Chapter 17 - The Deluge in the Cellar
"Drop the gun, Arthur," Daniel said with absolute stillness, placing Ethan behind his back against the stone pillar. "It’s over. The police know about the Cayman accounts. They know about Vance. They know about Evelyn. You're already dead in the eyes of the law."
"The law is a tool for men with money to dictate morality to men without it," Arthur spat, taking another limping step forward, blood dripping steadily from his fingers onto the wet stone floor. "Once I have the cipher from Sarah's crypt, the bearer bonds inside will take me anywhere in South America. Your little boy is going to walk with me to St. Jude’s, press his thumb against the biometric plate, and you, Daniel, will take the fall for all of it. A tragic murder-suicide of an unstable widower."
"You forgot one thing, Arthur," Daniel said coldly.
"What's that?" Arthur sneered, his finger tightening on the trigger.
"You don't know this house. Sarah did."
Ethan, hiding behind Daniel’s leg, reached up with both hands and yanked down on the rusted iron ring with all the weight of his small seven-year-old body.
The rusted chain screamed in its pulley. High above the cellar ceiling, the hundred-year-old wooden floodgates of the overflow cistern—holding five thousand gallons of harvested storm runoff from the roof—fractured along their rotted seams.
A deafening roar tore through the cellar.
A monstrous wall of cold, muddy water exploded through the brick vents, descending upon the narrow corridor like a tidal wave. Arthur had only a fraction of a second to look up in horror before the torrential deluge smashed into him with the force of an oncoming freight train.
The gun was ripped instantly from his grip, swept away in the churning foam. Arthur slammed violently against the opposite stone wall, his head cracking against the granite masonry before he was pulled under the swirling, brown current.
Daniel braced himself against the heavy support pillar, clamping Ethan tightly against his chest with both arms as the freezing water surged around his waist, roaring like an angry beast before draining rapidly through the floor grates into the storm sewers below.
Within ninety seconds, the roar subsided into a dripping, hollow echo.
Arthur lay motionless, face-down in four inches of muddy sediment, unconscious, his skull bleeding freely into the muck.
Daniel gasped for air, his teeth chattering from the icy shock. He looked down at his son. Ethan’s hair was plastered to his forehead, his face pale, but his eyes were wide, sharp, and unmistakably triumphant.
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"Mommy said..." Ethan whispered, spitting out muddy water, "...the bugs always dig up the rotten wood."
Daniel pulled his son into a fierce, suffocating embrace, tears mingling with the grime on his cheeks. "Let's finish this, Ethan. Let's go give your mother her peace."
