Chapter 2 - The Five-Year Ghost
Maggie stood over the Bilco doors at the back of the house, shining her flashlight at the heavy hasp. The padlock had been cut clean with thirty-six-inch bolt cutters. The severed pieces lay in the mulch like dead beetles.
“He didn't take his Audi,” Maggie said, stepping back onto the patio. She pointed her beam toward the detached two-car garage.
Through the salt-encrusted windows of the garage, Victor’s silver A6 sat parked under the fluorescent light, gleaming and stationary.
“Then what did he drive?” I asked.
“The Land Cruiser,” Lena’s neighbor had told us five minutes later, when Maggie banged on the adjacent door with her badge held flat against the glass.
The neighbor, a retired accountant named Arthur who suffered from insomnia, had been standing at his window with a mug of chamomile tea. He was trembling in his flannel robe, terrified by Maggie’s stare and the sheer cold fury radiating from my face.
“He loaded three heavy duffel bags into the rear around eleven,” Arthur said, blinking behind thick bifocals. “Then he brought Lena out. She... she was walking strangely. Like she had a migraine or was heavily sedated. He had his arm wrapped completely around her waist, supporting her weight. I thought she was sick. I almost opened the window to ask if they needed help, but Victor looked up at my house. He just... stared at my window for five seconds. His face was completely blank. It gave me the shivers, Nora. Then he carried little Ellie out wrapped in that pink quilt her grandmother made.”
“Which way did he go?” I demanded.
“North. Toward Route 206. He didn’t turn his headlights on until he reached the end of the cul-de-sac.”
We went back into Victor’s study.
If you want to understand what a man hides, you don’t look at his garbage. You look at what he curates.
Victor’s office was a shrine to manufactured pedigree. Diplomas from Columbia and Wharton—both in gilded frames. A photograph of him shaking hands with a former state governor at a charity gala. An antique mahogany roll-top desk that smelled of beeswax and linseed oil.
“The code from the planner,” I said, walking directly to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. “*4812.*”
Maggie was already at the desk, using latex gloves to flick through the desk drawers. “Most wall safes are behind the artwork. It’s a cliché because it’s convenient.”
“Victor doesn't do clichés,” I said.
I knew Victor’s mind better than he realized. He was a creature of structural vanity. He believed he was smarter than everyone in the room, which meant his hiding places wouldn't be behind a painting of a sailboat. They would be somewhere that required specific, deliberate knowledge of his own accomplishments.
I scanned the shelves. History texts. Economic journals. Biographies of Bismarck, Rockefeller, and Robert Moses.
Then I saw it.
Volume four of an eight-volume leather-bound set of the *Encyclopedia of American Finance*.
1984 edition.
Victor was born in December of 1984.
I pulled volume four. It didn’t slide out smoothly; it tilted forward on a hinge. Behind it sat a digital keypad with a small biometric thumb-scanner.
“Code’s four digits,” Maggie said, stepping beside me. “Try the 4812.”
My fingers were cold, but my hand was steady. I punched the keys: *4 - 8 - 1 - 2.*
The electronic lock beeped twice, high and sharp, followed by the heavy, hydraulic click of motorized bolts withdrawing. The false panel popped forward a quarter of an inch.
I pulled it open.
There was no cash inside. No bearer bonds.
There was a manila folder, five inches thick, bound with heavy red rubber bands. On the front of the folder, written in black grease marker, was a name that made no sense to me:
*JULIANNE VANCE – SETTLEMENT & CLOSURE (2019).*
Maggie frowned, leaning closer. “Julianne Vance? That name... wait. Five years ago. South Jersey.”
“What is it?” I asked, snapping the rubber bands off.
“There was a disappearance down in Cape May County. Five years ago this month. An heiress to a commercial real estate holding company. Julianne Vance. Her boat was found drifted three miles off Stone Harbor with the throttle set to idle and her diamond watch sitting on the dashboard. They never found the body. It was ruled an accidental drowning or a suicide.”
I flipped the folder open.
The first photograph was an 8x10 glossy portrait of a stunning woman with dark hair, high cheekbones, and green eyes that looked uncannily like Lena’s. She was smiling at a camera from the deck of a yacht.
Beside her, with his arm wrapped securely around her waist in that exact, possessive grip Arthur had described minutes ago, was Victor.
Only his hair was dyed jet-black, he wore thick tortoiseshell glasses, and the name printed on his VIP boat club pass pinned to his linen shirt was not Victor Vance or Victor Sterling.
It was *Dr. Christian Ward.*
Beneath the photograph was an international wire transfer receipt dated three days before Julianne Vance went missing.
*Amount: $4,200,000 USD.*
*Recipient: Blue Lantern Logistics, Grand Cayman.*
I stared at the name on the receipt.
*Blue Lantern.*
Lena hadn’t remembered our fourteen-year-old safety phrase out of thin air. She hadn’t just picked it because of Daniel’s old bedtime rules.
May you like
She had found this file. She had seen that name. And she knew that whoever “Dr. Christian Ward” was, he had killed a woman five years ago using the exact same financial vehicle he was now using on her.
***
