Chapter 9 - Into the Lion's Den
The Miller ancestral mansion was a sprawling neoclassical fortress sitting atop Blackwood Ridge, overlooking the entire county. Iron gates eighteen feet high encircled fifty acres of manicured gardens, private woods, and security outposts.
Tonight, the mansion was lit up like a fortress under siege.
Catherine Miller stood in her marble-floored study, pacing frantically in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Her hands shook so violently that the bourbon in her crystal tumbler splashed over the rim. On her mahogany desk sat three open passports and stacks of bearer bonds. A private helicopter was scheduled to land on her back lawn in twenty minutes to take her across the Canadian border.
"Where is Vance?" Catherine screamed at her chief of private security, a thick-necked former mercenary named Keller. "Why isn't the sheriff blocking the mountain road?"
"Sheriff Vance turned, ma'am," Keller said, adjusting his assault rifle strap. "He locked himself in his office and handed his deputies' logs over to the federal marshals. Blackwood PD is standing down. It’s just us."
"Cowards!" Catherine shrieked, smashing her glass into the stone fireplace. "All of them! I bought them! I made them! Without my family, this county would be a desolate wasteland!"
"Ma'am, we have to move to the helipad now," Keller urged, glancing anxiously at the security monitors. "The perimeter sensors on the main gate just went dark."
Before Catherine could answer, the security monitors flickered and died.
A deafening roar ripped through the estate as a twin-engine military transport vehicle smashed directly through the wrought-iron gates, plowing through the ornamental hedges and sliding to a halt on the gravel courtyard.
Searchlights mounted on gun trucks pinned the mansion’s façade in blinding white light. Megaphones boomed through the valley:
*"Catherine Miller! By order of the United States Department of Defense and federal law enforcement, you are surrounded! Stand down and exit the premises with your hands visible!"*
"Kill them!" Catherine screamed, her voice bordering on madness. "Keller, shoot them all! I have fifty million dollars in offshore trusts! It’s yours! Just get me to that helicopter!"
Keller didn't get the chance.
The floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the study exploded inward in a shower of diamond-sharp shards. Flashbang grenades detonated with disorienting thunder. Keller fired blind bursts into the smoke, but two precision rounds struck him in the thighs, sending him crashing to the floor, disarmed and screaming.
Through the shattered window walked Alexander Sinclair.
He was bleeding from a superficial cut along his cheek, his tactical gear covered in dust and cordite smoke. He stepped over Keller’s writhing body without a glance, walking straight toward Catherine.
Catherine backed away until her spine hit the mahogany desk. She fumbled behind her, grabbing a small, pearl-handled .22 revolver she kept in the desk drawer. She raised it with trembling hands, pointing it directly at Alexander’s chest.
"Stay back!" she shrieked, her pearl necklace coming undone, scattering white beads across the floor. "You’re an animal! You’re nobody! I am Catherine Miller! You cannot touch me!"
Alexander didn't stop walking. He closed the distance until the barrel of the tiny gun was pressed firmly against the center of his chest.
"Pull the trigger, Catherine," he said softly.
Her finger trembled on the trigger guard. Tears of terror and rage streamed down her heavily made-up face. She looked into Alexander’s eyes and saw nothing—no fear, no hesitation, only an infinite, frozen abyss.
"You... you can't prove anything," she sobbed, her voice breaking. "My lawyers... the Supreme Court..."
"Your son already signed the confession," Alexander said. "The docks have been seized. Your Swiss accounts were frozen thirty minutes ago. And Rosalie... Rosalie is alive."
The name hit Catherine like a physical blow. The gun slipped from her trembling fingers, clattering uselessly against the mahogany wood.
Alexander grabbed her by the shoulder, spinning her around and shoving her face down onto the very desk where she had signed the warrants for her daughter's death. He snapped heavy steel zip-ties around her wrists.
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"Catherine Miller," Alexander whispered in her ear. "You are under arrest for high treason, conspiracy to commit murder, and the attempted murder of Rosalie Sinclair."
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