doors of Arthur Vance’s home.
The impact was like a cannon shot. The doors splintered inward, the security glass shattered into ten thousand glittering pebbles, and the alarm began to shriek its shrill, ear-splitting siren into the night.
I stepped out of the driver’s seat. I had left the shotgun in the car; I didn't need it. In my right hand, I held Ethan’s Sig Sauer. In my left, I held the soaked, bloody transfer manifest from Telfair Medical Ward.
I walked through the shattered threshold.
Eleanor was already at the top of the grand spiral staircase, clutching her silk robe around her throat, her face pale, smeared with night cream, her eyes wide with horrified disbelief.
"Claire?!" she screamed over the wailing siren. "Are you insane?! Arthur! Arthur, she’s crashed through the front door! Call the police! Call the police!"
"The police aren't coming, Mother," I said, my voice echoing up the marble walls. "Sergeant Miller is currently bleeding out in my front flowerbed, and Deputy Harris is tied to an iron post in the rain."
Arthur emerged from his study on the ground floor, dressed in a tailored velvet smoking jacket, holding a glass of scotch in one hand. But the moment his eyes landed on the gun in my hand, the glass slipped from his fingers and shattered against the imported Italian tile.
Behind him, Melissa stepped into the hallway, wrapped in a fluffy monogrammed towel, her hair wrapped in a turban.
"What is this psycho doing here?!" Melissa wailed, retreating behind Arthur’s broad shoulder. "Daddy, she’s going to ruin my wedding week! Look what she did to the foyer! Look at the glass!"
"Shut your mouth, Melissa," I said softly.
The tone in my voice—quiet, completely devoid of human warmth, colder than a tombstone—froze her instantly. Melissa’s mouth stayed open, but no sound came out.
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"Claire," Arthur began, raising his hands, his voice dropping into that smooth, condescending baritone he had used to control me since I was a child. "Sweetheart, you've had a nervous breakdown. The stress of the settlement... the grief... it's made you delusional. Put the gun down, and we can—"
"Where are the keys to the Telfair Medical Facility, Arthur?"
