Chapter 18 - The Ambush on the Bluffs
While I was driving back toward Ozaukee County along the lake highway, Arthur Vance realized his legal net had snapped. Julian Mercer’s emergency countersuit had landed like a guided missile in the Milwaukee federal court at ten-thirty, accompanied by Captain Miller’s sworn affidavit and the Brown County records. Judge Thornton didn't issue the restraining order against our academy; instead, he issued an immediate bench warrant for Vance’s arrest on charges of forged land patents and attempted extortion.
A cornered wolf is at its most lethal.
Vance knew his European bank accounts would be frozen within hours. He knew his armored sedan couldn't clear the Canadian border before federal alerts were broadcast. Desperate, venomous, and driven by a family vendetta that had spanned half a century, he chose not to flee. He chose fire.
I reached the bottom of our private bluff road at two o'clock in the afternoon, only to find our iron entry gate smashed inward, the surveillance camera severed by shotgun blasts. Thick, black smoke was billowing up through the pines from the direction of the harbor basin!
"Hayes!" I screamed into my car’s hands-free system, accelerating up the steep gravel switchbacks as the tires spun wildly. "Hayes, answer me!"
"Lenora, do not come up to the main house!" Hayes’s voice roared through the speaker, breathless and punctuated by the sharp, concussive crack of gunfire echoing across the ravine. "Vance brought three armed contractors from his private security outfit! They’re trying to torch Slip 4 and the primary server archives in the academy basement!"
"Where is Marigold?!" I screamed, my vision tunneling with maternal terror.
"She’s in the safe room beneath the salt cellar with Veta and Barnaby! They’re locked in behind six inches of reinforced vault steel! Stay on the lower road!"
I didn't stay on the lower road. I slammed the gas pedal to the floorboard, tearing through the splintered gates and skidding into the clearing overlooking the harbor basin.
One of our maintenance sheds was fully engulfed in flames, roaring orange against the slate-gray sky. Two men in tactical gear were attempting to set fire to the primary administrative trailer with military flares. But Hayes wasn't hiding; he was a storm unleashed.
Emerging from the tree line with Grandfather’s 12-gauge, Hayes moved like a wraith through the smoke. He closed the distance on the first mercenary before the man could bring his rifle up, shattering the man’s collarbone with the heavy walnut stock, sending him crashing into the gravel. The second man fired wildly into the trees, but Hayes had already flanked him, tackling him to the earth with brutal, overpowering momentum and stripping his weapon in three seconds flat.
Then, through the blinding haze of the burning shed, I saw Arthur Vance.
He was standing on the stone terrace overlooking the water, clutching a five-gallon container of maritime diesel, his tailored overcoat stained with soot, his silver hair wild in the lake wind. He was pouring fuel directly over the exposed cedar beams of our home’s foundation.
"If the Vance family can't own this harbor," Vance screamed into the wind, pulling an antique brass lighter from his pocket, "then the Sterling bloodline will burn on the rocks!"
"Vance!" I roared, throwing my car into park and leaping out onto the terrace.
He whirled around, his eyes manic and bloodshot, thumbing the lighter’s flint. A spark leaped.
Before the flame could touch the diesel, an eighty-pound golden blur exploded from the side terrace door.
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Barnaby—who had somehow dug his way through the loose cellar window—leaped through the air like a guided projectile, his massive jaws clamping firmly onto Vance’s right forearm, dragging the gaunt man down onto the jagged flagstones with bone-crushing force. The lighter flew into the wet grass, extinguished by the lake drizzle.
***
