Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Foundation
The night was unyielding. Down in the security holding room located beneath the west carriage house, Evelyn Sterling sat on a steel bench, wrapped in a coarse wool blanket. Her manicured hands were stained with dirt, her mascara smudged into raccoon rings around her hollow eyes.
Arthur walked through the reinforced door alone. Vance stood outside, guarding the corridor.
Evelyn looked up, her expression oscillating wildly between defiant arrogance and pathetic desperation. "Arthur! You have no right to hold me here. This is false imprisonment. My attorney—"
"David Vance isn't coming, Evelyn," Arthur said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.
Evelyn's breath hitched. A tremor passed through her shoulders, fracturing the aristocratic poise she had maintained for over a year. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I know who you are. I know about Zurich. I know about the Burbank prosthetic. And I know about the offshore accounts in Grand Cayman." Arthur stepped into the fluorescent light, pulling a small silver recorder from his pocket and setting it on the metal table between them. "What I don't know... is Clara."
At the mention of Clara’s name, something dark and sinister flickered in Evelyn’s eyes. A slow, poisonous smile curved the corners of her mouth.
"Clara," Evelyn murmured, leaning back against the concrete wall. "Always Clara. You saintly little widower. Do you really believe she was the pure, devoted harbor in your stormy life?"
"Keep her name out of your mouth," Arthur warned, the veins in his temple throbbing.
"Why should I?" Evelyn laughed, a shrill, mocking sound that scraped against the concrete walls. "Clara knew David Vance long before I did. Who do you think helped David siphon forty million dollars out of your Rotterdam port expansion six years ago?"
Arthur’s heart slammed against his ribs. "You lie."
"Do I?" Evelyn challenged, her eyes glittering with malice. "Clara wasn't sick, Arthur. She was terrified. She was looking for a way out of your gilded cage for four years. She found out David was cutting deals with the Black Sea syndicate, and she wanted her cut so she could take Lily and disappear to New Zealand. But her body gave out before she could run."
"Clara died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis," Arthur spat, his knuckles white. "Three independent specialists confirmed it."
"And who recommended those specialists, Arthur?" Evelyn whispered, leaning forward, her face bathed in the cold fluorescent light. "Who managed Clara’s daily pulmonary treatments? Who was her private concierge physician?"
Arthur felt the floor drop out from beneath him.
*Dr. Gerald Morris.*
The family doctor. The man who had delivered Lily. The man who had sat at their dining table during holidays. The man who had just bandaged Lily’s knees upstairs ten minutes ago.
"Clara didn't die of a disease, Arthur," Evelyn hissed, her voice dripping with venom. "She died of an induced respiratory failure. David wanted her silence because she was threatening to confess to you. And when Clara died, David realized that Sterling Marine was still locked behind your iron grip. You wouldn't sell. You wouldn't step down. So... he needed a new wife for you. One who would be much, much more obedient."
Arthur lunged forward, slamming his palms onto the metal table with a force that rattled the steel legs against the floor. "Where is the baby, Evelyn?!"
Evelyn looked at him, her eyes wide, glassy, and completely unhinged. "In twenty-four hours, an infant was scheduled to be delivered to a private clinic in Newark from an underground surrogate ring in Eastern Europe. The paperwork was already drawn up with your forged signature, Arthur. I was going to 'go into early labor' during our vacation in Martha's Vineyard. You would have had a son. A son whose legal guardian would have been me... and David."
May you like
She chuckled, a guttural, wretched noise. "You thought you were saving your broken family. But you were just signing your own death warrant."
***
