Chapter 5 - THE SOUND IN THE DARK
The darkness was instantaneous and absolute.
In the sudden absence of light, Eleanor’s senses narrowed to sound and air. She heard the sharp, violent scuffle of leather soles against loose floorboards, the heavy intake of Claire’s terrified breath, and the sudden swoosh of displaced air as Marcus Vance moved with the terrifying speed of an athlete half her age.
“Mom!” Claire screamed from the doorway.
Eleanor didn't hesitate. She dropped to one knee, lowering her center of gravity to keep her balance on the uneven joists. She didn't fire blindly into the dark—to do so would risk hitting her own daughter. Instead, she kept the Colt locked against her chest, listening with every ounce of concentration she possessed.
A sudden, sharp metallic clang echoed from the center of the room.
Vance wasn't attacking them. He was diving for the steel vault door.
Click-click-whirrrrr.
The blue LED on Vance’s electronic key fob flared to life, casting eerie, cobalt-blue shadows across his sharp features. He was kneeling over the exposed safe, jamming a thin metal probe into the mechanical keyway.
“You think you can stop this?” Vance whispered, his voice echoing in the hollow space beneath the floorboards. “My father gave your husband fifty thousand dollars in 1974 to keep his mouth shut! Arthur took the money! He bought this house with my family’s blood! You are just as guilty as we are, Eleanor!”
Claire charged forward, swinging the heavy brass fire poker with both hands. The solid metal struck Vance across the shoulder with a sickening thud. Vance grunted in pain, dropping the key probe, but he spun around like a coiled viper. His left arm lashed out, catching Claire across the cheekbone with a backhand that sent her crashing into the drywall. She hit the floor with a groan, the poker clattering away into the darkness.
“Claire!” Eleanor yelled.
Vance stood over Claire, his face illuminated by the harsh blue glow of the electronic key. He pulled a sleek, suppressed 9mm automatic from his shoulder holster.
“Sentimental garbage,” Vance spat, pointing the weapon directly at Claire’s temple. “Give me the brass key, Eleanor, or I paint this wall with your daughter’s brains. I know Arthur gave it to you. He gave you everything.”
Eleanor stood up slowly, her knees screaming in protest. She lowered the Colt, letting the barrel point toward the splintered floorboards.
“The key isn't in my purse, Marcus,” Eleanor said, her voice dropping into a gentle, conversational tone that seemed surreal in the presence of the drawn gun. “Arthur knew you would come for it eventually. He knew you would search my jewelry boxes. He knew you would tear up the carpets.”
Vance’s thumb pulled back the hammer on his pistol with a crisp, lethal snap. “Where is it?”
“It’s around my neck,” Eleanor said.
She reached beneath the collar of her high-necked wool sweater, her fingers finding the thin gold chain she had worn every single day since July 14, 1968. She pulled it out.
Suspended from the chain wasn't a diamond, nor a cross. It was a solid, antique brass barrel key, no longer than a thumbnail, intricately notched with tiny, microscopic grooves.
Vance’s eyes widened with naked, unadulterated greed. “Take it off. Toss it to me.”
“Come and take it, Marcus,” Eleanor whispered. “If you have the courage to face an old woman.”
Vance sneered, stepping away from Claire. He kept his gun trained on Eleanor’s chest as he closed the distance between them. “You old fool. You think your stubbornness makes you noble? It just makes you dead.”
He reached out his left hand, his fingers closing around the brass key dangling against her chest.
At that exact fraction of a second, Eleanor moved.
She didn't try to raise the heavy Colt .45. She knew Vance’s reflexes were faster than hers. Instead, she drove the hard, pointed rubber tip of her heavy orthopedic cane downward with all the force of her body, landing it squarely onto the top of Vance’s foot—directly over the metatarsal bones.
The bone cracked beneath her weight.
Vance gasped in shock and agony, his posture breaking as his knee buckled. The suppressed pistol in his hand discharged with a muffled pfft, the bullet burying itself harmlessly into the ceiling plaster above them.
Before he could correct his aim, Eleanor brought the solid steel slide of Arthur’s Colt smashing across Vance’s jaw.
The impact split his lip and sent him stumbling backward. He lost his footing on the exposed floor joists, his leg plunging through the gap between the timbers. He fell hard onto his back, his torso pinned in the opening, his gun sliding across the subfloor and dropping down into the dark hollow of the lower ceiling.
Claire surged up from the floor like a lioness. She didn't hesitate. She grabbed the heavy electric drill Vance had brought with him, swung the solid metal battery base, and brought it down across Vance’s temple.
The developer’s head snapped back. His eyes rolled into his skull, and his body went limp, dangling halfway through the broken floorboards like a discarded marionette.
Silence fell over the room once more, broken only by the ragged, wheezing gasps of mother and daughter.
Claire dropped the drill, trembling from head to toe. She looked at Eleanor through the gloom, blood dripping from the cut on her cheek.
“Is he... is he dead?” Claire choked out.
Eleanor knelt down, pressing two steady fingers against Vance’s carotid artery. She felt the strong, steady pulse beating beneath the smooth skin.
“No,” Eleanor said quietly. “He’s alive. Which means we have less than an hour before his people realize he hasn't checked in.”
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She pulled the thin gold chain over her head, the brass key glinting in the pale blue light of the discarded electronic fob.
“Help me clear these floorboards, Claire,” Eleanor commanded, turning toward the open safe. “It’s time we see what Arthur buried.”
