Chapter 4 - The Escape into the Night
The jagged edge of the broken window scraped my forearm, tearing my jacket and drawing a sharp line of blood, but I didn't feel the pain. I squeezed through the opening after Mom, tumbling awkwardly onto the wet gravel of the alleyway.
Rain had started to fall, turning the Seattle evening into a shimmering sheet of gray and neon reflections.
“Mom, stay with me! Can you walk?” I panted, pulling her up against my shoulder as we stumbled down the dark alleyway away from the house.
“My legs... feel like lead, Nora,” Mom murmured, her head resting against my chest.
Footsteps pounded behind us. Rex had cleared the window with terrifying speed. His deep, angry voice echoed down the narrow brick corridor between the houses. “You can’t run far, little girl! Give it up!”
I spotted my rental car parked three blocks away near the corner convenience store. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. If Rex caught us here, in the dark, with no witnesses, there was no telling what he and Valerie would do to protect their illegal scheme.
We rounded the corner just as the headlights of my sedan came into view. I fumbled in my pocket, hit the unlock button, and shoved Mom into the passenger seat, buckling her in with shaking hands.
I jumped into the driver's seat, slammed the door, and locked it instantly. A second later, Rex appeared out of the shadows, slamming his massive fists onto the hood of my car, leaving a heavy dent right above the grille. He glared through the windshield, his face twisted into a vicious snarl, shouting something I couldn't hear over the roar of the engine.
I slammed the gearshift into reverse, jerked the wheel, and tore out of the alleyway, tires screeching against the wet pavement.
In the rearview mirror, Rex stood under the flickering streetlamp, pulling his phone out just like Valerie had, his lips moving as he issued orders to someone else.
I drove straight to Harborview Medical Center.
Within twenty minutes of arriving at the emergency entrance, a team of nurses and doctors swarmed my mother, wheeling her into a trauma bay as I frantically explained her condition: weeks of severe sedation, dehydration, and systematic medical abuse by her own daughter.
As Mom was hooked up to IV fluids and heart monitors in a secure room, a weary-looking ER doctor with kind eyes walked out to speak with me in the hallway.
“She’s severely malnourished, Ms. Vance,” the doctor said, holding a clipboard. “The toxicology screen will take a few hours, but based on the pill bottles you brought from the house, she was being given doses of central nervous system depressants that could easily have been fatal given her age. She’s lucky you came back when you did.”
I nodded slowly, leaning against the sterile hospital wall. The relief of knowing Mom was safe was immediately replaced by a burning, unquenchable anger. Valerie thought she had won because she had a thug like Rex backing her up with forged deeds and intimidation. She didn't realize that I hadn't spent six years building corporate supply chains in Singapore by being weak.
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I pulled out my phone, bypassed my normal contacts, and dialed a private number I hadn't used in years—Marcus Reed, a high-powered forensic real estate litigator in downtown Seattle who owed me a massive professional favor.
“Marcus,” I said the moment he picked up. “I need you, your entire investigative team, and a police escort at 442 Elmwood Drive in two hours. We’re taking my house back.”
