Chapter 9
The metal shutters slammed shut.
Sophie screamed.
Ethan rushed to the bedroom door.
Locked.
I tried mine.
Locked too.
Margaret’s laughter floated through the ceiling speakers.
“You always did love technology, Ethan.”
He looked toward the smart-home panel.
“Mom, unlock the doors.”
“No.”
“Daniel is bleeding because you shot him.”
A pause.
“He disappointed me.”
I felt sick.
“That is your son,” I shouted.
“He stopped being my son when he pointed questions at me.”
Caroline stepped toward the speaker.
“Margaret.”
Silence.
Then Margaret whispered, “Caroline.”
Thirty years of hatred seemed to enter the room with one name.
Caroline’s hands shook.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
Margaret laughed.
“I considered it.”
Sophie grabbed her mother’s hand.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Richard loved her.”
I looked at Richard.
Caroline’s face hardened.
“No. Richard loved himself.”
Richard didn’t argue.
Margaret continued.
“He couldn’t bear the guilt if Caroline died. So he paid for a private life.”
Sophie stared at her mother.
“What does that mean?”
Caroline looked down.
“I was hidden.”
“By who?”
“Richard.”
Sophie stepped away.
“No.”
“I thought it was temporary.”
“You were alive all this time.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t come find me?”
Caroline broke.
“I tried.”
“Twenty-nine years?”
“Sophie, please.”
“You let me think you abandoned me!”
“I was told you were dead.”
Silence.
Sophie stared at her.
“What?”
Caroline cried harder.
“Victor brought me a newspaper clipping after I escaped.”
“What clipping?”
“A car accident.”
Her voice broke.
“A little girl and her grandmother.”
Sophie slowly shook her head.
“That never happened.”
“I know that now.”
“When did you find out?”
“Two years ago.”
Sophie stepped backward again.
“Two years?”
“I searched for you.”
“And?”
“Margaret found me first.”
Margaret laughed over the speaker.
“I usually do.”
Harris’s voice came faintly through my earpiece.
“Emily, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
Everyone looked at me.
I touched the earpiece.
“We’re locked upstairs.”
“We know. Smart system disabled our remote access.”
“Where is Margaret?”
“Thermal scan shows someone in the lower level.”
“Basement?”
“Possibly.”
Ethan shook his head.
“No. We don’t have a basement.”
Caroline’s eyes widened.
“Yes, you do.”
We all looked at her.
“What?”
“The wine cellar.”
Ethan frowned.
“There’s a crawlspace behind the west wall.”
“No,” Caroline said. “There’s a staircase.”
Richard went pale.
“Margaret rebuilt it.”
“Rebuilt what?”
Caroline looked at him.
“The tunnel.”
Of course.
The old factory bunker.
The Carter house.
Margaret had escape routes everywhere.
Harris heard.
“We’re checking.”
The speakers crackled again.
“Emily.”
“What?”
“You still have something I need.”
“The trust?”
“No.”
Her voice softened.
“The baby.”
My hand moved to my stomach.
Ethan stepped in front of me.
“You will never touch her.”
Margaret laughed.
“Oh, Ethan. Still pretending this is about protecting your wife.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“Then let everyone else go.”
Richard shouted, “Margaret, stop this!”
“Richard.”
Her voice turned cold.
“You should be the quietest person in that room.”
Richard’s face tightened.
Margaret continued.
“Tell Ethan who Caroline really was to you.”
Ethan looked at the marriage certificate.
“We know you married her.”
“No.”
Margaret sounded pleased.
“Tell him why.”
Richard looked at Caroline.
She turned away.
“Dad?”
Richard sighed.
“My marriage to Caroline was legal.”
“And your marriage to Mom?”
“Not initially.”
Ethan stared.
“What?”
“When I married Margaret in 1988, my divorce from Caroline had never been finalized.”
Sophie whispered, “So Margaret wasn’t legally your wife.”
“Not until later.”
“When?”
“1999.”
“Why does that matter?”
Margaret answered.
“Because Richard built Carter Medical while still legally married to Caroline.”
Everyone understood at once.
Ownership.
Money.
Assets.
Caroline could claim part of the company.
Maybe a huge part.
“That’s why you kept her hidden,” I whispered.
Margaret laughed.
“Finally.”
Caroline looked furious.
“You stole my life for money.”
“No, Caroline.”
“For what then?”
“For survival.”
“You had everything.”
“I built everything.”
Richard snapped, “You stole everything.”
Margaret’s voice rose.
“I protected the company while you were sleeping with employees!”
Caroline flinched.
Richard looked ashamed.
Margaret continued.
“I handled investors. I handled politicians. I handled problems.”
“People,” Caroline said. “You mean people.”
“When necessary.”
I felt cold.
“How many?”
Silence.
“How many people did you hurt?”
“Enough.”
Ethan looked sick.
The smart-home panel suddenly flashed.
BATTERY BACKUP: 27 MINUTES.
Ethan noticed.
“Emily.”
“What?”
“When backup dies, locks release.”
Margaret heard him.
“No, they don’t.”
The panel changed.
MANUAL SECURITY OVERRIDE.
Then I smelled something.
Smoke.
Sophie noticed too.
“Do you smell that?”
Caroline’s face changed.
“Fire.”
Margaret’s voice came through the speakers.
“This family began in fire.”
Richard rushed toward the door.
“Margaret!”
“It might as well end there.”
The fire alarm erupted.
Smoke began pushing beneath the door.
Harris shouted through my earpiece.
“Fire detected on the first floor!”
“Get us out!”
“We’re breaching windows.”
“Metal shutters!”
“We’re cutting them.”
Ethan grabbed a chair.
He smashed it against the smart-home panel.
Nothing.
Again.
Plastic cracked.
He ripped wiring from the wall.
The lock remained engaged.
Smoke thickened.
Caroline coughed.
Sophie covered her mouth.
Richard looked toward the attached bathroom.
“Water.”
We soaked towels.
Pressed them beneath the door.
It slowed the smoke.
Not enough.
I was dizzy.
Pregnant.
Injured.
Trapped.
Again.
“Margaret!” I screamed.
The speaker crackled.
“Yes, Emily?”
“You want me?”
“Yes.”
“Then come get me.”
Ethan stared at me.
“What are you doing?”
I held up a hand.
“You said the baby matters.”
“The baby changes everything.”
“Then you won’t burn me alive.”
Silence.
I smiled even though she couldn’t see it.
“You’re bluffing.”
Margaret’s voice hardened.
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
I looked around at the people she had broken.
“You need control. Dead people can’t obey you.”
Nobody spoke.
“You didn’t kill Caroline because she was useful.”
Caroline stared at me.
“You didn’t kill Richard because his name protected you.”
Richard lowered his eyes.
“You didn’t kill Daniel until he stopped believing you.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“And you didn’t kill me in the crash because you needed my signature.”
Silence.
“So open the door.”
Margaret laughed softly.
“You think you understand me.”
“I understand cowards.”
The speaker went dead.
Ethan looked at me.
“That was either brilliant or insane.”
“Probably both.”
Then the lock clicked.
The door opened.
Everyone stared.
I almost laughed.
“She opened it.”
Ethan grabbed my arm.
“Wait.”
The hallway was filled with smoke.
At the far end stood a woman.
Margaret.
Gun in hand.
“Emily comes with me.”
Ethan stepped forward.
“No.”
She aimed at him.
“I already shot one son today.”
Richard moved between them.
“Enough.”
Margaret’s gun shifted toward him.
“You.”
“Yes.”
“You ruined everything.”
“No. We both did.”
“Don’t pretend guilt makes you noble.”
“It doesn’t.”
Richard took another step.
“But this ends now.”
Margaret fired.
Caroline screamed.
Richard fell.
Ethan charged.
Margaret fired again.
The bullet hit the wall.
Ethan slammed into her.
The gun flew across the floor.
I ran toward Richard.
Blood spread across his side.
“Richard!”
“I’m okay.”
He wasn’t.
Caroline dropped beside him.
“Pressure.”
I pressed a towel against the wound.
Margaret clawed Ethan’s face.
He pinned her wrists.
She kneed him in the stomach.
He collapsed from his existing injuries.
Margaret scrambled toward the gun.
Sophie reached it first.
She picked it up.
Margaret froze.
Sophie aimed.
Her hands shook.
“You took my mother.”
Margaret slowly stood.
“Sophie.”
“You stole her child.”
“She abandoned you.”
“Shut up.”
“She chose Richard.”
“Shut up!”
Caroline grabbed Sophie’s arm.
“Don’t.”
“She deserves it.”
“Yes.”
Caroline’s voice broke.
“But you don’t deserve what killing her will do to you.”
Sophie sobbed.
Margaret smiled.
“You were always weak, Caroline.”
Sophie’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Then a window exploded.
Tactical officers breached through the shutter.
“Drop the weapon!”
Sophie dropped it immediately.
Margaret ran.
She disappeared through the smoke toward the stairs.
Harris chased her.
Ethan helped me lift Richard.
Officers rushed us toward the broken window.
A rescue ladder waited outside.
Then a shot echoed downstairs.
Another.
Harris shouted.
We heard Margaret scream.
I stopped.
“Did they get her?”
Nobody knew.
Firefighters pulled us out one by one.
I was lowered to the lawn.
Paramedics surrounded Richard.
Ethan collapsed beside me.
Sophie and Caroline came next.
Harris finally emerged.
Alone.
His face was blackened by smoke.
“Where is she?” Ethan asked.
Harris looked toward the burning house.
“She used the tunnel.”
My heart sank.
“She escaped?”
“For now.”
Richard grabbed Harris’s sleeve from the stretcher.
“The tunnel goes east.”
“We know.”
“No.”
Richard coughed.
“There are two branches.”
Harris leaned closer.
“One goes east toward the river.”
“And the other?”
Richard’s eyes found me.
“To Emily’s clinic.”
My blood froze.
“The fertility clinic?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It used to be a Carter Medical research property.”
I stared at him.
My fertility clinic.
The place Ethan and I had spent years trying to have a child.
The place that had my eggs.
My embryos.
My medical records.
Margaret’s voice echoed in my mind.
The baby changes everything.
I looked at Dr. Reynolds.
“When I tested positive, how far along was I?”
“Very early.”
“How early?”
“Approximately five weeks.”
I calculated.
Then stopped.
“That’s impossible.”
Ethan looked at me.
“What?”
“We haven’t tried naturally in months.”
His face changed.
“But we did the embryo transfer.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Our last transfer had failed.
The clinic called us six weeks earlier.
Negative.
I looked at Dr. Reynolds.
“If I’m five weeks pregnant…”
He understood.
“This conception occurred after your last documented treatment.”
“But we didn’t—”
I stopped.
There had been a procedure.
Three weeks earlier.
A routine examination at the clinic after I complained of unusual pain.
They sedated me.
I had woken groggy.
Margaret had recommended that clinic years ago.
My blood turned to ice.
“Harris.”
He looked at me.
“I didn’t become pregnant naturally.”
Ethan stared.
“What are you saying?”
“I think someone implanted an embryo without telling me.”
Silence.
Caroline whispered, “Oh my God.”
Richard tried sitting up.
“Emily.”
I looked at him.
His face held terror.
“What?”
“You need a DNA test.”
“Why?”
He swallowed.
“Because Margaret kept an embryo program hidden for years.”
Ethan looked sick.
“Whose embryos?”
Richard’s voice barely carried.
“Carter family embryos.”
I touched my stomach.
For the first time since learning I was pregnant, joy mixed with pure fear.
“My baby…”
May you like
Richard closed his eyes.
“May not be biologically yours.”
