Chapter 6 - The Fight for Survival
The heavy brass poker sliced through the air, missing my temple by mere inches as I threw myself to the left. The metal slammed into the granite countertop with a deafening crack, sending a shower of sparks and broken stone flying into the dark kitchen.
I scrambled across the floor, my hands slipping on the dry soil I had spilled.
"You're not leaving this house, David!" Patricia shrieked, her voice echoing off the high kitchen ceiling. She swung the poker again, this time catching my shoulder.
A blinding pain flared down my arm, and I fell back against the refrigerator, my breath escaping in a sharp, ragged gasp. The bag of soil slipped from my fingers, sliding across the floor toward the dining room.
I couldn't let her get that soil. It was the only proof we had left.
I kicked out with my foot, catching Patricia in the shin. She stumbled back with a curse, her leather flats losing traction on the dry dirt.
Using every ounce of strength I had left, I tackled her around the waist. We both slammed into the kitchen island, tumbling to the floor in a heap of limbs and broken pottery. The smell of the sour laundry room seemed to hang over us like a physical presence.
Patricia was surprisingly strong, fueled by a manic, desperate energy. She clawed at my face, her sharp fingernails tearing into my cheek, drawing warm, sticky blood.
"I gave you everything!" she screamed in my face, her breath hot and rancid. "I put up with your pathetic grief! I held your hand while you cried for her! I deserved this!"
I managed to pin her wrists to the floor, my weight pressing down on her chest. "You're going to prison, Patricia. For Emily. For Ava. For Lucas."
She glared up at me, a bloody, defiant smile spreading across her lips. "You think you can prove it? The soil? The journals? Any lawyer will say you planted them. You have no case, David. I’ll be out on bail by tomorrow morning, and then I’m coming for your kids."
"No," a voice boomed from the hallway. "You're not."
The bright beam of a high-powered police flashlight cut through the kitchen darkness, blinding us both.
"State police! Don't move!"
Detective Vance stepped into the kitchen, his service weapon drawn and aimed directly at Patricia’s chest. Behind him, three uniform officers flooded the room, their boots loud against the hardwood.
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They pulled me off her, pinning Patricia to the floor and pulling her arms behind her back with a series of sharp, metallic clicks.
"David Miller, you are the most stubborn man I’ve ever met," Vance said, helping me to my feet. He looked at my bleeding cheek and my bruised shoulder, then down at the plastic bag of soil lying near the dining room table. "But I suppose you got what we needed."
