Chapter 4 - Locked Away While the Clock Counted Down
The gatehouse holding room had a magnetic lock.
Penny discovered that within six minutes.
She also discovered the circuit feeding it came from a panel she had inspected that afternoon.
That was the first useful thing.
The second useful thing arrived at 12:31 a.m.
A young guard named Evan Pierce appeared outside her barred window.
He had been the embarrassed gate guard assigned to follow her earlier in the week.
He slipped a folded piece of paper through the opening.
Penny unfolded it.
Three words.
New light installed.
She looked up.
Evan was already walking away.
Her pulse jumped.
Mercer had replaced the floodlight.
Of course he had.
Penny checked the clock.
12:32.
If the new lamp contained another relay, Dominic had less than half an hour.
She shouted for the guard outside her cell.
No answer.
She kicked the door.
“Hey!”
Nothing.
Then Penny understood.
This was not a detention.
Mercer expected Dominic to suffer another attack upstairs.
And Penny was locked far enough away to be useless.
She looked at the magnetic lock.
Then smiled without humor.
“You picked the wrong room.”
At 12:47, Dominic lay in bed fully dressed.
His pistol rested beneath his right hand.
The curtains were deliberately positioned exactly as they had been for four years.
He was not alone in the plan.
Two captains waited in dark rooms downstairs.
Evan Pierce had been ordered to inspect the new floodlight.
At 12:38 he had reported what he found.
A second relay.
New.
Programmed for 1:00 a.m.
That was the evidence Dominic needed.
Evidence installed on Mercer’s order after Penny had already been locked away.
Still, Dominic did nothing.
Not yet.
Because a device did not reveal every traitor.
Fear did.
So Dominic lay in the room everyone believed he would die before allowing another person to enter.
And downstairs, Caleb Mercer checked his watch.
12:49.
In the gatehouse, Penny removed the metal cover from the electrical panel using the edge of her belt buckle.
“Come on.”
She pulled the first fuse.
Nothing.
Second.
Hall light died.
Third.
The magnetic lock released.
Penny shoved the door open.
Cold air hit her face.
The estate spread before her.
To the left was the outer fence.
Twenty yards.
Beyond it was the road.
Her van.
Freedom.
She could leave.
She had been accused, threatened, locked up and nearly electrocuted.
Dominic had gotten her into a private war she never asked to join.
Nobody on earth could blame her for running.
Then the courtyard floodlight flickered.
Once.
Not full brightness.
Just a faint electrical awakening.
Penny stared.
12:57.
She looked toward the fence.
Then toward the mansion.
“Damn you, Dad.”
Her father’s voice seemed to answer from fourteen years of memory.
A circuit doesn’t lie, Peanut.
People do.
Penny ran toward the house.
A guard crossed the yard.
She dropped behind a stack of firewood.
His boots passed six feet away.
Penny held her breath.
The guard disappeared.
12:58.
She sprinted.
The ladder she had used earlier remained beside the floodlight mast.
Penny climbed.
Every rung groaned under her boots.
Halfway up, someone shouted.
“Stop!”
Penny climbed faster.
12:59.
The floodlight flashed.
Dominic saw it through the curtain.
Once.
His fingers tightened around the pistol.
Downstairs Mercer stopped moving.
Second flash.
Penny reached the housing.
No wrench.
No screwdriver.
Nothing.
She grabbed the steel bracket with both hands.
The edge bit into her injured palm.
She pulled.
Nothing.
Third flash.
Inside the mansion, Dominic rolled away from the direct beam.
His muscles tightened involuntarily.
“Come on,” Penny gasped.
She put one boot against the mast and pulled with everything she had.
A bolt tore loose.
The bracket swung sideways.
Penny screamed and ripped it free.
Then she drove the metal housing into the glass.
The floodlight shattered.
Darkness swallowed the courtyard.
Inside the mansion, Dominic opened his eyes.
The clock read 12:59.
May you like
The light was dead.
He stood.
