Chapter 28 - The Architect Revealed
The inside of Blackwood Cathedral was a cavernous tomb of rotten timber and shattered stained glass. Rain poured through the collapsed vaulted roof, pooling on the ancient flagstones below.
Julian and I entered through the splintered double doors, our flashlights cutting through the mist and darkness.
"Garrick!" my voice echoed off the damp stone walls, sharp and unforgiving.
A shadow moved behind the high altar.
"Stay back!" a voice shrieked. It was ragged, panicked, stripped of every trace of arrogance.
Garrick stepped out from behind the crumbling stone altar. He was drenched, covered in mud, clutching an open duffel bag packed with thick stacks of bearer bonds and velvet bags of diamonds. In his right hand, shaking violently, he held a chrome revolver aimed directly at my chest.
"You ruined everything, Clara!" Garrick screamed, tears cutting tracks through the soot on his cheeks. "Everything! My mother is in prison! My family name is garbage! High Ridge belongs to me! It was always supposed to belong to me!"
"It was never yours, Garrick," Julian said, stepping slightly in front of me, his voice calm, steady, measured. "You were an errand boy for my father. Even your mother knew you were too pathetic to run anything on your own."
"Shut up, Julian! Shut up!" Garrick waved the gun frantically between the two of us. "I should have shot her at the wedding! I shouldn't have listened to my mother! I should have put a bullet in your head the second you walked down that aisle, Clara!"
"Why didn't you, Garrick?" I asked, taking a slow, deliberate step forward, ignoring the trembling barrel of the gun.
"Clara, don't," Julian warned in a low whisper.
I didn't stop. I walked closer, my boots splashing through the puddles on the stone floor. Every memory came rushing back: the laughter of the guests, the cold smear of the white frosting, the humiliation that had threatened to drown me in despair.
"You didn't shoot me because you wanted to see me beg," I said, my voice cutting through the sound of the rain. "You wanted to see me broken on the floor, because deep down, you knew you were inferior. You knew that without your mother's money and Arthur's orders, you were nothing. You couldn't even bake a single loaf of bread, yet you tried to steal an entire legacy."
"I have the gun, Clara!" Garrick sobbed, his finger tightening on the trigger. "I have the power! I decide who lives and who dies!"
"Then pull the trigger, Garrick," I said, stopping barely ten feet away from him, staring right into his hollow, terrified eyes. "Pull it. Show the world what a big, strong man you are."
His hand shook violently. The barrel wavered. His chest heaved with ragged, pathetic sobs.
He couldn't do it.
He was a bully whose cruelty only functioned when his victim was defenceless and surrounded by an applauding crowd. Face to face with the woman he had tried to destroy, in the ruins of an ancient church, he was completely hollow.
"Drop the weapon, Garrick," Julian commanded, stepping up beside me, his voice carrying the authority of an executioner. "It's over."
Garrick looked down at the gun in his hand, then at the duffel bag full of stolen paper, and let out a broken, pathetic wail.
His fingers loosened. The chrome revolver slipped from his grip, clattering harmlessly onto the wet flagstones.
Garrick fell to his knees in the puddle, burying his face in his hands, weeping uncontrollably.
Before Julian could move forward to secure him, a sharp, metallic click echoed from the shadowed gallery above the choir loft.
Julian’s eyes widened in horror. "Clara, down!"
*CRACK!*
A high-caliber rifle shot echoed through the cathedral.
May you like
Garrick’s weeping stopped instantly. A small, neat hole appeared in the center of his forehead, and his body collapsed forward onto the wet stones, motionless.
***
