Chapter 37 - The Sinking Ledger
The impact caught Clara completely off-guard. The two elderly women tumbled over the low safety railing, crashing through the wooden awning and slamming onto the slippery, grated deck of the boathouse slip just ten feet from the rushing whirlpool.
Clara’s revolver went off, the bullet shattering the windshield of the Hacker-Craft.
"Evelyn, let go of me, you lunatic!" Clara shrieked, clawing at Evelyn’s face with her manicured nails.
Evelyn was completely unhinged. She wasn't fighting for land or money anymore; she was fighting the demonic realization of her entire wasted life. She locked her arms around Clara’s waist, dragging her toward the churning vortex where the water was dropping rapidly, revealing the slime-covered wooden sluice gates.
"We're going together, Clara!" Evelyn wailed like a biblical banshee. "We're going to answer to Father together!"
"Sarah! Help me pull them up!" I yelled, leaping from the boat deck.
"Riley, don't! The suction will pull you under!" Sarah shouted, firing one final shot at Clara’s surviving guard, who threw down his weapon and fled back through the tunnel in absolute terror.
I grabbed the heavy nylon mooring rope tied to the boathouse cleat, wrapped it twice around my left forearm, and lunged forward, catching Evelyn by the collar of her designer coat just as Clara’s legs slipped over the edge into the raging current.
"Let her go, Riley!" Clara gasped, her face pale, the water dragging her heavy linen coat down like an anchor. "The Swiss accounts! Box 404! There’s two hundred million in bearer bonds! I’ll give you the numeric cipher! You can have it all! Just pull me up!"
I looked into Clara’s eyes. The piercing blue was gone, replaced by pure, naked terror.
"My grandmother taught me one thing, Aunt Clara," I whispered, holding fast to Evelyn’s coat while Evelyn clung to Clara’s wrists. "A Vance never negotiates with a vulture."
"Riley! I'm slipping!" Evelyn cried, her fingers losing their grip on Clara’s slick gloves.
"Hold on, Mom!" I grunted, my shoulder joints screaming under the tension of two bodies suspended over an abyss.
Clara looked down at the black, churning mouth of the drain tunnel. A horrifying, serene smile suddenly crossed her bleeding face.
"You think you won, little girl?" Clara whispered. "You haven't opened Box 404 yet. When you do... you'll realize who Helen really was."
Clara deliberately let go of Evelyn’s wrists.
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With a horrifying splash, Clara Vance was sucked into the subterranean intake, swallowed instantly by the roaring darkness of the underground canal.
***
