Chapter 3 - Blood on the Keypad
The blue glow of the tablet cast long, distorted shadows across the laundry room’s exposed pipes. My breath came in shallow, rattling gasps as dehydration tightened its grip on my chest. I knew that without my prescription immunoglobulins, my kidneys would begin shutting down within forty-eight hours, and toxic shock would follow soon after. I had no illusions about my physical fragility. Even with the tablet in hand, I could not summon emergency paramedics directly to the front lawn; the local sheriff was a close social acquaintance of my mother’s family, and any conventional dispatch would result in a quiet phone call to Margaret in Paris, giving her the chance to manufacture an excuse or have me transferred to an unregulated private hospice where I would disappear forever.
I needed absolute legal and physical protection before making a sound. My fingers hovered over the cracked glass of the touchscreen, leaving faint smears of blood and sweat across the virtual keypad. I bypassed local emergency services and dialed the direct private extension of Arthur Vance, my late father’s personal attorney and the senior partner of a formidable corporate litigation firm in Houston. Vance had spent forty years dismantling corporate fraud, and more importantly, he was the sole executor who held the sealed original copies of my father’s commercial patents and family trusts.
The line rang twice before a deep, measured voice answered. ""Vance Legal, Arthur speaking.""
""Arthur... it's Elena,"" I whispered, my voice sounding like sandpaper grinding against stone. ""Do not interrupt me. Listen carefully, because I may lose consciousness soon.""
There was an immediate shift in the attorney’s demeanor, the ambient rustle of office papers cutting off instantly. ""Elena? You sound terrible. Where are you? Your mother filed a travel notification yesterday stating you had entered a closed long-term rehabilitation retreat in Colorado.""
A bitter, breathless laugh escaped my lips, ending in a sharp spasm of coughing. ""I am locked... in the rear laundry room of the Baton Rouge house. Margaret ordered the maid to throw out my daily medications, shut off the water mains, and cut the branch circuit breakers. She and Julian boarded a flight to Paris this morning. They intend for me to be dead before their return in sixty-eight days.""
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The silence on the other end of the line was deafening, followed by the sound of a heavy chair scraping across hardwood. ""My God. Elena, stay on the line. I am dispatching a private medical transport team and our firm’s retained private security unit immediately. They will be at your address within twenty-five minutes with full legal warrants and medical personnel. Can you hold on?""
""Yes,"" I breathed, feeling the cold concrete beneath my cheek. ""And Arthur... initiate the dormant inheritance clauses. Revoke every credit line, freeze every joint trust account, and pull the corporate charter for the estate management firm. Let them spend their vacation wondering why their platinum cards stop working at the hotel desk.""
