Chapter 5 – The Winter Coat

The heavy oak of the front door splintered with a sickening crack, the sound echoing like a gunshot through the powerless house.

BOOM.

Another swing of the axe. The frosted glass panels above the handle shattered, raining sharp shards onto the Persian rug in the foyer.

“Get upstairs!” I screamed at Brittany. “Take the boys and hide in my bathroom! Lock the heavy door and don’t make a sound!”

Brittany didn’t freeze this time. The spoiled sister was gone, replaced entirely by a fierce, protective mother. She scooped up Leo, grabbed Max by the hand, and bolted up the sweeping staircase without a backward glance.

I turned back to the kitchen. My father was still on the floor, struggling weakly against the thick plastic zip-ties binding his wrists. His face was a mask of sheer terror.

“Dad, get up!” I grabbed his arm, hauling him toward his feet. He was dead weight, his expensive loafers slipping on the blood and glass coating the kitchen tiles.

“Leave me, Hannah,” he wheezed, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. “Silas wants me. If I surrender, maybe he’ll let you and the girls go.”

“He’s not going to leave witnesses, you idiot!” I snarled, adrenaline flooding my system. I dragged him into the narrow pantry off the kitchen, shoving him behind the heavy wooden door. “Stay quiet.”

BOOM.

The deadbolt finally gave way. The front door crashed open, slamming against the interior wall with a violent thud. Heavy boots stomped into my foyer.

“Robert!” a voice bellowed.

It wasn’t David. The voice was older, rougher, filled with the gravelly resonance of a lifetime of cigars and cruelty. It was Silas Vance himself.

“Tear the place apart,” Silas ordered his men. His voice was terrifyingly calm now. “Find the girl. Find the key. If Robert is here, break his legs.”

I pressed my back against the wall of the dark hallway, clutching the tarnished silver bracelet in one hand and the heavy brass fire poker in the other. My mind raced.

Answer One, Open Two.

Answer: Silas was here to destroy the house and everyone in it to protect his thirty-year-old secret.

Open: The police were corrupt enough to hand my father over to Silas, so calling 911 was useless. Who could I trust? And where was the original deed? The brass key I held was useless if I couldn’t get to the bank.

I needed a distraction. I needed leverage.

I crept silently down the secondary servant’s staircase that led to the basement, wrapping the heavy silver bracelet around my knuckles like brass knuckles. As I reached the bottom step, I heard heavy footsteps entering the kitchen above me.

“He was here,” a gruff voice called out. “Blood on the floor. Back door’s smashed.”

I moved into the dark, cavernous basement. It smelled of damp earth and old cedar. Along the far wall were several heavy wardrobe boxes my grandmother had packed years ago.

I needed a weapon, or a shield, or anything. I opened the nearest cedar trunk. It was filled with my grandmother’s old winter clothes.

My fingers brushed against a heavy, dark wool winter coat. It was the coat she wore every winter, thick and luxurious, lined with heavy silk. As I moved it aside to look for something heavy, the coat slipped from my grasp and hit the concrete floor.

It didn’t softly crumple. It landed with a heavy, metallic CLANG.

I froze.

The footsteps upstairs paused. Dust drifted down from the wooden ceiling beams as the men stopped moving.

I held my breath, waiting. After a agonizing minute, the footsteps moved away toward the dining room.

I knelt down in the dark and felt the winter coat. The wool was heavy, but the sound had come from the lining. I ran my hands urgently over the thick fabric. Near the bottom hem, on the inside left panel, there was a bulky, rigid square sewn completely into the lining.

I ripped at the silk with my fingernails, tearing the delicate fabric until I could reach inside.

My fingers wrapped around something cold and heavy. I pulled it out into the dim light filtering through the basement window grates.

It was an iron key. Huge, heavy, and ornate. It looked like it belonged to a medieval castle, not a suburban home.

And attached to the key with a piece of wire was a metal tag.“Under the music.”

My breath hitched.

My grandmother’s upright piano. The one she made me practice on while Brittany got private ballet lessons. The one in the far corner of the living room, directly above my head.

The original deed wasn’t in a bank. The brass deposit key I’d taken from the watch was a decoy. My grandmother had known Silas might come looking. She had hidden the real deed inside the house.

I had to get to the living room.

But as I turned toward the basement stairs, a shadow blocked the dim light at the top of the steps.

“Well, look what we have down here,” a massive, tattooed man sneered, flicking on a heavy metal flashlight. The beam hit me right in the eyes, blinding me.

I didn’t hesitate.

I threw the heavy brass fire poker directly at the flashlight.

The metal connected with a sickening crunch. The flashlight shattered, and the man roared in pain, tumbling backward up the stairs.

I scrambled past him, racing up the steps and bursting through the door into the kitchen. I locked the basement door behind me, but I knew it wouldn’t hold for long.

I sprinted down the hallway toward the living room.

Silas Vance was standing in the center of my ruined foyer, lighting a cigar. He looked at me, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across his face.

“Hello, Hannah,” Silas purred. He pulled a heavy, black handgun from his coat. “Where is your father? And where is the key?”

“I don’t have the key,” I lied, backing slowly into the living room, my eyes fixed on the heavy oak piano in the corner.

“Don’t lie to me, little girl,” Silas said, stepping forward. He raised the gun, pointing it directly at my chest. “I want the key, the deed, and the silver bracelet your grandmother stole from my safe ten years ago. Hand them over, and I might let your sister and those brats upstairs live.”

Suddenly, a voice rang out from the top of the stairs.

“He doesn’t have it, Silas!”

I gasped.

Brittany was standing at the top of the landing. She wasn’t hiding. She had left the twins locked in the bathroom.

And in her hands, she held my grandmother’s double-barreled hunting shotgun, aimed directly at Silas Vance’s head.

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