Chapter 4: The Edge of the Cliff
The struggle in the greenhouse was brief and violent. When Eleanor lunged to pull Richard away from her daughter, he struck her across the face with the back of his hand, sending her crashing into a row of terracotta pots. The sound of shattering clay echoed like a gunshot.
“Mom!” Aurora screamed, dropping the act completely. The word slipped out before she could stop it.
Richard froze. Slowly, he turned back to Aurora, his eyes wide with a horrifying realization.
“Mom?” he repeated softly. He looked from the bleeding woman on the floor to the terrified maid. The pieces snapped together in his mind with deadly clarity. He let out a low, breathless laugh that sent shivers down Aurora’s spine. “So… the ghost returns. I thought I dealt with that miserable mechanic two years ago. Clearly, he was foolish enough to keep a memento.”
Before Aurora could run, Richard grabbed her by the hair, dragging her toward the door.
“No! Richard, please!” Eleanor screamed, scrambling over the broken pottery, blood dripping from her lip. “Take the money! Take all of it! Just let her live!”
“The money is already mine, Eleanor!” Richard roared, kicking the greenhouse door open and dragging Aurora into the freezing rain. “And I’m not about to let this little weed grow up and take it from me now!”
He forced Aurora toward his black SUV parked in the driveway. She kicked, scratched, and bit at his hands, but his grip was like iron. He threw her into the passenger seat and locked the doors from the master console before she could even reach for the handle.
Eleanor ran out into the rain, pounding her fists against the reinforced glass of the window, her face contorted in agony.
Richard started the engine, slammed his foot on the gas, and the heavy vehicle tore down the gravel driveway, leaving Eleanor shrinking in the rearview mirror.
“Where are you taking me?” Aurora cried, pressing her back against the door, her heart hammering wildly.
“To finish a job that should have been done twenty years ago,” Richard said, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
He drove recklessly through the winding, treacherous mountain roads that surrounded the estate. The rain was coming down in sheets, blurring the headlights. Below them, sharp jagged cliffs dropped violently into the churning black ocean.
Aurora’s mind raced. She couldn't overpower him. She couldn't unlock the door. But as she looked at the dashboard, she noticed his phone was sitting in the cupholder, unlocked, the GPS glowing brightly.
With a sudden burst of adrenaline, Aurora lunged over the center console. She didn't go for the steering wheel—she went for the phone.
Richard cursed, swatting at her with one hand. “Get off, you little rat!”
But Aurora had already grabbed it. She blindly hit the emergency SOS button on the screen, swiping the slider before hurling the phone into the backseat where Richard couldn't reach it.
“You stupid girl!” Richard roared. In his rage, he took his eyes off the treacherous, rain-slicked road for one second too long.
A sharp curve appeared out of the darkness. Richard slammed on the brakes, turning the wheel violently. The heavy SUV skidded, the tires screeching against the wet asphalt. The vehicle slammed into the metal guardrail, tearing through it with a deafening crunch of metal.
The car teetered wildly on the edge of the cliff. The front two wheels were suspended in thin air, hanging over the dark, violent ocean below.
Silence descended inside the cabin, save for the sound of the rain drumming against the roof and the terrifying creak of the car’s chassis shifting under their weight.
Richard was breathing heavily, his forehead bleeding from hitting the steering wheel. He looked down through the windshield at the abyss below, terror finally washing over his arrogant face.
“Don't move,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “If we shift the weight, we go over.”
But Aurora looked out the passenger window. She saw the flashing red and blue lights of police cruisers tearing up the mountain road in the distance, followed closely by Eleanor’s silver sedan. Help was coming. But they wouldn't make it in time if the car fell.
Aurora looked at Richard. The man who stole her life. The man who killed the only father she ever knew.
“I’m not dying with you,” Aurora said coldly.
Slowly, she unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Stop!” Richard hissed, panic raising his voice to a shriek. “Are you insane? You’ll kill us both!”
With a deliberate, fearless movement, Aurora threw her body weight toward the back seat, scrambling toward the shattered rear window.
The car groaned. The metal screeched. The front end dipped lower over the edge.
“No! No!” Richard screamed, trying to grab her ankle, but he couldn't reach without unbuckling himself, and if he did, he would slide forward into the abyss.
Aurora kicked out the remaining glass of the back window. As she pulled herself out onto the wet pavement of the road, the sudden shift in weight was the final straw.
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With a sickening scrape of metal, the SUV tipped forward. Richard’s agonizing scream was cut short as the massive vehicle plummeted into the darkness, swallowed by the raging sea below.
Aurora collapsed on the wet asphalt, gasping for air, just as the police sirens wailed into the night.
