Chapter 33 - THE CIPHER OF THE SHADOW FOUNDER
*“He is in her house.”*
The words burned into my retinas like acid.
"Julian... what does this mean?" I asked, my breath shallow and rapid. "'He is in her house'? Which house? Oakridge? The cottage?"
Before Julian could answer, the heavy study doors shuddered under a polite, gentle knock.
"Mom? Julian?" Derek’s voice came through the wood, warm and relaxed. "Dinner is ready. Evelyn made your favorite lamb roast to celebrate our six-month anniversary here. Come on out before it gets cold."
Julian and I stared at each other in the dim amber light of the study.
"Clara," Julian whispered, leaning in close, his voice barely audible over the patter of rain. "Arthur Miller did not have three enemies. He had four. And the fourth man... was someone Arthur trusted so completely that he named him the secondary executor of your family estate if you and Derek should ever perish."
"Who, Julian? Who was Arthur’s closest friend outside of Victor Sterling?"
Julian looked toward the locked study door, his face pale as ash.
"Evelyn’s father," Julian breathed. "Richard Vance. Arthur’s chief corporate attorney."
My heart stopped.
Richard Vance. The quiet, dignified patriarch who had sat silently at that Easter dinner six months ago, watching his daughter pull the chair from beneath me without uttering a single word of protest. The man who had walked Evelyn down the aisle at her wedding to Derek. The man who currently held the master power-of-attorney documents for Derek’s personal trust.
And at that exact moment, from the hallway outside my locked study, I heard a second voice join Derek’s.
May you like
A deep, cultured, familiar laugh.
"Come now, Clara," Richard Vance’s smooth, aristocratic voice echoed through the keyhole, followed by the soft clink of a glass of wine. "Unlock the door. We’ve been waiting twenty-two years to have this dinner together."
