Chapter 6 - The Safe Haven
The windshield wipers beat back and forth against the glass in a frantic, rhythmic slap as my modest blue station wagon sped westward along the rain-slicked highway. In the back seat, Noah was crouched low, his arm securely looped around Maya’s portable car seat, making sure she remained warm and undisturbed. Every pair of headlights that appeared in my rearview mirror sent a jolt of adrenaline through my veins, but after fifteen miles of country backroads, the highway behind us remained dark and empty.
""Where are we heading, Mom?"" Noah asked quietly, leaning forward between the front bucket seats. ""We can't go to a hotel. Dad checks our credit card notifications in real time on his phone.""
""I turned off my cell phone three miles ago and pulled the navigation fuse,"" I told him, checking the dashboard clock. It was already seven-thirty in the evening. ""We aren't going to a hotel. We are going to the one place Glenn would never dream of looking, because he believes he burned that bridge fifteen years ago.""
Forty minutes later, I turned the station wagon down a long, unpaved gravel driveway flanked by overgrown weeping willows. At the end of the lane stood a sprawling, weathered Victorian farmhouse with a wraparound porch, its yellow kitchen windows casting a warm, amber glow across the puddles.
This was the home of David Cross—Glenn’s older brother, the founding CEO of the company, and the man Glenn had spent the last two years slowly stripping of his executive dignity.
When David had voiced concerns five years ago about Glenn’s ruthless financial tactics and reckless property acquisitions, Glenn had engineered a whisper campaign among the major shareholders, claiming David’s emerging health challenges were clouding his judgment. Glenn had systematically isolated David from the family, convincing me and the rest of our relatives that David was bitter, reclusive, and hostile. I had believed my husband’s lies. I hadn't visited my brother-in-law in nearly four years.
I killed the headlights, grabbed the heavy legal ledger and Glenn’s safe contents, and stepped out into the rain. Noah followed closely behind, sheltering Maya against his chest.
I climbed the wooden steps and pressed the brass doorbell.
A moment later, the heavy inner door swung open. David Cross stood in the foyer, leaning heavily on a carved wooden cane. His silver hair was disheveled, and his hands trembled slightly with the tremor that had plagued him for years, but his sharp blue eyes were completely clear.
He stared at me, then looked past my shoulder at Noah and the bundle in his arms.
May you like
""Catherine?"" David asked, his voice rough with surprise. ""Noah? What on earth has happened to you both?""
""David,"" I said, my voice breaking for the first time that night as tears mixed with the rainwater on my cheeks. ""Your brother didn't just try to steal your company. He abandoned his child, threatened your nephew, and sent armed men into my home. We need your help.""
