Chapter 6 - Chloe’s Final Mask
The limousine raced back through the gates of the estate at breakneck speed.
I bolted out of the car before the driver could even open the door, sprinting up the marble steps and bursting through the front entrance.
"Mrs. Gable!" I shouted, dropping my handbag onto the foyer table. "Mrs. Gable, where is Arthur?!"
The elderly housekeeper hurried out from the butler's pantry, looking pale and deeply shaken. "Madam... thank God you're back. Mr. Vance refused to eat lunch, but he drank a cup of herbal tea brought up by the new kitchen assistant—a young man who claimed he was sent by the catering agency."
My stomach dropped into a bottomless abyss.
“You won the courtroom, Elena. But you forgot to check the kitchen.”
"Where is he?!" I demanded, pushing past her and racing up the grand staircase two steps at a time.
I threw open the door to the master bedroom.
Arthur was slumped backward in his reading chair by the window. His eyes were half-closed, his breathing shallow, ragged, and alarmingly slow. On the mahogany side table sat a half-empty porcelain teacup, giving off a faint, bitter, almond-like scent.
Cyanide. Or a heavy synthetic paralytic.
"Arthur!" I screamed, dropping to my knees beside his chair. I grabbed his cold, trembling hand. "Arthur, look at me! Can you hear me?!"
His eyelids fluttered. A faint, strained whisper escaped his lips: "Elena... the... the safe... they're... they're coming..."
"Stay with me!" I yelled, pulling my phone from my pocket and dialing 911 with a shaking thumb. "Send an ambulance! 1258 Vance Estate Drive! Poisoning! Hurry!"
Suddenly, the heavy bedroom door clicked shut behind me.
I spun around on my knees.
Standing in the doorway, holding a heavy iron fireplace poker she must have grabbed from the downstairs hall, was Chloe.
Her mascara was smeared across her cheeks, her hair wild, and a manic, unhinged smile distorted her pretty features. She looked like a creature driven completely mad by the prospect of losing everything.
"You should have just taken the money and run, Elena," Chloe whispered, taking a slow step toward me, dragging the iron poker across the hardwood floor with a harsh, scraping sound. "You should have stayed the quiet, pathetic nobody everyone always knew you were."
I stood up slowly, putting myself between Chloe and Arthur’s chair, keeping my body rigid and my eyes locked onto hers.
"You poisoned him, Chloe," I said, my voice dead calm, masking the volcanic rage boiling inside me. "You sent a plant into the kitchen to murder your own grandfather."
"He was senile! He was ruining our family!" Chloe shrieked, tears of sheer entitlement spilling over her cheeks. "That money belongs to us! My father, me, my future! Not some charity case who lucked into a marriage certificate!"
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"You're not just a spy, Chloe," I said, stepping forward, drawing her attention entirely onto me, buying precious seconds for the paramedics racing up the highway. "You're a sociopath. You used me, you lied to me, and now you're going to spend the rest of your life behind bars."
"Not if there's no one left to testify!" Chloe screamed, raising the heavy iron poker above her head and lunging directly at me with terrifying, murderous speed.
