Chapter 38 - The Edge of the Sea Wall
The wind off the Atlantic was deafening, carrying freezing salt spray that froze instantly on my coat as I sprinted down the winding stone stairs carved into the cliffside.
Two of my security guards, their tactical flashlights cutting through the driving snow, were ahead of me, boots slipping on the icy granite.
"Hold perimeter at the slip!" I yelled over the roar of the surf. "Don't let the tender clear the breakwater!"
The boathouse was an old stone structure built into the base of the limestone cliff, protected from the open ocean by a heavy timber sea gate. As we rounded the final switchback, the roar of a twin-diesel marine engine echoed against the rocks.
A sleek, forty-foot offshore cabin cruiser was already idling in the slip, its running lights dark, casting long, menacing shadows across the black water.
Standing on the wooden dock, clad in a dark storm coat, was Julianna Vance.
She wasn't running. She held a heavy leather briefcase in one hand, her blonde hair whipping wild in the freezing gale, watching us descend with a chilling, calm amusement.
"Stop right there, Julianna!" I shouted, reaching the wooden planks of the dock, the guards fanning out with sidearms drawn.
"You're too late, Nicholas," she called back, her voice carrying clear and steady over the howling wind. "You always were. Too late to Aspen. Too late to the clinic. And much too late to save the Vance portfolio."
"The police are at the gates," I said, advancing slowly, keeping my hands visible. "The fingerprints on the glass in the nursery will put you in a state penitentiary for attempted poisoning and burglary."
Julianna laughed—a sharp, melodic sound that sounded horribly like my mother's. "Poison? It was Ambien, brother. Just enough to ensure your dear wife looked sufficiently incapacitated when Mercer arrived for her surprise follow-up. But it doesn't matter now."
She raised the leather briefcase. "Everything is in here. The original corporate stock certificates Eleanor signed over before she took her final cocktail. The bearer bonds from the Zurich account. I am the legal head of the family trust now, Nicholas. You and your broken wife are just tenants living on my charity."
"My father died twenty-eight years ago," I said, stepping closer, holding her gaze, refusing to let her see the tremor in my jaw. "Eleanor's affair was documented in the medical records Meline found tonight. The Swiss birth certificate isn't an inheritance claim, Julianna. Under Maine probate law, a child born out of wedlock from an unacknowledged foreign union has zero claim to an ancestral trust without prior testamentary inclusion."
Julianna’s smile flickered, a crack appearing in her porcelain composure. "Eleanor included me. She amended the charter."
"She tried to," a new voice came from the top of the dock stairs.
Meline stood there, wrapped in a heavy sheepskin coat, holding Samuel wrapped tightly against her chest under the canvas sling. Behind her stood Arthur Vance, his breath ragged from the climb, holding a manila folder bound in red ribbon.
"The amendment required two trustee signatures, Julianna," Arthur called out, his legal voice cutting through the storm. "Eleanor signed. But the second trustee was Richard’s estate administrator—which has been me for thirty years. I never signed it. Your trust is null and void."
Julianna took a step back toward the edge of the dock, her eyes darting between Arthur, Meline, and the dark water churning below.
"You think you can just erase me?" she screamed, all her poise disintegrating into raw, feral malice. "I lived in Eleanor’s shadows for twenty-five years! I was her daughter, and she kept me like a paid companion while you had the town cars and the private boarding schools!"
"Eleanor was a monster to everyone she touched," I said quietly, reaching out a hand, only six feet from her now. "Step away from the boat, Julianna. Don't throw your life away for an empty vault."
Julianna looked down at the briefcase, then back at me. A twisted, desperate resolve settled over her face.
"If I can't have Crescent Crest," she whispered, "nobody will."
May you like
With a sudden, violent motion, she didn't throw the briefcase into the water—she threw it hard against the electric marine breaker box mounted to the boathouse piling, swinging her free hand toward the fuel line of the idling cruiser.
***
