Chapter 34 - The Ice Beneath the Floor
Detective Vance pushed his way past the barricades outside the Sterling estate, ignoring the paramedic yelling behind him.
The bandage around his injured shoulder was already blooming red, but his service weapon was unholstered and ready.
Officer Miller’s frantic radio distress call from the hospital had just reached the central dispatch desk.
"They took him!" Vance shouted to the county sheriff who was coordinating the perimeter. "Arthur didn't run—he was taken!"
The sheriff shone a halogen floodlight across the trampled slush near the edge of the driveway.
Two sets of footprints led into the dark pine forest, ending abruptly where tire tracks cut through the mud.
"Tire tracks belong to an older Crown Victoria or a Town Car," the sheriff said, squatting over the frozen impression. "Heading north toward the lake."
Vance clenched his jaw, the searing pain in his torn shoulder fueling his mounting fury.
"The boathouse," Vance said, his voice dropping to a gravelly rasp. "The family owned an offshore retreat on Blackwood Lake."
"That place has been abandoned since the fire of ninety-nine," the sheriff replied, shining the light toward the dark mountain peak.
"Nothing Eleanor touches is ever truly abandoned," Vance muttered, striding toward his unmarked cruiser.
He flung the driver’s door open and slid behind the wheel, ignoring the wave of dizziness that washed over him.
The heavy bronze candlestick still sat on the hood of the sheriff’s cruiser, sealed inside a clear plastic evidence bag.
Vance stared at the dried smear of blood along its ornate brass base.
The brass was scratched with fine, deliberate markings near the base—markings Vance had failed to notice during the initial sweep.
He reached through his open window and grabbed the plastic bag from the hood, holding it beneath the dashboard light.
Carved into the antique metal with a diamond tip was a single coordinate and an old combination number.
"The vault," Vance whispered, feeling his pulse hammer against his temples.
The candlestick wasn't just a brutal murder weapon used to bash Arthur's skull.
It was the physical key to the underground bunker beneath the frozen lake.
Vance slammed the cruiser’s transmission into drive, the snow chains rattling violently against the wheel wells.
He didn't wait for the state police convoy to assemble behind him.
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If he didn't reach Blackwood Lake within thirty minutes, Arthur Sterling would be sleeping beneath six feet of solid ice.
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