Chapter 76 - The Weight of the Locket
"What locket?" Julian spoke up, his voice gravelly as he leaned heavily against the desk, deliberately shifting Evelyn's focus toward him. "She doesn't have anything, Evelyn. You've lost your mind."
"Shut up, Julian!" Evelyn shrieked, darting a venomous glare at him. "I should have let you drown in the harbor in Boston! You were only ever a trophy to put on the invitations, a pretty face to convince the trustees that the Vance line was merging with old money!"
"Then why didn't you shoot him?" I challenged, stepping half an inch forward, drawing her eyes back to me. "Because you know that without Julian's family's signatures on the offshore board, the transfer won't clear, even with Arthur's cipher. You need both, don't you?"
Evelyn's eyes narrowed, a vicious, calculating glimmer returning to her face. "You're smarter than you look, sister. But not smart enough. I don't need Julian alive for the signature. A pre-dated authorization with a forged notary seal clears the Cayman clearinghouse just fine once he’s confirmed dead in an 'unfortunate mountaineering accident' alongside my beloved sister."
She cocked the revolver.
"The locket, Claire. Where did you hide the girl?"
*05:12.*
Outside in the cavern, the roar of the Halon gas had subsided into a low, hissing whisper. Through the shattered window, I saw the beam of the guards' tactical lights sweeping back across the floor. They had realized the light by the stairs was a trick. They were coming back.
"She’s not here," I lied, looking directly into Evelyn's eyes. "I sent her out through the maintenance tunnel ten minutes ago. She’s already at the base station."
"You're lying," Evelyn sneered. "Lily wouldn't leave you. That miserable little brat clings to your hip like a parasite. Just like you clung to Mother before she died."
Something inside me snapped. The years of quiet endurance, the humiliation of the wedding ballroom where she had looked down from the floral altar as if Lily and I were vermin invading her sanctuary, the terror of the past forty-eight hours—it all crystallized into a cold, lethal focus.
"Don't you ever speak her name," I said.
A sudden, sharp thud echoed on the roof of the modular trailer.
Evelyn's eyes instinctively flicked upward toward the ceiling for a fraction of a second.
It was the only opening I would ever get.
I lunged forward, closing the six-foot gap between us, my hands slamming into Evelyn’s wrists, forcing the revolver upward toward the ceiling just as she pulled the trigger.
*BANG!*
The deafening report inside the cramped metal trailer blew out my eardrums, a blinding flash of white muzzle fire singing my face. The bullet ripped through the corrugated roof, letting in a shower of rust and insulation.
Evelyn screamed, clawing at my eyes with her manicured nails, her teeth bared like a wild animal. "You bitch! You ruin everything!"
We crashed to the floor, rolling across the slick linoleum. Her fingers dug into the flesh of my neck, cutting off my air, but I locked my hands around her gun hand, slamming it repeatedly against the sharp steel edge of the desk frame.
*Crack.*
Evelyn shrieked as the bones in her fingers gave way. The chrome revolver flew from her grip, skittering across the floor into the shadows.
"Julian!" I gasped, choking as Evelyn threw her entire weight on top of me, her knees pinning my ribs.
Julian threw himself across the desk, grabbing Evelyn by the shoulders and ripping her off me with a ferocious roar. Evelyn twisted in his grip, swinging her elbow with brutal force into his already broken nose. Julian staggered back, blood spraying, but he didn't let go, wrapping his arms around her waist, dragging her down.
"Get out!" Julian yelled at me, blood streaming down his chin. "Claire, get Lily and get to the lift! The guards are coming!"
"I'm not leaving you!" I shouted, scrambling to my feet.
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From the doorway of the trailer, the shadows lengthened.
Kovacs stepped into the frame, his assault rifle raised, his finger on the trigger.
