Chapter 6 - Whispers in the ICU
"Take her to the secondary garage," Graham ordered, his voice flattening into crisp, executive detachment. "Make sure she doesn't mark the carpets."
The larger of the two guards reached for Ava’s shoulder, his fingers like iron clamps.
Ava didn't scream. She didn't hesitate.
With all the force in her body, she grabbed the heavy crystal scotch decanter from Nicholas’s desk and shattered it across the lead guard’s face. The thick glass exploded in a shower of amber liquid and jagged shards; the man howled, clutching his bloodied eyes as he staggered backward into his partner.
Ava bolted.
She slammed her shoulder against the study’s secondary door—a concealed servant passage Nicholas had used during late-night business meetings—and tumbled into the narrow, unlit corridor behind the walls. She threw the heavy brass bolt into place just as the second guard slammed his bulk against the oak wood from the other side.
*Bang! Bang!*
"Break it down!" Graham’s voice was muffled through the timber, stripped of all aristocratic charm, raw with homicidal fury. "Don't let her leave the grounds!"
Ava ran through the pitch-black passage, her hands scraping against rough plaster until she hit the wooden stairs leading down to the wine cellar. She burst through the storm doors into the damp night air of the rear gardens, the rain now falling in torrential sheets, soaking through her clothes within seconds.
She didn't run toward the front gates where the security team was stationed. She cut through the overgrown boxwood hedge separating the Mercer estate from the adjoining nature preserve, tearing through briars and mud until she reached the service road where an unmarked sedan was parked beneath the canopy of dripping maples.
The headlights flicked on twice.
Ava threw open the passenger door and collapsed inside, gasping for air, her palms bleeding from thorn scratches.
Detective Sarah Vance put the car into drive and hit the accelerator, the tires spitting gravel as they surged into the darkness.
"You took your sweet time," Vance said, her eyes locked on the rearview mirror. "I was thirty seconds away from breaching that front gate with a warrant."
Ava held up her trembling right hand. Between her fingers was the tiny black micro-SD card she had managed to snatch from Graham’s desk camera before the decanter shattered. "I didn't get the laptop. But I got his surveillance feed from the nursery. And Graham just confessed to my father’s murder."
May you like
Vance’s jaw clenched. "Then we move right now. St. Jude’s just called. Oliver Mercer is awake. And Graham’s personal physician just signed the paperwork to transfer the boy to a private clinic in upstate New York."
***
