Chapter 9 - The Wolf at the Door
I didn't breathe.
I gently lowered the lid of the cedar chest, shoved the metal box, the letter, and the brass key into the inner pocket of my coat, and pressed my back flat against the wall behind Mia’s bedroom door.
The front door downstairs swung open, its hinges squeaking in the quiet house.
Footsteps crossed the entryway—two sets. One heavy, deliberate, wearing hard-soled dress shoes; the other light, hurried, the unmistakable click of Melissa’s ankle boots.
"I told you he wasn't here," Melissa’s voice drifted up the stairwell, sharp, breathless, and laced with panic. "His truck wasn't in the driveway. The neighbor said he drove off with Mia hours ago."
"The truck isn't in the driveway because he parked it two blocks away behind the church," a deep, gravelly voice replied.
Marcus Thorne.
He was here. In my house.
"He wouldn't come back tonight," Melissa argued, her voice rising in pitch. "He was completely broken when I left. Scott is soft, Marcus. He’s a graphic designer. He doesn't know how to fight. He’s probably crying in a motel room trying to explain to Mia why her friends hate her."
"You underestimate men when their children are involved, Melissa. That’s why you left that burner phone behind like a rank amateur."
"I panicked! When he came through that front door two hours early, holding that stupid handmade card with the star on it, looking at me like he knew... I had to get Zoe out of here."
"Where is Zoe?" Thorne asked as their footsteps reached the base of the stairs.
"At the extended stay near the airport. She doesn't know anything. She thinks we’re going on a trip to Scottsdale."
"Good. Keep her there. We need the safe-deposit key, Melissa. Vance confirmed before I bought him out that Claire took the original deed and the university lab slips out of the firm's safe before she died. If Scott finds that key before Monday morning, the title transfer at the county recorder’s office will trigger a judicial stay."
"It has to be in Mia’s room," Melissa said, her footsteps beginning to climb the stairs. "Claire’s hope chest. I tried to pick the lock last week, but Mia walked in on me."
I reached into my pocket and gripped the pepper spray Jessica had given me, slipping the safety tab off with my thumb. My other hand closed around the heavy brass flashlight I had taken from my toolbelt.
The footsteps moved steadily up the staircase.
*Step four.* Silence.
*Step seven.* A faint creak.
They knew the stairs. Melissa had taught him which boards to avoid.
"Check the master bedroom first," Thorne instructed from the top landing. "I want his passport, his laptop, and any financial records he left on his desk. If he tries to run to law enforcement, I want him completely asset-frozen by midnight."
"The chest is in Mia’s room, Marcus. Right across the hall."
"Go get it. I’ll clear the master."
Their footsteps separated. Thorne turned left toward my bedroom; Melissa turned right, walking straight toward the open door where I stood in the shadows.
Her shadow stretched across the hallway floorboards, long and distorted by the streetlight outside the window. She stepped into the doorway, her phone flashlight illuminating the floor in front of her.
She was wearing her camel-hair winter coat, her hair pulled back into a tight, practical ponytail, her face pale, strained, and hardened into an expression of desperate greed.
She walked straight toward the cedar chest, completely oblivious to me standing two feet behind the door.
She reached the chest, knelt down, and saw the popped padlock.
Her body locked up.
"Marcus," she whispered, her voice cracking with terror. "The lock is open."
Before she could scream, I stepped out from the darkness, grabbed the collar of her expensive coat, and slammed her down against the carpeted floor, my knee driving hard into the small of her back.
She let out a muffled shriek, clawing at the carpet.
"Not a sound, Melissa," I hissed into her ear, my voice trembling with a rage so cold and absolute it felt like ice in my veins. "Not one single sound, or I swear to God I will make sure you spend the rest of your life in a concrete box in Cañon City."
"Scott!" she choked out.
"Who’s in there?" Thorne’s voice barked from the master bedroom.
Heavy footsteps came charging back down the hallway.
I pulled Melissa to her feet by her collar, using her body as a shield as Marcus Thorne rounded the doorframe, a sleek, black semi-automatic pistol already drawn and leveled at chest height.
Thorne stopped three feet inside the room. In the dim light filtering through the window, his cold, gray eyes locked onto mine. He didn't look surprised. He looked annoyed, like a businessman whose flight had just been delayed.
"Scott," Thorne said evenly, the gun perfectly steady in his grip. "Let her go. You’re only compounding your felonies."
"Put the gun down, Marcus," I said, holding Melissa tight against me. "I know about the potassium chloride. I know about Helios. I have Claire’s letter, and the bank vault key is already in the hands of the Denver Police."
A bluff. A desperate, naked bluff.
Thorne’s thin lips curled into a mocking smile.
"If the police had that key, Scott, there would be six cruisers parked outside with their lightbars blazing, and SWAT would have breached the front door three minutes ago. You’re alone. You’re terrified. And you’re holding your wife hostage in your daughter’s bedroom."
"She’s not my wife," I spat. "She murdered the mother of my child."
Melissa sobbed against my grip, twisting her neck to look up at Thorne. "Marcus, shoot him! He’s going to ruin everything! Shoot him!"
"Shut up, Melissa," Thorne snapped without taking his eyes off me. "Scott, you’re an amateur playing in a league you don't understand. Claire was an acceptable loss for a multi-million-dollar patent trial. Her family trust was a bonus. Do you honestly think the local district attorney cares about an unverified letter from a dead woman when I have four state senators on my advisory board?"
"They’ll care when the Colorado Bureau of Investigation exhumes Claire’s body," I said.
For the first time, Thorne’s eyes flickered. A tiny, imperceptible twitch at the corner of his left eyelid.
He knew.
Potassium chloride leaves distinct chemical signatures in bone marrow and preserved tissue, even four years later. If an autopsy was ordered, the fiction of leukemia would collapse overnight.
"You won't live long enough to file the petition," Thorne whispered.
He raised the barrel of the gun directly at my forehead.
In that split second, I didn't think about David Vance, the deed, the house, or the money. I thought about Mia sitting on Jessica’s porch in her pale blue dress, asking me if six empty chairs meant her friends didn't love her anymore.
May you like
I shoved Melissa violently forward directly into Thorne’s chest, raised Jessica’s pepper spray with my right hand, and emptied the entire pressurized canister straight into Thorne’s face.
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