Chapter 4 - The Black Sheep’s Refuge
The leather interior of the Escalade smelled of expensive cigars, stale whiskey, and old paper. The contrast between Claire’s soaked, grease-stained attire and the vehicle’s pristine luxury was jarring, but Richard Vance didn't seem to care. He handed her a dry cashmere throw and a thermos of hot black coffee without saying a word.
Richard was sixty-two, with the same sharp, aristocratic jawline as Ethan, but his face had been eroded by decades of hard living. A thick silver scar ran from his right ear down to the collar of his tailored overcoat—a souvenir from a yacht explosion twenty years ago that the media had labeled an "accidental fuel malfunction."
The SUV accelerated into the darkness, leaving the iron gates of Blackwood Estate far behind on the wet highway toward Manhattan.
"Where are you taking me?" Claire demanded, gripping the brass key hidden in her fist inside the fleece pocket. Her instincts were screaming at her to flee, but she had nowhere to go, no money, and no allies left in the world.
"Somewhere Eleanor’s private investigators won’t think to search for at least twelve hours," Richard replied calmly, his eyes fixed on the rain-swept highway. "My hunting lodge outside Sleepy Hollow."
"Why are you helping me?" Claire challenged, her voice trembling with a mixture of rage and terror. "Back there, your sister-in-law accused my dead mother of kidnapping and butchering a child. Your nephew looked at me like I was a disease. Why aren't you turning me over to the police?"
Richard let out a dry, humorless bark of laughter that ended in a gravelly cough.
"Because, my dear, unlike my nephew, I don't suffer from selective amnesia. And unlike Eleanor, I don't believe in fairy tales where the monster is always an outsider."
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, noticing the tension in her shoulders.
"You opened the pendant, didn't you?"
Claire froze. She didn't answer.
"You don't have to play dumb with me, Claire. I was the one who bought that damn trinket for Julianna’s fifth birthday," Richard said softly, his voice dropping into a register of genuine, ancient grief. "I designed the lockbox mechanism myself. It was supposed to hold a tracking chip—the kind they put in luxury watches. But before I could install the electronics, Julianna was taken."
"My mother left a note," Claire confessed, the sheer weight of the secret forcing it past her lips. "She said... she said Eleanor would find me. She said the blood wasn't on her hands, it was on the throne."
Richard’s hands tightened on the steering wheel until his leather gloves creaked.
"Vivian was smarter than I gave her credit for," he murmured.
"Who was she, Richard?" Claire begged, turning fully in the passenger seat, tears spilling over her cold cheeks. "Tell me the truth! She wasn't just a seamstress from Maine, was she? Who was Vivian Montgomery?"
Richard took a deep breath, the windshield wipers slapping rhythmic beats against the glass.
"Vivian’s real name was Vivian Cole. And sixteen years ago, she wasn't a caterer. She was the private night nurse assigned to Julianna Vance."
The reveal struck Claire like a physical blow. "A nurse?"
"Julianna had severe, brittle-bone disease and chronic asthma," Richard explained, his tone heavy with dread. "She needed round-the-clock medical supervision. Vivian lived on the third floor of Blackwood Estate for three years. She loved that little girl more than Eleanor ever did. Eleanor treated Julianna like a fragile porcelain doll meant for photo ops to boost the Vance Foundation’s philanthropic profile. Vivian was the one who read her bedtime stories. Vivian was the one who held her when she couldn't breathe."
"Then why did Eleanor say she kidnapped her?!"
"Because the night Julianna disappeared," Richard said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, "Vivian witnessed something she wasn't supposed to see. She didn't kidnap Julianna, Claire. She tried to rescue her."
"From whom?" Claire gasped.
Richard turned his head, his gray eyes locking onto hers with terrifying intensity.
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"From Julianna’s own father. My brother, Arthur Vance."
***
