Chapter 7 - Reckoning on the Ridge
Despite his fall, Richard scrambled to his feet on the balcony, driven by sheer, desperate madness. He snatched his small backup pistol from his ankle holster and sprinted toward the rear terrace exit leading to the cliffside gardens!
“He’s escaping toward the boathouse!” Daniel yelled, handing his mother over to two police officers who had just kicked open the grand front doors. “Stay with the police, Mother!”
“Daniel, wait!” Mara called out, sprinting right behind him as he burst through the rear glass doors into the freezing storm.
Rain pelted them like iron nails as they ran across the muddy lawn toward the edge of the high rocky bluff overlooking the roaring ocean below.
Thirty yards ahead, Richard was running blindly through the dark toward a high-powered speedboat moored at the cliff dock. In his coat pocket was a pouch containing five million dollars in raw, uncut diamonds—his final escape fund.
“Richard! Stop!” Daniel shouted, his boots sliding in the thick mud.
Richard turned at the edge of the cliff terrace, his back to the hundred-foot drop into the raging sea below. He raised his pistol with shaking, blood-stained hands, pointing it straight at Daniel’s head.
“Don't come any closer!” Richard screamed above the roar of the wind and crashing waves. “I’ll shoot you, Daniel! I swear to God I’ll shoot you!”
Daniel stopped ten feet away, holding his hands up in the rain. “It’s over, Richard. Look around you. The house is surrounded. Give me the gun.”
“I’d rather die than spend the rest of my life in a cage!” Richard wept, his sanity completely splintered. “I was supposed to be the head of this family! I deserved it!”
Mara stepped up beside Daniel, her face dripping with rain, her hazel eyes fixed calmly on Richard.
“You’re standing on the old drainage terrace, Richard,” Mara said quietly, her voice carrying easily over the storm.
Richard blinked, confused. “What?”
“Three years ago, during my first month here, I reported to you that the stone retaining wall under this terrace was crumbling from erosion,” Mara explained, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. “You refused to pay for the repairs because you were siphoning money to your offshore account. You told me it didn't matter.”
Richard looked down at his feet.
Under the immense weight of the rain and the storm surge, a thick crack suddenly split through the wet stone terrace directly beneath his leather shoes!
CRACK-SSSSHHHH!
“No!” Richard gasped.
A massive fifty-foot section of the stone cliff edge gave way, sliding into the dark, churning abyss below!
Richard lost his footing, screaming as he fell backward over the crumbling edge—
“Richard!” Daniel yelled, throwing himself forward onto the mud!
Daniel reached over the jagged cliff edge, his large hand snapping shut around Richard’s wrist at the absolute last second!
Richard hung over the hundred-foot drop, the churning sea smashing against the sharp rocks far below. He looked up into his brother’s face, absolute terror filling his eyes.
“Daniel... please... don't let me fall...” Richard sobbed, his slick fingers slipping against Daniel’s wet skin.
Daniel gritted his teeth, his muscles straining violently as he held onto the brother who had tried to murder him hours ago. “Hold on! I’ve got you!”
Mara dropped to her knees beside Daniel, wrapping her arms around Daniel’s waist, digging her boots into the solid earth to give him leverage.
“Pull!” Mara screamed into the storm.
With a massive, united heave, Daniel and Mara dragged Richard up over the muddy lip of the cliff, flopping him onto the solid grass of the upper lawn.
Richard lay on his back in the mud, weeping hysterically, gasping for air as six armed police officers rounded the corner of the mansion, their weapons trained on him.
Sheriff Marcus Thorne stepped forward, clicking heavy steel handcuffs onto Richard’s wrists. “Richard Whitmore, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, embezzlement, and high treason.”
As the officers dragged the sobbing, ruined man away into the flashing lights, Daniel collapsed onto the wet grass, panting heavily.
Mara sat beside him in the rain, her clothes soaked, her hands muddy, but her chest feeling lighter than it had in three years.
Daniel turned his head, looking at her in the dim light of the police flares.
He reached out, his hand wrapping around hers, pulling her hand to his lips and pressing a warm, lingering kiss against her wet knuckles.
“You saved my life, Mara,” Daniel said softly, tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks. “You saved all of us.”
Mara smiled—a genuine, radiant smile that illuminated her whole face.
May you like
“Nobody notices the housekeeper, Mr. Daniel,” she murmured softly.
“I notice you,” Daniel promised, his eyes burning with deep, undeniable devotion. “I will always notice you.”
