Chapter 13 - Blood in the Subflooring
Z
The confrontation in my lobby had drawn a definitive line in the sand, but I knew men like Richard Montgomery never retreated quietly. When their illusions of control began to fracture, their tactics invariably devolved from legal posturing to visceral, uncontrolled violence.
At 11:45 p.m. that same evening, my encrypted smartphone vibrated on my bedside table. It was an alert from the remote security system I had installed at the Torres Emergency Safehouse—a confidential residential property in North Charlotte where we had secretly relocated Sarah and her five-year-old son, Leo.
I opened the live camera feed on my screen. The infrared exterior cameras showed two men dressed in black hoodies cutting the perimeter sensor wires along the backyard fence.
My heart surged into high gear. I immediately triggered the silent panic alarm linked directly to CMPD’s rapid response unit and dialed Maya Torres, who was on night duty at St. Catherine’s.
“Maya, the North Charlotte safehouse is breached,” I said, pulling on jeans and a dark jacket while running to my car. “Call Captain Harris right now! Tell him to send units to the North Tryon corridor!”
“Claire, do not go there alone!” Maya shouted through the phone over the ambient alarms of the trauma center. “Wait for the police!”
“Sarah and Leo are in that house, Maya! The panic room delay is four minutes!” I threw the phone onto the passenger seat, slammed my foot on the accelerator, and tore out of my driveway into the midnight rain.
The drive across Charlotte was a blur of flashing streetlights and roaring rain. By the time I turned onto the secluded, wooded gravel drive leading to the safehouse, the front door of the property was hanging off its hinges, splintered inward by a tactical sledgehammer.
I grabbed the heavy Maglite flashlight and the taser from my glove compartment, stepping out into the mud. The rain battered down relentlessly, masking all sound except the wind rustling through the pines.
I entered through the shattered doorway. The living room was trashed—furniture overturned, cushions slashed open, family photos smashed across the hardwood. It wasn't a burglary; it was an angry search for physical evidence.
“Sarah!” I called out softly, keeping my back to the hallway wall. “Sarah, it’s Claire!”
A faint rustle came from the master bedroom at the end of the hall. I moved cautiously, step by calculated step, keeping the Maglite beam angled down toward the floorboards. As I reached the bedroom doorway, the beam illuminated a horrifying sight: the floorboards around the master closet had been completely ripped up, revealing a hidden compartment beneath the subflooring.
Suddenly, a shadow lunged from behind the bathroom door.
A heavy forearm crashed across my chest, driving me backward against the drywall. The Maglite flew from my hand, rolling across the floor and illuminating the face of my attacker. It wasn't a hired thug; it was Richard Montgomery himself, his eyes bloodshot, his clothes drenched in mud and sweat, smelling heavily of bourbon.
“Where did she put the backup hard drives, Claire?” Montgomery snarled, his fingers digging into my shoulders, pinning me against the wall just as Evan had done. “Where are the originals?”
The phantom terror flared for a fraction of a second, but my training and survival instinct took over. I didn't beg. I didn't scream.
I brought my right knee violently upward between his legs with all the force of my entire body.
Montgomery let out an agonized howl, his grip breaking as he doubled over in blinding pain. Before he could recover, I swung my arm and slammed the metal stun-prongs of the taser against his left ribs, pulling the trigger.
The blue electric arc crackled violently through his soaked shirt. Montgomery’s entire body spasmed, his muscles locking as he collapsed onto the ripped-up floorboards, groaning in sheer agony.
From inside the reinforced steel panic room hidden behind the master closet’s false wall, the heavy deadbolt clicked open. Sarah stepped out, holding a fire extinguisher in both hands, her eyes wide with shock as she saw her husband incapacitated on the floor.
Outside, the unmistakable sound of sirens tore through the stormy night. Red and blue strobe lights cut through the rain-streaked windows as four CMPD patrol cruisers and Captain Daniel Harris slid to a halt across the gravel driveway.
May you like
Harris kicked the front door fully open, gun drawn, followed by four armed officers. He took in the scene in half a second: Montgomery twitching on the floor, Sarah standing protected, and me standing over the fallen developer.
“Captain Harris,” I said, catching my breath and setting the taser onto the dresser. “Mr. Montgomery broke in to recover his offshore banking ledgers. You’ll find them right under the third subfloor plank.”
