Chapter 45 - The Phantom Nursery
The utility tunnel sloped upward, cutting through veins of granite and old timber shoring. The air was thick with the scent of damp moss, freezing mud, and the unmistakable metallic reek of an open gorge.
Jonathan ran, his boots splashing through puddles of icy runoff. Every pulse of blood in his temples sounded like a countdown. In his ear, Cole’s breathing was steady, measured, rhythmic.
"Jonathan," Cole whispered through the earpiece. "I’m on the flume catwalk. I have eyes on the platform. Forty yards ahead of you."
"Is she there?"
"She’s there. Standing by the edge of the timber sluice. She’s got the child strapped to her chest in a front-facing carrier, wrapped in a down coat. Jonathan... she’s holding a flare gun in her right hand."
"A flare gun?"
"Marine grade. Magnesium flare. If she fires that at close range, or drops it into the flume basin, the timber is soaked in old creosote. The entire wooden spillway will ignite in seconds."
Jonathan slowed his pace as he neared the tunnel mouth, stepping out onto the rusted iron grated landing that hung over the Devil’s Throat.
The scene before him was straight out of an industrial nightmare. The old mining flume was a massive wooden trough, twenty feet wide, that once carried lumber down the mountain. Below it, the Blackwood River churned in a violent, foaming torrent of black water and white spray, crashing over boulders fifty feet down. Sleet pelted Jonathan's face, stinging like needles.
At the very end of the rotting wooden platform, standing against the backdrop of the abyss, stood Victoria.
Her hair was whipping wildly in the mountain gale. She wore a tailored black wool coat over a heavy thermal vest, and against her chest was strapped the bundle. Through the opening of the down cover, Jonathan could see a tiny face, wide eyes blinking in confusion at the roaring dark.
The infant wasn't crying; he was shivering, mesmerized by the flashing lights of the storm.
"You took your time, Jonathan," Victoria called out over the roar of the falls. Her voice was steady, high, and mocking. "I was beginning to think you loved your cameras more than your blood."
Jonathan stepped forward onto the wooden planks, keeping his hands open and visible at his sides. "Let the boy go, Victoria. It’s over. Arthur has seized the Geneva trusts. The FBI has the surveillance footage from the mansion, the warehouse, and the clinic. You have nowhere left to run."
Victoria threw her head back and laughed—a sound that was lost to the howling wind.
"Run? Why would I run?" She tapped the metal cylinder in her hand against the baby's blanket. "I don't need to run. As long as I have Noah, I am the executor of Julianna’s living trust. Every cent of the international offshore accounts is tied to Julianna’s surviving male heir. Your father made sure of that when he wrote his patriarchal will, didn't he?"
Jonathan froze. His father’s will.
His father had been a ruthless, old-world titan who believed only a male descendant could inherit the family's sovereign Swiss assets. Jonathan had rejected those accounts years ago, leaving them dormant.
"You knew," Jonathan said, stepping another foot forward. "You’ve known for a decade."
"I took care of Julianna while she coughed up blood," Victoria snarled, her mask of composure slipping to reveal a snarling, primal hatred. "I wiped her chin! I listened to her weep about leaving you alone! And what did your father leave me when she died? A fifty-thousand-dollar severance and a recommendation letter!"
May you like
She tightened her arm around the baby. Noah let out a tiny, frightened whimper.
"I built this family," Victoria shouted. "I gave you Lily! I gave you this boy! Without me, you are nothing but an empty man in a cold house!"
