Chapter 8 - Desperate Measures
Twenty-four hours later, the Sterling family’s financial empire was in total liquidation. Julian Thorne had formally withdrawn as Christopher’s counsel, citing ethical conflicts and non-payment of retainers. Christopher, however, managed to secure an emergency bail hearing before an appellate magistrate using a predatory private bondsman who put up a lien against the last unencumbered property Rosalind owned: her ancestral summer estate in Newport.
At 7:00 PM on Friday evening, Christopher walked out of the county jail on temporary bail, wearing an ankle monitor, with strict orders to surrender his passport and remain confined to a local hotel room.
He didn't go to the hotel.
Driven mad by the total destruction of his reputation, his wealth, and his future, Christopher rented a cash-only vehicle through an acquaintance and cut his ankle monitor in a gas station restroom off Interstate 95.
His target was not the hospital.
Christopher knew the hospital was an iron fortress guarded by Marcus’s deputies. Instead, he made the fatal mistake of believing I had left my country estate unguarded while attending to Violet.
He believed Clara was with me.
At 10:30 PM, a storm raged across the county, lashing the dark oak trees outside my historic home with sheets of rain. Inside, the lights were dimmed.
The sound of shattering glass echoed from the French doors of my ground-floor conservatory.
Christopher slipped through the broken frame, soaked to the bone, his eyes wild and bloodshot, holding a heavy tire iron in his gloved right hand. He was breathing like a rabid animal, his clothes plastered to his frame, muttered curses spilling from his lips.
“Evelyn!” he hissed into the shadows of the long hallway. “Give me my daughter! Give her to me and I leave the country! You hear me, you old witch? If you scream, I’ll smash your skull in!”
He stalked down the mahogany hallway, following the faint glow of the fireplace burning in my library.
He kicked the library door open, raising the tire iron high above his head.
“Where is she?!” he screamed.
I was sitting in my wingback leather armchair beside the fire. In my lap was an open book. On the small table beside me sat a porcelain cup of Earl Grey tea.
Clara was not there. Violet was not there.
There was only me.
“You’re late, Christopher,” I said calmly, turning a page of my book without looking up. “I expected you forty minutes ago. The traffic on Route 4 must have been dreadful in the rain.”
Christopher froze, his chest heaving, his grip on the tire iron tightening until his knuckles turned white. “Where is my child?! Where did you hide her?!”
“Clara is resting safely with her mother in an undisclosed private facility three counties away,” I replied, closing my book and finally looking at him. “Did you truly believe, even for a fraction of a second, that I would keep an innocent newborn in a home you had keys to?”
“You baited me,” he whispered, his face twisting into an expression of murderous hatred. “You set me up!”
“I didn't force you to cut your GPS monitor, Christopher. I didn't force you to break into a private home with a deadly weapon while under a felony restraining order,” I said, taking a quiet sip of my tea. “You did that all on your own, driven by the pathetic vanity that has defined your entire existence.”
“I’ll kill you,” he snarled, taking two lunging steps toward my chair, raising the tire iron. “I have nothing left anyway! I’ll crush your head before the police even know I’m here!”
“Look behind you, Christopher.”
From the shadows of the high bookshelves behind him, three red laser dots painted the center of his chest.
Sheriff Marcus Vance and two state tactical snipers stepped out of the darkness, their rifles leveled directly at his heart.
“Drop the weapon, Christopher,” Marcus commanded, his voice cold and steady. “Drop it right now, or you will not leave this room alive.”
The tire iron slipped from Christopher’s paralyzed fingers, clattering loudly against the hardwood floor. He dropped to his knees, his hands trembling in the air, sobbing uncontrollably into the silence of the library.
“It’s over, son,” Marcus said, stepping forward and planting a heavy tactical boot into Christopher’s back, forcing him flat onto the floor before ratcheting the steel cuffs around his wrists with brutal finality. “Felony aggravated burglary, felony stalking with a deadly weapon, escape from custody, and attempted murder. You just guaranteed yourself twenty-five years without parole.”
I stood up, walked over to the shivering man pinned to my floor, and looked down at him one last time.
May you like
“You told my daughter she was too soft for a family of your caliber,” I whispered. “As it turns out, Christopher, you weren't even strong enough to survive one week of mine.”
***
