Chapter 6 - The Trap Door
At the top of the basement stairs, silhouette against the bright afternoon light of the hallway, stood Victoria.
In her right hand, she wasn't holding a drink or a plate of burgers. She was holding Adam’s heavy hunting rifle—the one he kept locked in the master bedroom closet for hunting trips he hadn't taken in five years.
"Step away from the desk, Adam," Victoria said, her voice entirely devoid of emotion, sounding more like a corporate executive reading a quarterly report than a woman holding a gun on her own family. "And Helen... put your hands where I can see them. You always were a nosey old woman, weren't you? Always poking around in things that didn't concern you."
"Victoria, put the gun down," Adam said, holding his hands up slowly, stepping in front of me to shield my body. "It’s over. The files are open. The police—"
"The police aren't coming, Adam," Victoria interrupted with a chilling little smile. She shifted her grip on the rifle, her finger resting lightly against the trigger guard. "Because out on the patio, your lovely sister-in-law and all your dear friends are currently enjoying burgers laced with a very heavy dose of fast-acting pediatric sedative that I slipped into the barbecue sauce an hour ago."
My blood ran cold. The barbecue sauce.
"You didn't," I whispered.
"Oh, I did," Victoria smiled, stepping down the first two stairs. "Everyone is currently drifting off into a very deep, peaceful sleep by the pool. By the time anyone wakes up, this house will have suffered a tragic, accidental electrical fire in the basement. A faulty space heater. Very common in older homes. And you three... well, you simply won't have made it out in time."
She was insane. Not just controlling—completely, unhinged, clinical psychopath.
"And Chloe?" Adam demanded, his voice turning into a dangerous, animal roar. "What about her?!"
"Chloe is upstairs packing her little pink suitcase," Victoria said smoothly. "We’re catching a flight to Mexico tonight, Adam. You can come with us, play the devoted husband and father, or you can stay down here in the ash with your mother. The choice, as always, is entirely yours."
She raised the barrel of the rifle, aligning it dead center on Adam’s chest.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I reached slowly, silently, into my cardigan pocket, my fingers closing around the tiny memory card.
"You won't get away with this, Victoria," I said, keeping my voice eerily calm, buying time, scanning the dark corners of the basement behind the desk. "The memory card is already backed up. It uploaded to my cloud storage the second I connected to your home Wi-Fi upstairs."
Victoria’s eyes flicked toward me, a tiny flash of doubt crossing her face. For one second, her calculation faltered.
May you like
That single second was all Adam needed.
With a roar of absolute fury, Adam lunged forward across the desk, grabbing the heavy oak lamp and hurling it straight at Victoria’s head, while simultaneously tackling her legs as the gun went off with a deafening blast that shattered the basement window into a million glittering shards.
