Chapter 6 - Dockside Justice
“Dad,” I whispered, the word barely escaping my throat.
He was already up. Frank Miller had not been asleep; he had been sitting in the dark of his small study with the door cracked, listening to the rhythm of the storm.
He stepped into the living room in his wool socks, moving with the silence of a hunter. He didn't turn on a single lamp. He glided to the table, leaning over the monitor, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed the screen.
The dark SUV sat motionless at the edge of the trees, three hundred yards past our locked gate. The rain was sheeting so heavily that the license plate was obscured, but the vehicle’s profile was unmistakable: a late-model black Lincoln Navigator.
Evan didn't drive a Navigator; he drove an Audi sedan. But Joyce Vance kept a black Navigator at her residence in Lakewood.
“Is it him?” my voice shook. The phantom pain in my ribs pulsed with terrifying intensity. “Dad, he was released three hours ago. If he violates the restraining order, he goes straight back to jail!”
“He knows that,” Dad muttered, his voice cold and analytical. “Which is why he isn't driving through the gate. He’s sitting on the public easement. If Callahan’s deputies roll up, whoever is behind that wheel will claim they were just turning around, or checking navigation in the storm.”
Dad walked over to the corner, picked up the Remington shotgun, racked the slide back with a loud, mechanical *CH-CHIK*, and slipped three extra three-inch magnum shells into his jacket pocket.
“Dad, no! Don't go out there!” I grabbed his sleeve. “Call Callahan! Let the police handle it!”
“Callahan’s cruiser is forty minutes away on the south side of the bridge,” Dad said calmly, checking the safety switch with his thumb. “By the time they get here, whoever is in that truck will be gone. I’m not going to shoot anyone, Clara. But they need to know that this road doesn't lead to a frightened girl. It leads to me.”
He stepped into his boots, threw on his yellow oilskin foul-weather jacket, and slipped out through the side mudroom door without making a sound.
I stood by the monitor, my fingernails digging into the pine tabletop so hard they bled. Noah was upstairs, safe, dead to the world. On the screen, I watched the small, grainy figure of my father emerge from the shadow of the cabin, cutting through the fir trees along the ridge, flanking the driveway instead of walking down the open path.
On Feed 1, the Lincoln Navigator sat for two more minutes, its exhaust puffing white steam into the black rain.
Then, suddenly, the SUV’s high beams flickered on. The blinding light swept across our chained iron gate, illuminating the yellow “PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO TRESPASSING” sign hanging from the center links.
From the treeline fifty yards to the left of the gate, Dad stepped into the edge of the headlight beams.
He didn't aim the shotgun. He held it diagonally across his chest in a standard harbor security carry, standing stone-still in the driving deluge, his yellow jacket glowing against the black forest. He stood directly in the center of the road, staring unblinkingly through the windshield of the Navigator.
For thirty excruciating seconds, neither moved. The storm raged around them, tossing branches and kicking up white sea foam along the beach.
Then, inside the Navigator, the high beams clicked off. The vehicle was thrown into reverse, its tires kicking up gravel as it executed a sharp three-point turn, spraying mud against the road bank, before speeding away toward the highway, its red taillights disappearing into the mist.
Dad didn't follow. He stood at the gate for another five minutes, scanning the perimeter, before turning and walking steadily back toward the cabin.
When he stepped back inside the mudroom, he was dripping wet, but his expression was as hard as iron.
“It wasn't Evan behind the wheel,” he said, unzipping the oilskin and setting the shotgun back on its rack.
I stared at him, bewildered. “Who was it?”
“Too small for Evan. Too thin,” Dad said, hanging his jacket on the peg. “It was a hired private investigator. Joyce Vance is building a file, Clara. They’re looking for anything—a glimpse of Noah out in the cold, a sign that we’re unfit, or a way to provoke me into pulling a trigger on camera so they can file a felony complaint against me and strip you of your support system.”
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He looked at me, his eyes dead serious. “We aren't just fighting a domestic abuser anymore. We’re fighting a family that thinks its bank account makes them immune to the law. Tomorrow, we stop playing defense.”
***
