Chapter 24 - The Leverage of the Damned
The iron gates of the cottage on the ridge were overrun with honeysuckle and wild blackberry brambles. Through the driving mist that had begun to roll off the Blackwood Gorge, the small wooden house looked like an island surrounded by dark, towering pines.
The headlights of Miles’s sedan cut through the fog, revealing a solitary figure standing on the covered porch. She wore a heavy wool sweater and held a shotgun loosely in the crook of her arm, pointed safely at the floorboards, but ready.
"Stay in the car, Miles," I said.
"Not a chance," he replied firmly. "I'm coming with you."
"Both of you stay behind me," Arthur said, adjusting his coat. "She doesn't know us."
As we walked up the gravel path, the porch light flickered on. The woman stepped into the circle of yellow light.
My throat tightened. Looking at her was like looking into a mirror that had aged twenty years ahead of me. She had the high, severe cheekbones of Evelyn Sterling, the dark, intelligent eyes that my father had always despised because he could never intimidate them, and a faint, silver crescent scar running along her left temple.
"You have Evelyn’s hands," Sarah said. Her voice was low, weathered by years of woodsmoke and country air, but remarkably steady. "And you have your father’s chin. But you aren't him."
"No," I said, stepping onto the bottom step of the porch. "I am Elena. Richard's daughter."
Sarah tilted her head slightly, her gaze drifting down to Arthur Vance, whose legal briefcase was tucked under his arm. "The lawyer who broke the trust accounts. The local radio has been talking about it all evening. Sussex County National Bank closed their commercial desk because of an unannounced audit on the Sterling assets."
"The stone box in the churchyard is open, Sarah," I said gently. "The wrench is in the evidence locker at the sheriff's office."
A long, slow breath escaped her lips. The shotgun in her hands lowered another inch. For forty-four years, this woman had lived in the shadow of the man who had tried to drown her, separated only by two miles of hemlock trees and a fence she had been forbidden to cross.
"He never came back to the bridge," Sarah said quietly, looking past us toward the black void where the gorge dropped into the river. "Not once. He was terrified of the dark. When we were children, Evelyn had to leave a lamp burning in the hall until he was twelve years old. He acted like a king, but he was always a coward in an empty room."
"He hurt my daughter, Sarah," I said, my voice trembling with the raw fury that had carried me across these past two days. "He tried to break my six-year-old child because she dared to smile at his table. He called her an unvetted mistake."
Sarah’s eyes flared with a sudden, ferocious heat that made her look forty years younger. "He called me an obstacle. When he shoved me through the railing into that freezing water, he whispered that I was in the way of his inheritance. He hasn't changed. He will never change."
"He is at the manor house," Arthur said. "Deputies are waiting for the formal warrant to be signed at midnight. But he has barricaded the gate. The power lines down the lane were severed forty minutes ago."
Sarah turned, walking back into the house without a word. Through the screen door, we saw her set the shotgun on a cedar table and pick up a heavy brass ring holding a single, antique iron skeleton key.
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"That gate was built by my mother’s grandfather," Sarah said, returning to the threshold. "Richard put a modern chain on it five years ago, but the drainage culvert behind the carriage house connects to the old orchard cellar. If he thinks he can burn the records and flee through the logging roads, he's mistaken. I planted those apple trees. I know every foot of that soil."
She looked at me, her hazel eyes locking onto mine with an unshakeable resolve. "Let’s go take our name back."
