Chapter 4 - The House on Willow Ridge
The wind picked up as evening fell, sending dry oak leaves scratching across the glass of my hospital window like desperate fingers. Marcus had left an hour ago to file an emergency freeze on all of Julian and Chloe’s joint bank accounts, and Detective Lawson had stepped out to coordinate with the night watch.
I lay in the dark, the rhythmic hum of the IV monitor keeping time with my racing thoughts. Julian was in a cell. The boy who was afraid of the dark until he was nine, who used to crawl into our bed during summer thunderstorms, was sitting on a cold stainless-steel bench in the county jail, abandoned by the woman he had betrayed his mother to satisfy.
Suddenly, my bedside phone rang. The sharp, unexpected electronic chime startled me. Dr. Kalu had told me the room was unlisted, but the hospital operator had been given strict instructions to put through any call from Detective Lawson or Marcus Hayes.
I reached out with a trembling hand and lifted the receiver to my ear. “Hello?”
There was a long pause, filled with the crackle of static and the muffled sound of traffic. Then, a low, familiar voice came through the line. It wasn't Julian. And it wasn't Marcus.
“You think you’ve won, you old bitch,” Chloe’s voice purred into my ear, smooth, venomous, and completely devoid of the hysterics she had shown in the lobby.
I froze, the receiver suddenly feeling as heavy as lead. “How did you get this number?”
“A hundred-dollar bill to an orderly at the shift change works wonders,” she whispered. “Listen to me very carefully, Evelyn. Julian is a weak, sniveling fool. He was always useless. But I am not Julian. You have twenty-four hours to instruct your pet lawyer to drop the criminal complaints and release the freeze on the accounts.”
“You are violating your bail conditions right now, Chloe,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “The police are monitoring this room.”
A cold, mocking laugh echoed through the earpiece. “I’m on a burner phone standing outside a diner three miles from your hospital, outside my exclusion zone. The police don't know shit. But you know what I do have, Evelyn? I have the spare key to 414 Willow Ridge. The one Julian kept on his ring.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Don't you dare go to that house.”
“I’m already looking at it,” she lied smoothly, her voice dropping into a chilling hiss. “It would be such a tragedy if that beautiful cedar house—the one Arthur spent so many years building—happened to catch fire before the crime scene investigators could finish looking through Julian’s things. An electrical short, perhaps? A faulty furnace? Wooden houses burn so very quickly, Evelyn. And the Mustang in the carriage house... think of all that vintage lacquer going up in black smoke.”
“Chloe,” I whispered, my knuckles turning white around the receiver. “If you touch that house, they will put you away for the rest of your life.”
“Not without evidence, they won't,” she replied. “You tell Marcus Hayes to withdraw the freeze by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, or Arthur’s legacy becomes a pile of gray ash. Do you understand me?”
The line went dead with a sharp click.
I slammed the receiver down and immediately slammed my palm onto the red nurse call button. Within fifteen seconds, a nurse entered the room, followed immediately by Deputy Miller, who had been stationed outside my door.
“What happened, Mrs. Mercer?” Miller asked, his hand dropping instinctively to his duty belt.
“Chloe Mercer,” I gasped, the incision across my stomach pulling painfully as I sat up. “She just called this room. She’s going to Arthur’s house. She’s going to burn it down!”
Miller turned to the nurse. “Get the supervisor. Trace that incoming call on the switchboard right now.” He pulled his radio from his shoulder. “Dispatch, this is Unit 4. We have a credible threat of arson and witness intimidation regarding the Mercer residence on Willow Ridge. Alert County Fire and send two units to 414 Willow Ridge code three.”
While Miller shouted into his radio, I pulled my legs over the edge of the mattress.
“Mrs. Mercer, what are you doing?” the nurse cried out, rushing to hold my shoulders. “You can’t get up! Your incision—”
“Get me a wheelchair,” I ordered, looking Miller dead in the eye with a fury that surprised even myself. “Get me a wheelchair, or I swear to God I will walk out of this hospital in my gown.”
“Ma’am, you can’t go out there,” Miller said.
“That is my husband’s house!” I roared, the pain in my stomach completely swallowed by an incandescent, primal rage. “Arthur didn't leave that house to be burned by a parasite who married my son for his inheritance! You take me there, Deputy, or you arrest me for leaving, but I am going to Willow Ridge!”
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Miller looked at my face, saw the absolute, unyielding iron in my eyes, and grabbed his radio again. “Lawson... you’d better meet us at the Mercer residence. We’re going to have a situation.”
***
