Chapter 33 - The Shadow in the Mirror
Mark laughed softly, releasing me. "Probably the feed store confirming Monday’s hay delivery. I’ll go grab it."
"No, I’ll get it," I said, brushing dirt from my knees. "My hands are freezing anyway. I’ll put the kettle on for some tea."
I walked back up the snowy slope toward the house, my boots crunching rhythmically against the crisp crust of snow. The kitchen was warm, filled with the comforting smell of dry oak wood burning in the antique cast-iron stove.
I picked up the receiver from the wall cradle. "Willow Creek Farm, Clara speaking."
There was a heavy pause on the line. The background was devoid of the usual domestic sounds—no television, no traffic, only the faint, rhythmic hiss of a high-grade satellite connection.
"Clara," a man’s voice spoke. It was deep, modulated, and entirely unfamiliar. It carried an accent that was neither American nor Swiss—something older, Continental, with an aristocratic chill.
"Who is this?" I asked, my fingers tightening on the hard plastic receiver.
"My name is not important yet, Mrs. Hayes," the man said smoothly. "What is important is that Julianne Sterling was remarkably efficient in concluding the matters regarding the Swiss sovereign trust."
My heart gave a sudden, sharp thud against my ribs. "The trust is closed. The deeds are registered with the state and federal courts. If you're another one of Vance’s creditors—"
"Julian Vance was an illiterate thug hired to rattle the front door," the man interrupted, a hint of mild amusement in his tone. "And the forty-two million Francs in Geneva was merely the operational account Donald used to pay municipal taxes. Donald Sterling was not a farmer, Clara. And he certainly was not a simple land speculator."
The caller paused, the sound of ice shifting in a glass coming through the line.
"Did Julianne show you the secondary compartment beneath the vault floor? The one marked with the crest of the British Admiralty?"
A cold bead of sweat formed at the nape of my neck. When the vault was open, I had noticed an iron hatch recessed into the floorboards beneath the document shelves, but Julianne had hurried us past it, claiming it was merely an old sump pump pit.
"No," I whispered.
"Of course she didn't," the man said softly. "Because Julianne didn't come to Willow Creek to save you, Clara. She came to secure the third key. The one Donald forged sixty years ago during his time in the diplomatic corps in Berlin."
Outside, through the kitchen window, I looked out toward the lower field where Mark was still working, his silhouette dark against the glowing winter snow. Beside the main driveway, near the ancient weeping willow, a pair of fresh tire tracks appeared in the virgin snow—tracks that hadn't been there twenty minutes ago, leading deep into the dense, shadowed pine woods bordering the southern ridge.
"What do you want?" my voice trembled, despite my effort to keep it steady.
"I don't want your farm, Clara," the voice replied, cold and deliberate. "I want the manifest Donald buried beneath that sump pump. And you have until the snow melts tonight to decide whether you want to open it for me... or let your aunt Julianne finish what your grandfather started."
May you like
The line went dead with a soft, hollow click.
I stood frozen in the warm kitchen, the receiver trembling in my hand, staring out the window into the encroaching darkness of the pines, where a single, cold light flickered once beneath the trees... and vanished.
