Chapter 5 - The Glass Trap
I reached the top of the spiral stairs, threw my weight against the wooden hatch, and burst into the grand pantry.
Above me, the house was alive with sound. Heavy mechanical motors were humming inside the walls.
CLANK. CLANK. CLANK.
I sprinted out of the pantry into the main hallway just as massive, automated steel security shutters began descending over every first-floor window and exterior door. The sunlight windows in the dining room were already blocked; the grand front entrance was sealed behind a two-inch plate of reinforced steel.
The Mercer estate wasn't just a mansion. It was a fortress designed to seal itself shut at the press of a panic button.
I ran toward the conservatory—the way I had entered.
The glass doors were still open, but a heavy steel rolling shutter was descending from the stone archway above, closing at a rate of three feet per second. The gap between the bottom of the shutter and the floor was shrinking fast.
Four feet. Three feet. Two feet.
I dropped onto my belly, sliding across the slick hardwood floor like a baseball player hitting home plate, dragging my bag and the black ledger under my chest.
The steel shutter slammed down onto the floor behind my heels with a heavy, floor-shaking CRUNCH, locking me inside the conservatory.
I was out of the main house, but I was still trapped inside the glass structure.
Outside the glass walls, the dark woods lay fifty yards away. But the conservatory’s glass was double-paned, shatter-resistant security material.
From the dark hallway behind the steel shutter, I heard heavy footsteps approaching.
"Claire!" Daniel’s voice boomed through the intercom system. He sounded breathless, furious, and unhinged. "You can't leave the grounds! The main iron gates are locked, the perimeter fence is electrified at five thousand volts, and my father has already alerted our private security team!"
I stood up, panting, wiping sweat and dark dust from my forehead.
I looked around the conservatory.
In the center of the room sat a heavy cast-iron statue of a Roman goddess, weighing at least two hundred pounds, mounted on a wooden pedestal. Beside it stood a heavy steel garden spade used for large planter beds.
I grabbed the spade, wedge-end first.
I marched to the corner of the conservatory where the glass frame met the stone foundation—the structural weakest point of any security glass assembly.
I raised the spade high above my head and drove the hardened steel tip with all my strength into the corner bracket.
CRACK.
A web of spider-web fractures radiated across the panel.
I struck it again. CRACK.
And again. SMASH.
The glass panel shattered outward into a shower of harmless, cubed safety fragments. Cold, damp night air rushed into the room.
I reached back into my bag, pulled out my rubber-soled sneakers, jammed my feet into them, and pulled the black ledger tight against my chest.
I crawled through the broken frame, dropping six feet down into the muddy boxwood bushes below.
I was outside.
Across the lawn, fifty yards away near the carriage house, the dark silhouette of my Volvo sat hidden beneath the oak trees.
Suddenly, a blinding beam of light cut through the dark.
A powerful roof-mounted spotlight mounted on the third-floor balcony swung across the lawn, illuminating the broken glass of the conservatory, then tracking rapidly across the grass until the white beam locked directly onto me.
"THERE SHE IS!" Richard’s voice screamed over an external loudspeaker. "DON'T LET HER REACH THE CAR!"
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From the direction of the main gates, two heavy black SUVs crested the hill, their high beams cutting through the fog as they accelerated across the lawn toward me.
The Mercer private security detail had arrived.
