Chapter 6 - The Bait in the Trap
The sun was barely cresting the jagged peaks of the Cascade Mountains when Arthur and I loaded our bags into his truck. Chloe was awake, quiet and alert, wrapped in a warm blanket in the backseat, eating a piece of toast with honey.
We were thirty minutes away from packing into the truck when my cell phone—which I had kept powered off—suddenly buzzed against the kitchen table.
I froze. Arthur froze, his hand hovering over the truck door handle.
I walked over to the table and looked at the screen.
Caller ID: Lucas.
“Answer it on speaker,” Arthur instructed quietly, moving swiftly to my side, his phone already out and recording the audio feed.
I took a deep breath, steadied my voice, and pressed accept.
“Mom? Where the hell have you been?!” Lucas’s voice blared through the speaker, frantic, furious, and tightly wound. Gone was the smooth, grieving widower tone; this was the panicked scream of a cornered animal. “My phone has been going straight to voicemail for twelve hours! People are calling my office asking where you went after the funeral!”
“I needed some air, Lucas,” I said, keeping my tone unnervingly calm. “The cemetery was… too much for me.”
“Too much? You just disappeared without telling anyone!” Lucas snapped, his breathing heavy. “Listen to me. You need to get back to town right now. There’s… there’s an issue with the estate paperwork. The insurance adjusters are here, and they need your signature as the primary family witness to close out the final claims.”
Insurance adjusters. Less than twenty-four hours after burying an empty box, he was already trying to cash the check.
“I’m not coming back to town today, Lucas,” I replied smoothly. “In fact, I’m quite far away.”
A sharp pause hung on the line. When Lucas spoke again, his voice had dropped an octave, turning cold, sharp, and dangerously calculated.
“What do you mean, you’re far away? Where are you, Mom?”
“I’m somewhere safe, Lucas,” I said, looking across the kitchen at Arthur, who gave me a sharp nod. “Somewhere you can’t reach us. By the way… Chloe says hello.”
The silence that fell over the line was absolute. You could have heard a pin drop on a plush carpet.
For three agonizing seconds, neither of us spoke. Then, the line crackled with a violent, ragged intake of breath from my son.
“You… you took her,” Lucas whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of pure terror and murderous rage. “You dug her up.”
“I didn't dig her up, Lucas,” I corrected, my voice ringing with righteous fury. “Because you didn't bury her deep enough. I found her alive in that preparation room. I heard her scratching at the wood while you were busy playing the grieving father for thirty-six horrified guests.”
“You crazy old bitch!” Lucas roared, completely dropping his mask. “You have no idea what you’ve ruined! That deal—everything I’ve built—it was all riding on this! If anyone finds out she’s alive—!”
“They already know, Lucas,” I interrupted, stepping in for the final blow. “Arthur is with me. The federal marshals have the prescription vial you used to drug her. And right now, we’re heading straight to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Seattle.”
“Don't you dare!” Lucas screamed, the sound of glass shattering echoing through the phone speaker as he presumably smashed something in his office. “If you do this, I swear to God, I will hunt you both down to the ends of the earth! You won't make it fifty miles out of those mountains!”
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I didn't flinch. I didn't tremble. I simply reached down and tapped the red button on my screen, ending the call.
“He knows,” I looked up at Arthur. “And he’s coming.”
