Chapter 11 - The Precipice
Dr. Malcolm Voss did not raise his hands.
A terrible, hollow laugh escaped the physician’s throat. Slowly, with terrifying deliberation, he lowered the pistol from Naomi, but instead of setting it on the desk, he pressed the cold steel of the silencer against Celeste’s temple.
"Malcolm?" Celeste froze, her eyes widening in pure, paralyzed shock. "What are you doing?"
"You always were too sentimental, Elena," Voss whispered coldly. "I told you Adrian was a loose end. I told you we should have liquidated the estate accounts from Zurich three weeks ago and disappeared. But you wanted the wedding. You wanted the name. You wanted to play the high-society lady."
"Voss, stand down!" the detective yelled, edging along the bookcase.
"If any of you take a single step forward, she dies," Voss said smoothly, pulling Celeste tightly against his chest as a human shield, backing slowly toward the massive French doors that led out onto the second-floor stone balcony.
Rain swept in through the open balcony doors, gusting cold air and damp leaves across the study floor. Below the balustrade lay a jagged forty-foot drop onto the stone fountain courtyard.
Adrian took a trembling step forward, his hands outstretched. "Just let her go! Let the police handle this! My mother—is my mother alive?"
Voss smiled—a ghastly, venomous grin that chilled Naomi to the marrow.
"Your mother died ten minutes ago, Adrian," Voss lied with effortless cruelty. "Her lungs filled with fluid while you were driving here to play the hero. You have nothing left. No father. No mother. And no bride."
"Malcolm, please!" Celeste begged, her composure entirely shattered, clawing at her brother’s arm. "We can take the offshore accounts! We have the Cayman routing numbers! Don't do this!"
"You're a liability now, little sister," Voss murmured into her hair.
Suddenly, Naomi lunged across the mahogany desk, grabbing the heavy brass clock weight from the humidor and hurling it with all her strength directly at Voss’s face.
The heavy brass struck Voss square across the temple with a sickening thud.
The gun discharged with a muffled *phut!*
Celeste screamed as the bullet tore through her shoulder. Voss staggered backward, blinded by blood, losing his footing on the slick, rain-soaked stone of the balcony. In his panic, his hands clawed desperately at Celeste’s collar, dragging her backward with him over the low stone balustrade.
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"Adrian!" Celeste shrieked into the storm.
Adrian lunged forward through the rain, his hands reaching into the black abyss just as the stone railing gave way beneath the crushing weight—
