My brother-in-law trapped me at my father-in-law’s estate and pushed papers toward me, saying
Chapter 3
We escaped the estate while hired guards searched everywhere outside
The lock clicked, and I moved before fear could freeze me. I checked the window overlooking the greenhouse and garden shed while Leo stirred on the sofa. “Mom?” he whispered. “Why is the door locked?” I knelt, held his face gently, and told him we were going to play a quiet game, just like the brave adventures his father used to invent. Leo swallowed hard. “Is Uncle trying to hurt us?” I would not lie. “He’s trying to stop us from leaving. So we’re leaving anyway.”
Using a heavy brass paperweight, I pried open the old window latch. Cold air rushed into the office. I tied the long velvet drapes around the radiator pipe and tested the knot twice. Below us, the shed roof looked impossibly far away. “Hold on to me,” I told Leo. “No matter what.” He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and I climbed over the sill with the tote bag strapped across my body.
The fabric burned through my palms as we slid down. My boots hit the shed roof, then the wet grass. For one second, everything was silent. Then a man shouted from the driveway. Flashlights began sweeping across the greenhouse. “Run, Leo.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the trees, branches catching my coat as boots crashed through the brush behind us.
We were aiming for the highway when a hand shot from behind a thick oak and caught my shoulder. I swung my tote instinctively. “Elena, stop. It’s me.” A flashlight clicked on, aimed at the ground. The stranger from the bus stood there in a dark tactical jacket, a radio clipped to his chest. “Marcus?” I gasped. “Your brother-in-law sent four men into the woods,” he said. “We have ninety seconds before they circle the ridge. Follow me.”
Marcus led us down a drainage ravine beneath the railway tracks, away from the search teams above. Half a mile away, hidden beside a gravel quarry, a gray pickup waited. He lifted Leo safely into the cab, then started the engine and rolled onto the dark highway.
“Arthur called me three days ago,” Marcus said. “He knew his younger son was planning to force your signature the moment you arrived. He was too weak to stop him alone, so he gave me your bus information.” I stared at him. “Arthur set this up?” Marcus nodded. “He played the dying man to buy you time. The handkerchief was the signal. If you pretended to be dizzy, you could delay signing.” As the estate disappeared behind us, another truth settled over me: Arthur had deceived me too, but this time the lie had been meant to keep Leo alive and get us out.
