Chapter 10 - Night Run
At 1:00 AM, the estate grounds were silent under a heavy sheet of drizzle. Julian had replaced his tailored dress shirt with a dark jacket and jeans. In the garage, he bypassed the luxury sedans and unlocked an older, nondescript utility truck once used by the estate’s groundskeepers.
Clara slipped into the passenger seat, wearing a borrowed rain slicker. Eleanor had been settled under the care of a trusted private nurse whom Julian had known for a decade—the only medical professional outside Henderson’s sphere of influence.
""Are you sure you want to do this, Mr. Vance?"" Clara asked quietly as the engine turned over with a low rumble. ""You are risking your entire position at the company.""
""Stop calling me Mr. Vance,"" Julian said, steering the truck through the unlit service gate behind the stables, avoiding the front driveway entirely. ""My father spent his life teaching me how to protect the bottom line. He forgot to teach me how to look at myself in the mirror.""
They hit the interstate, heading west toward the industrial corridors of Ohio. The steady rhythm of the windshield wipers matched the nervous beat of Clara’s heart. For hours, neither of them spoke, yet the silence between them had shifted from hostility to an uneasy, shared resolve.
As the dawn began to crack over the rust-belt skyline of Dayton, Clara pointed toward an exit lined with shuttered diner fronts and overgrown railway sidings.
May you like
""Turn left at the grain silo,"" she said, her voice tightening. ""The house is at the end of Maple Street.""
Julian pulled the truck onto the cracked asphalt. Down the block, standing on a weed-choked patch of dead grass, stood a modest two-story craftsman house. The windows were covered in plywood, and a bright yellow NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE & SEIZURE was stapled across the front door.
