Chapter 30 - The Smile in the Rearview Mirror
Arthur froze, his head snapping toward the circular driveway where the dark SUV had been parked since the nightmare began.
The halogen headlights flickered on, cutting through the blizzard in two blinding beams of white light.
The driver’s door was shut tight, the tinted windows reflecting the orange flames of the burning mansion.
"Hold it! Police!" one of the remaining troopers shouted, raising his firearm and running toward the vehicle.
The SUV didn't stop; the tires spun wildly on the frozen gravel, spewing mud and snow into the air.
The massive vehicle lurched forward, slamming hard into the rear of the nearest police cruiser and pushing it aside like a toy.
The trooper dove into a snowbank to avoid being crushed as the SUV accelerated down the winding private road.
Arthur sprinted toward the road, the blanket falling from his shoulders into the slush.
"Stop her!" Arthur screamed into the freezing wind, his lungs burning with icy air. "Shoot the tires!"
Two gunshots cracked through the night, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the reinforced tailgate of the vehicle.
The red taillights of the SUV fishtailed onto the main road, disappearing into the blinding white curtain of the blizzard.
Arthur dropped to his knees in the middle of the driveway, staring at the empty tire tracks cutting through the snow.
The police radios were squawking frantically with dispatchers calling for roadblocks across two counties.
Detective Vance, wrapped in a foil emergency blanket on the stretcher, looked at Arthur with hollow, exhausted eyes.
"She won't stop, Arthur," Vance coughed, his face pale as death. "She will never stop coming for you."
Arthur looked down at the snow beneath his knees.
Lying half-buried in the slush near the driveway curb was a heavy, blackened object that had fallen from the vehicle's open door.
Arthur reached out with a trembling, bare hand and brushed the freezing white powder away.
It was the heavy bronze candlestick.
Wrapped tightly around the bloodstained brass handle was a small, torn strip of paper from Arthur’s own checkbook.
Written in smeared, wet ink was a single, terrifying sentence in Eleanor’s immaculate, elegant cursive:
*I left something in your hospital room, Arthur.*
Before Arthur could process the words, a loud, metallic click sounded directly behind his ear.
May you like
A cold hand gripped the back of his neck, and a voice he hadn't heard in twenty years spoke from the darkness:
"Did you really think Eleanor was working alone tonight, Arthur?"
