Chapter 3 - The Heavy Iron Latch
Before I could grab Maya’s wrist and demand an explanation, the heavy front double doors of the manor shook under a barrage of authoritative thuds.
"Sheriff’s Department! Open the door!"
Charles smoothed his lapels, shooting Maya a look of pure, unadulterated execution before marching toward the foyer. "Stay here," he ordered the room. "Not a word from anyone. I will handle this."
"You won't handle a damn thing," I said, stumbling past Eleanor. The room swung sickeningly around me, but adrenaline was a violent fuel. I made it to the foyer just as Charles pulled the massive oak door inward.
Three deputies stood on the stone threshold, hands resting casually near their holsters, their high-powered tactical flashlights slicing through the warm amber light of the foyer. The lead deputy—a square-jawed man in his late forties with a silver badge that read Sgt. Miller—took one look past Charles and locked eyes on me.
His expression hardened instantly. "Ma'am, step out here to the medics."
"Good evening, Sergeant," Charles interrupted smoothly, stepping into Miller's line of sight with an easy, practiced smile. "There’s been an unfortunate misunderstanding. A domestic dispute, entirely blown out of proportion. A glass was dropped accidentally during dinner—"
"Does that look like a dropped glass to you, Sergeant?" I demanded, pushing right past Charles onto the wide stone porch.
The cool night air hit the open wound on my temple, stinging like fire. Deputy Miller’s flashlight beam illuminated the blood soaking the collar of my designer blouse, the drying tracks across my jaw, and the violent purple swelling already closing my left eye.
Miller didn't even look back at Charles. "Paramedics, get up here! Deputy Harris, secure the male in the charcoal suit."
"Wait a minute! You have no right to enter this private residence without a warrant!" Eleanor shrieked, hurrying into the entryway. "Do you know who my husband is? He sat on the First District Court of Appeal! We know the county commissioner!"
"Ma'am, step back," the second deputy barked, brushing right past her with his hand hovering over his taser. "We have a reported felony assault in progress with visible grievous bodily harm. Step back right now or you'll be detained for obstruction."
Adrian emerged from the dining room, holding his hands up in a placating gesture, his face twisted into an expression of practiced, wounded innocence. "Officer, please. My wife had a hysterical breakdown. She attacked my mother, threw a plate, and when I tried to restrain her, she fell against the sideboard. I'm the one who should be pressing charges."
I stared at him, my stomach turning violently at the ease of the lie. He looked so polished, so completely earnest, that for a horrifying second, I wondered if anyone unfamiliar with him would actually believe it.
"He's lying," I said, my voice cutting through the damp air. "There's dining room surveillance. And there are twenty witnesses inside."
Miller glanced back at the deputies holding Adrian by the arms. "We’ll pull the footage. Put him in the back of the cruiser."
"You can't arrest me!" Adrian roared, thrashing against the cuffs as the cold steel snapped around his wrists. "Claire, tell them! Tell them right now, you crazy bitch, or you will never see a single cent from our accounts!"
"Sir, stop resisting!"
As two deputies hauled Adrian down the stone steps toward the flashing patrol units, I turned back toward the threshold.
Maya was standing in the shadows of the arched hallway, half-concealed behind a marble pedestal. She wasn't looking at Adrian. She wasn't looking at the cops. She was looking at the wooden door beneath the main staircase—a door bound in heavy decorative wrought iron, secured with a digital keypad and an oversized brass padlock.
Her lips moved, silently forming the same word: Basement.
A female paramedic gently guided me down onto the tailgate of the ambulance, pressing a sterile gauze pad against my throbbing temple. "Deep breath, sweetie. You’ve got a nasty laceration here. Might need ten or twelve sutures, and we need to run a CT scan to rule out a skull fracture."
"Sergeant Miller," I called out, pulling away from the paramedic's hands.
Miller walked over, his notepad out, his jaw set in grim frustration. "We’ve got him secured, Mrs. Sterling. We'll take your statement at the hospital, but we have enough on scene for a mandatory domestic violence hold."
"You need to search the house," I said.
Charles, who had followed Miller down the steps, let out a sharp, bark-like laugh. "Now she’s truly unhinged. Sergeant, my son has been removed. You have no legal authority to conduct a sweep of my home."
"What's in the house, Mrs. Sterling?" Miller asked, ignoring Charles entirely.
"The basement," I said, pointing directly through the open front doors toward the padlocked iron door under the stairs. "My sister-in-law told me you need to check the basement."
Charles’s smug, imperious expression vanished. His skin turned an awful, sickly shade of gray, the muscles along his neck freezing like stone.
"Sergeant," Charles said, his voice dropping into a register that was no longer patronizing, but openly desperate. "That is a private wine cellar containing irreplaceable vintages dating back to the nineteenth century. It is temperature-controlled and alarmed. You will not violate my constitutional rights based on the malicious slander of a woman suffering from a head injury."
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Miller looked at Charles. Then he looked at me.
"Deputy Harris," Miller called out over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing at Charles's sudden panic. "Bring the Halligan bar from the trunk. We're clearing the residence."
