Chapter 8 - Cracks in the Mirror
Z
June swallowed hard, her frail body trembling under my grip. "It’s... it’s the original agreement," she whimpered, all her arrogance completely shattered. "Julian wasn't just Marcus Vance's son... he was the one who orchestrated the entire scheme! Julian was the one who supplied Evelyn with the digoxin that killed your father!"
Claire gasped, standing up from the floor. "Julian killed Dad?!"
"Evelyn didn't poison Arthur alone!" June confessed, tears of genuine panic streaming down her wrinkled face. "She didn't have the stomach for it! Arthur found out about the money, and he threatened to go to the state prosecutor. Evelyn panicked and called Julian! Julian came to the house, gave Evelyn the poison, and helped her put it in Arthur’s coffee! Julian wanted Arthur dead so he could take over Vance Holdings after his father Marcus died! It’s all on that tape! Evelyn recorded the conversation secretly in the kitchen!"
"Julian didn't just inherit the company," I realized, the horrifying puzzle pieces finally locking into place. "He murdered his way to the top, and he used Mom as his scapegoat!"
"If Julian finds out you have that tape, he won't let you reach the police," June warned, her voice cracking with terror. "He will kill everyone in this building!"
"He's already trying to kill us!" I yelled, dropping June back into her wheelchair.
Suddenly, sirens began to blare in the distance, their red and blue lights flashing through the thick fog outside the barred window. The police had arrived. Tires screeched against the gravel courtyard below, followed by the sound of heavy car doors slamming shut and shouted commands over megaphones.
"Police! Put your hands up and exit the building slowly!" a voice boomed from outside.
"They're at the front gate!" Claire panicked, running back to the door. "Sarah, what do we do?! If we go out there, they’ll shoot us!"
"We're not going out the front," I said, turning toward the heavy radiator unit attached to the wall beneath the window. "Look at the floorboards near the heating pipe."
Claire ran over, inspecting the base of the wall. Due to decades of moisture and neglect, the concrete surrounding the old iron pipe had rusted and crumbled away, leaving a hole large enough for a person to squeeze through into the utility crawlspace beneath the floor.
"It leads to the old drainage system beneath the cliff," I said, grabbing a metal fire poker from the corner of the room. I jammed the iron tip under the rusted floor grate, leveraging all my weight until the metal snapped open with a loud crunch.
"You first, Claire," I ordered.
"What about June?" Claire asked, looking back at the terrified old woman sitting in her wheelchair.
"June made her choice," I said coldly, looking June straight in the eyes. "She sold her soul to Julian. She can stay here and explain to the police why her voice is on that murder tape."
"Sarah, please!" June begged, reaching out a trembling hand toward me. "Don't leave me here! Julian will have his men kill me before I can testify!"
"You should have thought about that before you helped murder my father," I said cleanly.
May you like
I shoved Claire into the dark utility opening, then slid down after her into the pitch-black crawlspace just as the heavy lock on Room 104’s wooden door shattered under the force of a police breaching ram.
Screams and violent gunfire echoed above us as we crawled through the wet, filthy pipe, the sound of chaos fading slowly as we descended deeper into the dark, stone tunnels carved beneath the cliffs of Lake Maren.
