Chapter 4 - The Storm of Truth
By the third day of the blizzard, the world had turned blindingly white. Inside the tiny woodland cabin, Claire was fighting for survival.
The ancient generator outside had sputtered and died at midnight. The electricity had been cut off by heavy falling pine branches, leaving the cabin freezing cold. Outside, the temperature had plummeted to negative twelve degrees Fahrenheit. The windows were frosted thick with ice, and Claire could see her own breath pluming into the living room like white smoke.
Claire had dragged the mattress into the small center room near the stone wood-burning fireplace. Her hands were blistered and raw from carrying dry split logs from the back shed—a chore that had caused agonizing pain across her surgical scar. She was running a low-grade fever herself, her chest swollen and aching from weaning off breastfeeding under extreme stress, but she couldn't afford to rest for even five minutes.
She had wrapped Eli and Grace in multiple layers of fleece, tucking them directly against her bare chest beneath a down blanket. Kangaroo care—skin-to-skin contact was the only thing keeping the infants warm enough to prevent hypothermia.
Grace was coughing. It was a tiny, rattling, chesty sound that sent pure terror coursing through Claire’s soul. Eli was unusually lethargic, refusing his afternoon bottle. Claire pressed her lips to Grace’s tiny forehead; the baby was burning hot.
“No, no, baby girl, please,” Claire sobbed, rocking back and forth on the mattress. “Please fight it. God, please don't take them. Take me, but let my babies live.”
She looked across the dark room at her burner phone. She had sworn she would never turn it on. If she turned it on, the cellular towers would ping her location, and Grant Mercer’s hunting dogs would descend upon her within hours. But as Grace let out another weak, struggling gasp for air, Claire realized with horrifying clarity that her pride and hurt feelings meant nothing compared to her children’s lives.
Her trembling fingers found the cheap plastic phone. She punched in the power button. The screen glowed.
Instantly, the phone vibrated like a frantic insect. Fifty-four missed calls. Eighty-two text messages.
Claire bypassed them all and dialed the one number burned into her memory.
Back in Chicago, Grant was pacing his empty mansion like a caged predator. His eyes were bloodshot, his beard rough and unshaven, his tailored suit rumpled and abandoned. He hadn't slept in over seventy-two hours. He had fired his security head Daniel, then rehired him twenty minutes later out of pure desperation.
Suddenly, an untraceable burn-line phone on his desk rang.
Grant didn't hesitate. He grabbed it. “Claire?”
Silence on the line, followed by the sound of muffled, ragged weeping.
“Grant...” Claire whispered, her voice shaking so violently she could barely form words. “Grant, help me. Grace... Grace can’t breathe right. She’s burning up. Eli won’t eat. The power is out. It’s so cold... it’s so damn cold...”
Hearing her broken voice hit Grant like a bullet through the lungs. “Claire! Where are you? Tell me right now! Don't hang up, baby, please don't hang up!”
“The cabin... my grandma’s old place in Shawnee Forest... near Equality. Grant, I’m so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt them. I just wanted them away from your lies... but I can’t keep them warm. Please save them. Please don't let our babies die.”
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“Listen to me!” Grant roared, already sprinting down the hallway, kicking open the double doors of his mansion. “I am coming! Keep them under your clothes, skin-to-skin! Do you hear me? Put wood on the fire! I am already in the air!”
He didn't wait for a reply. He screamed into his earpiece at Daniel: “Get the twin-engine rescue chopper prepped at the helipad! Scramble the pediatric medical team from Northwestern! We are heading south to Shawnee. If anyone slows us down, I will bury them!”
