Chapter 6 - The Lake House Fire
"I must admit, Julian," Eleanor said, stepping into the room with terrifying calm, "you have always been remarkably clever when it comes to your father's parlor tricks."
The revolver in her hand didn't shake. Her posture was as erect and elegant as if she were hosting a Sunday afternoon tea party.
Behind her stood two of her private security guards, their hands resting on the holsters at their belts.
I stood up slowly, positioning myself in front of Emma, the brass key pressed tightly into the palm of my hand.
"You tried to kill us, Mother," I said, my voice echoing off the hardwood floor. "Five years ago. You had someone tamper with the brakes on Dad's car, and when Thomas Bennett tried to expose you, you had his car run off the road."
Eleanor sighed, a sound of profound boredom. "Thomas Bennett was a nuisance who didn't understand how high-society finance works. And your father... your father was a romantic fool who believed that morality was more important than the survival of our family's name."
"You embezzled forty million dollars from a charity for crippled children!" I shouted, taking a step forward.
"I saved this family from ruin!" Eleanor fired back, her eyes flashing with a sudden, vicious fire. "Your father's grand court career paid peanuts! The estate was mortgaged to the hilt! If I hadn't moved those funds, we would have been bankrupt twenty years ago! You wouldn't have gone to Juilliard! You wouldn't have played in Vienna! I bought your talent, Julian!"
"You didn't buy anything!" I spat back. "You stole it! And when Dad found out, you chose money over your own husband and son!"
"I never intended for you to be in that car," Eleanor said softly, a fleeting shadow of something resembling regret crossing her face before hard ice locked over it again. "You were supposed to be at the conservatory that night. You surprised your father by coming home early. By the time I realized you were in the passenger seat, the mechanics had already done their work."
A cold, sickening nausea rose in my stomach.
She hadn't tried to save me. I was collateral damage in her execution of my father.
"And when I survived?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "Why didn't you finish it?"
"Because a dead son is a scandal," Eleanor replied coldly. "A crippled, traumatized son sent away to a private clinic in the mountains is a tragedy that earns public sympathy. It kept the press away while I restructured the company."
She raised the revolver higher, aligning the sight with my forehead.
"Give me the key, Julian."
"No," I said.
"Do not test me," she warned. "I have spent five years keeping this family intact. I will not let a broken boy and an investigator's orphan tear it down in one night."
Suddenly, Emma lunged from behind me, throwing a heavy marble bust of Chopin off the grand piano. It struck the nearest security guard squarely in the chest, sending him crashing into the display cabinet with a deafening shatter of glass.
"Run, Julian!" Emma screamed.
I didn't hesitate. I slammed my body into the second guard, using the solid, unyielding weight of my titanium prosthetic like a battering ram. The impact knocked him off balance, his head striking the doorframe.
BANG!
A gunshot echoed through the music room. The bullet shattered the high glass window behind us, sending a shower of sharp crystal onto the floor.
I grabbed Emma's hand, and we sprinted through the French doors out into the courtyard, diving into the pouring rain and darkness of the winter night.
"To the garage!" I yelled, my prosthetic digging hard into the slick wet mud of the lawn.
Behind us, shouts and the roar of engine starters cut through the storm.
We reached the secondary garage near the stables. I threw open the side door, grabbed a set of keys hanging from the wall for the old family Land Rover—a vehicle my mother rarely used—and hot-wired the ignition override.
The engine roared to life with a heavy, mechanical growl.
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"Where are we going?" Emma gasped, climbing into the passenger seat, blood dripping from a small glass cut on her cheek.
"To the lake house," I said, slamming the gear shift into drive and crashing through the wooden garage doors out onto the main driveway. "Before she burns the evidence to the ground."
