Chapter 6 - The Monster In The Dark
Fear is a primal thing.
Knowing that a man who had lied to you for eleven years was roaming the streets free was terrifying.
Knowing he was completely desperate and stripped of his stolen wealth made him incredibly dangerous.
I immediately sent Lily to stay with my parents in Austin.
I told them it was a surprise vacation, hiding the terror in my voice.
Sarah insisted on staying with me in the Dallas mansion.
“He took my life away. I’m not letting him chase me out of your house, too,” she declared.
Mr. Crawford hired two armed security guards to patrol the perimeter of the property.
We locked every door, activated the alarm systems, and waited.
The first night was silent.
The second night, the phone rang at 3:00 AM.
The caller ID showed an unknown number.
I answered it, putting it on speaker so Sarah and Crawford could hear.
“Hello?”
“Did you really think you could win, Emily?”
Ryan’s voice. Low, raspy, and full of venom.
I felt a chill run down my spine, but I forced my voice to remain steady.
“You have nothing left, Ryan. The FBI has Vanessa. They have the money.”
He laughed, the same cruel laugh from the driveway.
“You stupid, naive woman. Do you really think I kept all my eggs in one basket?”
“I know about the safe in the basement, Emily. The one your father installed.”
“The one with the bearer bonds and the emergency cash.”
My blood ran cold.
I had completely forgotten about the old floor safe hidden under the wine cellar.
I had never used it, but Ryan knew the combination.
“I’m coming for it,” he whispered. “And if you or that pathetic nurse try to stop me, I’ll finish what I started in the driveway.”
The line went dead.
Sarah looked at me, her eyes wide with terror.
“He’s coming here. We need to call the police!”
Crawford held up a hand.
“If we call the police, he’ll see the cruisers and run.”
“He’ll disappear into the wind, and you’ll spend the rest of your lives looking over your shoulders.”
“This is our chance to catch him red-handed. Breaking and entering, attempted robbery, and violating his bail conditions.”
“He will go away for twenty years.”
I looked around the house I had loved so much.
It felt like a battlefield now.
“What do we do?” I asked.
Crawford pulled a heavy, black handgun from his shoulder holster and checked the chamber.
“We let him break in. We let him open the safe.”
“And then we trap the rat in the basement.”
We spent the next hour preparing.
We turned off all the lights on the ground floor.
The security guards were instructed to fall back into the shadows and not engage unless necessary.
We sat in the dark living room, watching the security camera feeds on the iPad.
At 4:15 AM, a shadow moved across the back lawn.
It was him. Dressed in all black, carrying a heavy duffel bag.
He bypassed the back door, knowing the alarm was armed.
Instead, he went to the old coal chute window near the side of the house—a blind spot in the old security system that he knew about.
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We watched as he pried the window open and slipped into the basement.
The trap was set.
