Chapter 9 - The Ghost in the Blizzard
Evelyn Vance had never walked in deep snow in her life.
She wore velvet slippers that were instantly swallowed by the drifts. The freezing wind tore at her silk robe, exposing her bare chest and throat to the minus-ten-degree air, but she didn't seem to feel the cold. Her mind had snapped under the weight of her unraveling empire.
In her right hand, she was clutching something long and silver from the kitchen.
A carving knife.
“Claire!” Megan screamed, pointing through the whiteout. “She’s out of her mind! Look at her!”
“Get to the truck!” Jason shouted, shoving us toward the garage bays on the eastern perimeter.
The snow was up to my knees. Every step felt like wading through wet cement. Emma was crying now, the piercing wind finding the seams of my coat, but I held her tighter, tucking her face completely into the crook of my neck, using my own body as a human shield against the freezing gale.
The heavy four-wheel-drive truck was parked inside the detached stone carriage house fifty yards away.
We stumbled through the drift, our boots breaking through the icy crust with loud crunches. Jason reached the carriage house side door first, slamming his shoulder into the frozen wood until the lock gave way with a splintering snap.
He shoved Megan inside, then reached out and dragged me into the shelter of the stone building.
The wind cut out instantly, replaced by the dead, cold smell of motor oil and winter storage.
Jason turned and slammed the heavy door, throwing the iron deadbolt into place just as something struck the exterior wood with a wet, heavy thud.
*THWACK.*
The tip of the stainless-steel carving knife punched through a seam in the aged timber, two inches from Jason’s face.
“Claire!” Evelyn’s voice shrieked from the other side of the wood. It was muffled by the wind, high-pitched and ragged like a dying animal. “Open this door! You give me that child! You don't get to take what is mine! I built this family! I sacrificed thirty years for that bastard father of yours!”
Emma shrieked in my arms, terrified by the sound of her grandmother’s voice scraping against the door.
“She’s lost it,” Megan sobbed, sliding down the stone wall onto the concrete floor, clutching the metal box against her ribs. “She’s completely insane. She’s going to freeze to death out there.”
“Not our problem,” Jason said, his breath hitching as he wiped the blood from his split lip. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the keys he had taken from Evelyn’s robe, and hit the remote start on our truck.
The heavy V8 engine rumbled to life with a deep, mechanical roar, the headlights cutting through the dark carriage house, illuminating the dust motes and the stacks of winter tires.
“Megan, get in the back,” I ordered, my voice trembling with cold and adrenaline. “Jason, open the main garage bay door.”
Jason ran to the chain-hoist on the wall, hauling down on the heavy iron links. The corrugated steel garage door rattled upward, inch by inch, revealing the blinding white wall of the blizzard outside.
Through the rising gap, Evelyn was visible.
She was standing in the snow, five feet from the truck’s bumper. Her skin was turning an unnatural, marble blue. Her hair was frozen into stiff, icy spikes around her hollow cheeks. The carving knife was held loosely at her side, her knuckles white.
She didn't look like my mother anymore. She looked like a demon carved from ice.
“You think you’re driving out of here?” she rasped, her lips barely moving over her chattering teeth. “The main gate is crushed. The private security team has blocked the service bridge with their trucks. You can’t leave this valley, Claire. You’ll die in this storm with that useless little cripple!”
I didn't answer her.
I walked to the back door of the truck, opened it, and strapped Emma into her rear-facing car seat. I checked every buckle, tightened every strap, and wrapped her in three layers of heated travel blankets. I pressed my lips to her forehead. Her skin was warm. Her heart was beating fast, but she was safe.
“I love you, Emma,” I whispered. “Mommy’s got you.”
I slammed the truck door shut, walked around to the passenger seat, and climbed in.
Jason slipped into the driver’s seat. He put his hand on the gear shift, looking at me. His face was bruised, his knuckles bleeding, but his eyes were steady.
“Are we doing this?” he asked.
I looked through the windshield. Evelyn had stepped directly into the path of the truck, her arms outstretched, the carving knife raised, daring Jason to run her down.
“The old logging road,” I said, pointing toward the dark tree line behind the carriage house. “Dad used it to haul timber down to the county highway when the main road flooded. It bypasses the bridge entirely.”
Jason nodded once. He slammed the transmission into reverse.
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The truck tires bit into the concrete, launched backward out of the carriage house, spun around in the deep drift, and roared toward the dark wall of the pine forest, leaving Evelyn Vance standing alone in the blizzard, screaming curses into the empty white sky.
***
