Chapter 5 - The Darkness in the East Wing
The sudden plunge into absolute blackness lasted only two seconds before the emergency battery-backup strips along the baseboards cast a dull, eerie red glow across the nursery floor.
Viktor cursed softly in Russian, his weapon wavering for a fraction of a second as he tried to adjust his aim in the dim red light. "Henderson! Where is the auxiliary generator?"
"I don't know!" the nurse shrieked, scrambling backward out of her rocking chair. "The storm must have hit the main transformer!"
It wasn't the storm.
From somewhere down in the basement, a dull, muffled boom vibrated through the floorboards—the sound of an industrial breaker panel being manually tripped or overloaded.
"Now, Grace!" I yelled.
Instead of running toward the door, I lunged forward across the small nursery floor, tackling Viktor around the waist before he could realign his suppressed pistol.
We crashed hard into the metal medical supply cart, sending a cascade of stainless steel surgical trays, cotton balls, and glass vials clattering across the linoleum. Viktor swung the butt of his pistol down hard against my shoulder blade, sending a searing flash of white-hot pain through my arm, but I kept my grip locked around his tactical vest, pinning his gun arm against the floor.
"Get out!" I shouted toward the doorway, gasping for air as Viktor drove his knee into my ribs. "Grace, run!"
Grace didn't hesitate. Shielding the baby against her chest with one arm, she sprinted past the struggling security chief and out into the dark hallway.
"Henderson! Stop her!" Viktor roared, trying to throw me off his chest.
The nurse lunged toward the doorway just as Grace reached the threshold, but a heavy shadow stepped out of the darkness of the hall before Henderson could lay a hand on her.
A thick, silver-handled cane swept out, hooking neatly around Nurse Henderson's ankle and sending her sprawling face-first onto the carpet.
"Going somewhere, my dear?" Martin Hale’s calm, gravelly voice cut through the red gloom.
The old butler stood in the doorway, holding a heavy iron fireplace poker in his left hand and his silver cane in his right. Behind him stood two local state troopers in high-visibility rain jackets, their service weapons drawn and aimed straight at Viktor Thorne.
"Drop the weapon, Mr. Thorne," the lead trooper barked, stepping over the threshold with his flashlight beam cutting a sharp white tunnel through the red air. "Federal and state warrant execution. Drop it now!"
Viktor froze. He looked from the troopers' drawn sidearms down to my face, then slowly opened his fingers. The black pistol clattered against the linoleum.
"You're making a mistake," Viktor said smoothly, raising his empty hands as Martin hauled him to his feet by his tactical collar. "Miss Evelyn owns this county."
"Miss Evelyn is currently answering questions in the west drawing room," the trooper replied, snapping steel handcuffs around Viktor's wrists with a sharp click. "Along with her corporate attorney. It turns out forging a federal trust document in three different state jurisdictions carries a rather lengthy prison sentence."
I rolled off the floor, coughing and clutching my ribs, and staggered to my feet. Martin hurried over, grabbing my arm to steady me.
"Are you alright, Mr. Ethan?" the old butler asked, his face lined with quiet relief.
"I'll live," I wheezed, looking toward the hallway where Grace stood frozen in the red light, the baby sleeping peacefully in her arms.
She walked slowly back into the nursery, her eyes wide as she looked at the troopers, then at Martin, and finally at me.
"How... how did you call the state police?" she asked, her voice trembling. "The cellular jammer..."
"Miss Evelyn jammed the cell towers," Martin said with a faint, grim smile, pulling a small black box from his vest pocket. "She forgot that the estate's private landline switchboard operates on an independent analog fiber-optic line installed by your grandfather back in nineteen-eighty-two. The state troopers were already parked at the main lodge gates when you were still in the guest room."
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I walked over to Grace, gently placing my hand over her shoulder and the small bundle in her arms. The baby let out a soft, milky sigh, his tiny chest rising and falling against his mother's heart.
"It's over," I whispered, kissing Grace's forehead. "We're going home."
