Chapter 39 - The Shattered Wainscot
The door to Sanford’s old study had been broken off its hinges with a fire axe taken from the hall closet.
Inside, the room was in total ruin. Books were ripped from the mahogany shelves, their leather bindings torn and scattered across the Oriental rug. Sanford's hand-carved desk had been overturned, its drawers smashed to kindling.
In the far corner of the room, behind where Sanford's portrait had hung for thirty years, the mahogany wainscoting had been ripped violently away from the lathe and plaster, revealing a heavy floor safe built directly into the brick chimney stack.
Sitting on the floor in front of the open safe, surrounded by piles of scorched bank receipts, was Raymond Vance.
His suit was torn to ribbons, his face coated in dried blood and gray river silt. His left shoulder hung at an unnatural angle, dislocated from his drop into the gorge. In his right hand, he held a heavy silver lighter, flicking the wheel repeatedly.
*Flick. Flick. Flick.*
A small yellow flame sparked to life, illuminating his sunken, feverish eyes.
"Drop the lighter, Raymond!" Miller shouted, stepping into the doorway, both hands locked on his weapon. "Drop it now!"
Raymond didn't look at the police. He turned his bloodshot eyes directly to me, a grotesque, broken smile spreading across his cracked lips.
"You look just like her, Abigail," he whispered, his voice rattling in his chest like dry gravel. "Standing there in white silk, looking down at me like you're the judge."
"It's over, Dad," I said, my voice surprisingly clear, devoid of fear, filled only with a deep, bottomless exhaustion. "We opened the vault under the flume. We have the transfer slips. We have Sanford's letter. We know what happened to my mother."
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Raymond gave a dry, hacking laugh that ended in a cough of dark blood. "Sanford was a hypocrite! He preached honor while he watched me build this family from the dirt! He thought he could bury me with paper? Paper burns, Abigail! Everything burns!"
He lowered the flame toward the pile of kerosene-soaked ledgers stacked between his knees.
