Chapter 7 - The Ambush at Dusk
I didn't panic.
Fear was a luxury I had abandoned the morning I walked out with the red folder.
I slid out of bed silently, my bare feet making no sound on the hardwood. From the top drawer of the nightstand, I pulled the heavy brass flashlight Eleanor had kept by her bed for forty years—solid metal, weighing nearly three pounds.
From the bottom of the closet, I retrieved Eleanor’s personal protection: a licensed .38 Special revolver that Arthur had returned to me that very afternoon, fully loaded.
I crept to the bedroom door and listened.
Heavy footsteps were ascending the stairs. Slow. Deliberate. The floorboards groaned under familiar weight.
Then came a voice—raspy, slurred with alcohol, and dripping with psychotic rage.
“Clara…” Daniel crooned in the darkness. “Come out, come out, little bird. Let’s finish our conversation.”
Beside his voice came another sound—a sharp, wheezing breath.
“Check the master bedroom, Daniel,” Lorraine whispered, her voice venomous. “Make sure she doesn't use the phone. Break her fingers first so she can’t sign any more warrants!”
They were both here.
They had bypassed the security guard—or worse, ambushed him while he sat in his car. They had cut the camera wires and used a portable jammer to block my calls. Daniel had nothing left to lose. He knew the grand jury was meeting tomorrow. He knew the fraud charges were turning into a life sentence.
He was here to collect on the three-million-dollar policy.
The brass doorknob of the bedroom rattled.
Then came Daniel’s heavy shoulder slamming against the wood. *BAM.*
The heavy frame held, but the wood groaned around the latch.
“Open the damn door, Clara!” Daniel roared, dropping all pretense of stealth. *BAM.* “You ruined my life! You took my company! You took my money! You turned Chloe against me!”
*BAM.*
A crack splintered down the center panel of the oak door.
“Daniel, hurry!” Lorraine hissed from the hallway. “The guard might wake up! Do it now!”
I stood in the center of the bedroom, raising the revolver with both hands, pointing it directly at the center of the door.
“Daniel!” I yelled, my voice ringing clear and authoritative through the dark. “Step away from the door! I am armed! If you break that wood, I will shoot you!”
A dark, mocking laugh echoed from the other side.
“You won’t shoot anyone, Clara,” Daniel sneered. “You couldn't even tell the waiter your steak was undercooked without trembling! You’re weak! You’ve always been weak!”
He kicked the door right below the lock with the full force of his boot.
The frame exploded inward with a deafening splinter of wood.
Daniel lunged into the room, holding a heavy iron crowbar in his right hand, his face twisted into an expression of demonic fury. Lorraine squeezed in right behind him, holding a roll of industrial duct tape.
Daniel raised the crowbar.
*BANG.*
The muzzle flash lit the room in a blinding explosion of yellow and white. The gunshot was deafening inside the enclosed bedroom.
The bullet struck the wooden floorboard two inches in front of Daniel’s bare foot, sending a spray of sharp oak splinters into his shins.
Daniel froze.
The crowbar slipped an inch in his grip. The smell of sulfur and burnt gunpowder filled the room.
Lorraine let out a blood-curdling scream and threw herself against the wall, clutching her ears. “She’s shooting! The crazy bitch is shooting at us!”
I cocked the hammer back for a second shot. The metallic *click* was the loudest sound in the universe.
I raised the barrel until it was leveled directly between Daniel’s eyes.
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“The next one goes in your forehead, Daniel,” I said. My hands weren't shaking. Not a single millimeter. “Take one more step toward me. Please. Give me the legal justification.”
***