Chapter 13 - Footsteps in the Surf
"Emily!" Daniel roared, bursting through the study doors into the main house.
Emily was standing in the open-concept kitchen, holding Lily close against her shoulder, staring at the darkened induction stove with knitted brows. "Daniel, the power just went out. And the cell service is dead. What’s going on?"
Daniel crossed the room in three strides, reaching down to grab the 9mm concealed beneath the false bottom of the butcher block island—a precaution he had kept hidden from Emily to prevent her from spiraling into paranoia. Seeing the black polymer weapon in his grip, Emily’s face went chalk-white, all the color draining from her lips.
"No," she breathed, clutching Lily tighter. "No, Daniel, please tell me it isn't..."
"Vanessa is out," Daniel said, his voice flat, stripped of all emotion by sheer survival instinct. "She bypassed the grid. We leave now. We take the Range Rover through the back fire trail. No bags, no supplies. Just us."
Emily let out a strangled sob, but she didn't freeze. The mother in her took over; she wrapped Lily securely in a heavy wool sling across her chest, strapping the infant firmly against her heartbeat.
They moved quickly toward the subterranean garage. But as Daniel reached the metal access door, a sickening scent drifted through the central ventilation shaft.
It wasn't smoke. It was the suffocating, cloying stench of *Tuberose and Black Amber*—the bespoke, five-thousand-dollar-an-ounce perfume that Vanessa had worn every day of her life.
*Tap. Tap. Tap.*
From the floorboards directly above them, on the glass deck facing the cliff, came the distinct cadence of designer stiletto heels clicking methodically against the cedar planks.
"Did you miss me, little brother?" a voice sang out through the broken glass doors of the patio, warped and mocking, amplified by the ocean wind.
Daniel pushed Emily behind him into the shadows of the pantry, raising the weapon with both hands. His heart slammed against his ribs like a sledgehammer. He stepped into the great room. Standing on the precipice of the balcony, framed by the grey ocean fog rolling over the cliffs, was a figure draped in a tailored black trench coat.
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Her face was pale, gaunt, her once-perfect blonde hair sheared into a jagged, uneven bob. Across her left cheek was a jagged white surgical scar—the permanent souvenir of the glass table she had shattered the night Daniel had caught Emily in mid-air.
Vanessa Ashford looked like a wraith dragged straight out of hell. And in her leather-gloved hands, she held a handheld detonator.
