Chapter 9 - ALONE AND RUNNING
My hands shook violently as I drove. The road curved sharply through the hills, the headlights cutting through darkness that felt thick and suffocating. Every shadow looked like a figure. Every sound made my heart leap.
Adrian was trapped. Inside Sterling’s house. With two dangerous men and a judge who had already planned our deaths.
I gripped the steering wheel until my fingers ached. I could not think about what was happening there. I could not break down. Not yet. I had to get to the police. I had to bring help. I had to save him.
I reached for my phone to call Detective Miller.
It was dead.
I stared at the black screen in horror. It had been fully charged when we left the house. Someone must have jammed the signal. Or drained it remotely. Or… Sterling had planned that too.
He had known we were coming. He had known we would call for help. He had cut us off from the world before we even stepped through his door.
Tears spilled over. I wiped them away furiously. There was no time to cry. There was only the road. And the police station, miles away on the other side of the city.
I drove faster.
When I finally reached the station, I burst through the doors breathless, my face streaked with tears, my clothes disheveled. Officers turned to look at me.
“I need Detective Miller!” I gasped. “It’s an emergency!”
She came out immediately, seeing my face. She took me into her office, sat me down, and handed me a glass of water.
“Clara,” she said gently. “Slow down. Tell me what happened.”
I told her everything. The meeting. The confession. The button. The men. Adrian shoving me toward the door. Adrian staying behind.
Detective Miller stood up before I finished. She grabbed her radio and issued orders—units to Sterling’s estate immediately, backup, roadblocks, everything.
“Stay here,” she told me. “I’m going myself.”
“Take me with you,” I pleaded.
She looked at me, then nodded. “Come on. But stay in the car.”
We drove in silence, lights flashing, siren wailing into the night. Every second felt like an hour. Every mile brought a fresh wave of terror. What had they done to him? Had they hurt him? Was he still alive?
When we arrived at Sterling’s estate, the gates stood wide open. Multiple police cars were already there. Officers with flashlights were moving through the house.
Detective Miller and I ran inside. The study was in chaos—overturned chairs, broken glass, books scattered across the floor. But there was no Adrian. No Sterling. No men.
And no sign of a struggle beyond what I had already seen.
One of the officers approached Detective Miller. “We swept the entire property. No sign of Judge Sterling. No sign of Adrian Holloway. No sign of any intruders. The staff claims no one has visited tonight.”
My heart sank. “That’s impossible! We were here! Adrian was here! They took him!”
Detective Miller turned to the officer. “Check the rear wing. The basement. Any outbuildings. Check the grounds thoroughly.”
Hours passed. They searched everywhere. Every room. Every closet. Every inch of that sprawling estate.
They found nothing.
No Adrian. No Sterling. No men. No trace that anyone besides the staff had ever been there.
It was as if Adrian had vanished into thin air.
Detective Miller found me sitting on the front steps, shivering in the cold. She sat beside me.
“I have officers watching every road,” she said quietly. “Every airport. Every train station. If they took him, we will find them.”
“But they covered their tracks,” I said hollowly. “Just like they planned everything else.”
Detective Miller was silent for a moment. Then she said something that made my blood run cold.
“Clara… I need you to listen to me very carefully. We found something in the study. Something that concerns you.”
She handed me a photograph. It had been pulled from Adrian’s car—apparently left there earlier that day. On the back, in Adrian’s handwriting, was a short note: If anything happens to me, Clara is to be the girls’ guardian.
I looked up at her, confused.
“That proves he trusted me!”
“It does,” Detective Miller said. “But there’s something else. When we checked the house… we found a bottle on the floor near the struggle. A bottle with traces of a sedative. And your fingerprints are on it.”
I stared at her. “That’s impossible. I never touched it.”
“I believe you,” she said. “But someone went to a great deal of trouble to make it look like you drugged Adrian. Fought with him. And then helped him disappear.”
“Sterling set me up,” I whispered. “Just like he planned everything else.”
May you like
Detective Miller nodded grimly.
“Which means,” she said quietly, “Sterling isn’t just trying to get away. He’s trying to frame you. For everything.”
