I caught my husband kissing my older sister in my mother’s kitchen while twenty people celebrated my father’s sixty-fifth birthday in the next room. / Chapter 28 / 120

Chapter 28 - The Ghost Speaks

"You forgot one detail, sister," Margaret said, her voice steady and clear despite her trembling body. "The United States Coast Guard still monitors the old maritime emergency frequency Father installed in the harbor office. The frequency that links directly to the federal maritime commissioner in Boston."

Eleanor’s cold composure cracked for the very first time. Her eyes darted to the black radio in Margaret’s hand. "That frequency was decommissioned twenty years ago!"

"For commercial traffic, yes," Liam said with a sharp, lethal grin. "Not for federal harbor police monitoring international smuggling corridors. We activated that relay thirty minutes ago when you breached the lower gate, Eleanor."

From the distance, through the howling wind and crashing waves of the bluff, the low, rhythmic thrum of heavy helicopter rotors vibrated through the floorboards.

Outside, the storm was suddenly pierced by blinding twin spotlights descending from the clouds. The deafening roar of a Coast Guard Sikorsky helicopter hovered directly over our bluff lawn, flattening the surrounding pines beneath a hurricane of downdraft.

Blue and red strobe lights flooded through every shattered window of the house.

The two tactical guards immediately lowered their weapons, looking at each other in panicked hesitation.

"Drop your weapons! Federal agents! Lay your weapons on the ground!" a booming voice amplified through a loudspeaker shook the walls.

"Shoot them!" Eleanor shrieked, losing every shred of her aristocratic poise. Her face contorted into a mask of pure, demonic rage. "I paid you five hundred thousand dollars! Shoot them now!"

The lead guard didn't even look at her. He dropped his assault rifle onto the rug, kicked it away, and dropped to his knees with his hands interlaced behind his head. The second guard followed suit within seconds.

"Traitors! Incompetent cowards!" Eleanor screamed, lunging toward the fallen rifle on the floor.

Dad moved faster than I had ever seen him move.

He stepped between Eleanor and the weapon, his heavy, work-hardened fisherman’s hand catching her by the wrist and twisting it upward. The gold-plated umbrella clattered to the floor.