Chapter 7 - The Counter-Strike
I looked down at the document in David’s hand. Every line of text, every signature block, every clause was designed to strip away my parental rights forever and hand Lily over to a trust controlled entirely by my parents and David.
"Give me the pen," I said quietly.
David’s eyes lit up with predatory triumph. He pulled a heavy silver fountain pen from his breast pocket and extended it toward me, his fingers loose and confident. "I knew you were smart, Claire. You always knew when the odds were insurmountable."
I reached out, my fingers brushing against the cold metal of the pen.
Then, with a sudden, violent motion, I knocked the pen out of his hand, spun on my heel, and lunged toward the heavy oak dining table where my leather bag lay open.
"What the hell—!" David shouted, lunging forward to grab my arm.
Before his fingers could close around my wrist, Sarah burst out of the hallway holding an old landline telephone plugged into the cabin’s emergency satellite relay box.
"I got through!" Sarah screamed, slamming the receiver down on the base. "The state police dispatch patched me directly through to the federal task force investigator Officer Vance connected us with this morning! They're thirty miles out!"
David’s face twisted in rage. He lunged past me toward the hallway door, his hand reaching for the doorknob. "You stupid bint, you've ruined everything—"
CLANG!
The heavy iron fireplace poker whistled through the air, catching David square across the right shoulder blade with enough force to send him crashing violently against the cedar-log wall.
Sarah stood over him, her chest heaving, holding the iron poker like a baseball bat. "Touch my sister again and I’ll break your other collarbone, you corporate vulture."
David slid down the wall, clutching his shoulder, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he glared up at us with pure venom. "You're both going to federal prison. Your father owns half the judges in this state—you think a state trooper is going to save you?"
"My father owns judges in one county," I said, walking over to him and picking up the dropped document from the floor. I tore it into twenty jagged pieces and let them flutter down onto his chest like confetti. "Federal jurisdiction doesn't give a damn about county commissioners."
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Outside, the sharp wail of police sirens pierced the mountain air, cutting through the silence of the pine forest with unmistakable authority.
One cruiser, then two, then three black-and-white SUVs with flashing red and blue lightbars roared up the gravel fire road, sliding to a halt outside the cabin porch.
