The Sanctuary

The heat of the fire was a physical weight, pressing against my back as I scrambled away from the Carriage House. I didn't look at Julian. I didn't look at the flames licking up the side of the brickwork. I just ran.

I slipped on the wet grass, my knees slamming into the earth, but I scrambled up and kept going until my hand hit the cold brass of the back door handle. I threw myself inside, slamming the door against the storm and the smoke.

I locked the deadbolt. Then the slide bolt. Then I dragged a heavy kitchen chair under the knob.

Only then did I let myself collapse.

I slid down the cabinets to the floor, my chest heaving, my lungs burning with the acrid taste of gasoline. I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered.

I looked at my hands. They were covered in mud and soot. And blood. Not mine.

Julian’s blood.

I wiped them on my jeans, but the stain just smeared, dark and sticky.

*Call the police.*

The thought was instinctual. A reflex. I reached for the wall phone, the receiver slippery in my grip. I dialed 9-1-1.

My finger hovered over the last digit.

Through the window above the sink, I could see the orange glow of the fire intensifying against the rain. It looked like a beacon. A signal fire.

If I called, the fire department would come. Then the police. They would find the Carriage House. They would find the server room, or what was left of it. They would find the tunnel.

And they would find Julian.

Dead or alive, he was a smoking gun.

If they found him, they would ask questions. Why was a dead man living on our property? Who paid for the scotch? Who paid for the servers?

*Who accepted a half-million-dollar wire transfer from a shell company an hour ago?*

I stared at the phone.

If I called, Richard would go to prison. He had harbored a fugitive. He had facilitated fraud.

And I would go with him. I was the one with the money in my account. I was the one who had unlocked the gate. I was the one who had pulled him from the fire.

I wasn't a victim anymore. I was an accomplice.

I slowly hung up the phone. The click was loud in the silent kitchen.

I was protecting the man who had lied to me for twenty-five years. I was protecting the monster who had laughed as the roof caught fire.

Because the alternative was losing Maya. Her tuition. Her future. The Vance name would be ash, just like the Carriage House.

I stood up, my legs trembling. I went to the sink and turned on the tap, scrubbing my hands until the water ran clear.

I had to wake Richard. We had to come up with a story. A lightning strike. An electrical fire. Anything but the truth.

I turned off the tap.

A noise came from the mudroom. Not a knock.

A scratch.

Like a dog trying to get in. Or a fingernail on glass.

I froze.

He wasn't gone. He wasn't running for the woods.

He was right there.

"Helen," a voice whispered from the other side of the door. "It's cold out here."

I backed away, grabbing a carving knife from the block.

"Go away," I hissed.

"I can't," Julian said. "I lost my keys."

He laughed, a low, wet sound that raised the hair on my arms.

"You didn't save me, Helen," he whispered. "You just let me out."

I looked at the locks. The deadbolt. The chair. They seemed flimsy now. Paper barriers against a hurricane.

I wasn't just trapped in a house of lies.

The jailer was inside the gates.