Chapter 10 - The Shattered Threshold
A deafening gunshot roared inside the enclosed bedroom.
The muzzle flash lit the room in a blinding strobe of yellow and white. The bullet tore through the drywall three inches above my left shoulder, showering my hair with plaster and splintered wood.
Thorne let out a ragged, strangled roar as the high-grade oleoresin capsicum hit his eyes and open mouth. He stumbled backward into the hallway, firing a second, wild shot that shattered the hallway mirror into a thousand raining shards of silver glass.
Melissa screamed, dropping to her knees, coughing violently from the aerosol cloud drifting through the doorway.
I didn't wait for Thorne to recover his sight.
I charged through the doorway, lowered my shoulder, and tackled him full-force into the hallway railing. The wooden spindles groaned and snapped under our combined weight.
Thorne’s gun slipped from his slick, burning fingers, clattering across the floorboards and bouncing down the staircase into the dark foyer below.
He swung blindly with a heavy, manicured fist, catching me hard on the cheekbone. The pain exploded behind my eyes, bright and sickening, but the adrenaline overrode the nerve endings. I drove my elbow into his ribs, spun him around, and slammed his head back against the plaster wall.
Thorne slumped down against the baseboard, clutching his face, gasping for air through throat-scorching chemical burns.
"You... you're dead, Reynolds," he wheezed, his voice bubbling with fluid. "You and the girl. I’ll burn that house to the ground."
"Touch my daughter," I said, leaning down until my mouth was inches from his blistered ear, "and you won't live to see the trial."
I turned back to Mia’s bedroom. Melissa was on her feet, scrambling toward the window, her phone clutched in her hand, dialing frantically.
"Who are you calling, Melissa?" I demanded, stepping into the room. "The police? Go ahead. Tell them you’re in the bedroom of the woman you poisoned."
She dropped the phone. Her face was streaked with black mascara and tears of pure, unadulterated terror.
"Scott, please," she begged, backing against the sill, her hands raised. "I didn't want to hurt Claire! Marcus told me she was going to die anyway! He said the trial was already funded, that the money would just go to the state if we didn't divert it! I did it for Zoe! I had nothing, Scott! Nothing!"
"You had a family," I said, my voice shaking with profound, bottomless disgust. "You had a daughter who loved you, and you had a stepdaughter who spent five weeks making name cards for a party you destroyed."
I picked up the metal lockbox from the floor, shoved Claire’s letter and the key deep into my jacket, and pulled out my own phone.
I dialed 911.
"Denver Emergency," the dispatcher answered immediately.
"My name is Scott Reynolds. I need immediate armed units at 1422 South Williams Street. Home invasion, shots fired. Two suspects detained on the second floor: Marcus Thorne and Melissa Reynolds."
"Sir, are you in a safe position?"
"I’m leaving the residence now," I said, keeping my eyes locked on Melissa. "The suspects are unarmed, but dangerous. Send medical units."
I hung up, turned, and walked down the shattered staircase, stepping over the broken glass and the fallen wooden spindles.
I retrieved Thorne’s discarded pistol from the entryway rug, dropped the magazine, racked the slide to clear the chambered round, and tossed the pieces into opposite corners of the dark living room.
Outside, the cold mountain wind tore through the open front door.
I walked down the porch steps into the freezing October night, my heart pounding a frantic, surviving rhythm against my ribs.
The spotter in the dark gray Dodge Charger across the street saw me emerge alone. The car’s engine roared to life, tires screeching against the asphalt as the driver whipped the vehicle around and sped south toward I-25, abandoning his boss to the sirens already echoing in the distance from University Boulevard.
I didn't run. I walked to my truck, unlocked the door, and sat behind the wheel.
My hands were shaking so violently I could barely fit the key into the ignition. Blood dripped warm and slow from a split above my eyebrow where Thorne’s fist had connected.
On the passenger seat, the metal box sat under the dim interior dome light.
I pulled out the anti-static pouch containing the flash drive Claire had left behind. On the back of the plastic casing, Claire had written three words in black permanent marker:
*FOR MIA ONLY.*
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was Jessica.
I hit accept and pressed the phone to my ear. "Jessica, I’m okay. The police are on their way to the house. Thorne and Melissa are trapped inside."
There was no sigh of relief on the other end.
Instead, I heard Jessica’s voice, tight, strained, and trembling with a quiet, suffocating panic that made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.
"Scott," she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the line. "Where are you?"
"I’m in the truck. I’m coming back to your house right now."
"Don't come to the house," Jessica choked out, trying and failing to stifle a sob.
My blood turned to liquid nitrogen. "Jessica, what happened? Where is Mia?"
"About ten minutes ago... a woman came to the door. She said she was an emergency social worker from the Denver Department of Human Services. She had a court-stamped emergency protective order signed by a family court judge, accompanied by two uniformed men who said they were county marshals."
"No," I gasped, the world spinning out beneath me. "No, no, no."
"They said Melissa had filed an emergency custody petition alleging domestic abandonment and child endangerment before she left this afternoon. Scott... they took her. They took Mia."
"Where?" I screamed, slamming my fist against the steering wheel until the horn wailed into the empty street. "Where did they take my daughter, Jessica?!"
Through the receiver, Jessica’s voice broke into pieces.
May you like
"They said she was being transported to the private youth assessment center in Douglas County," Jessica wept. "The one owned by Thorne-Vance Holdings."
And in the distance, high above the Denver skyline, a private medical transport helicopter lifted off from the Centennial Airport tarmac, its red warning beacons blinking rhythmically against the black expanse of the Colorado sky.
