Chapter 8 - Shadows on the Water
The revelation hung in the damp garage air like an unexploded shell. Frank immediately moved to the doorway, pulling the rolling metal door shut and locking the heavy security latch. In Frank’s world, when trouble whispered your name, you secured the perimeter first.
"Julian," Frank said, pointing a blunt finger at the photograph. "Start talking. If Vance is dead, who is Evelyn running from?"
Julian sat heavily on a wooden crate, his hands clasping his knees. The calm, composed master craftsman I had come to love over the past six months looked broken, dragged backward through time into a corner he had fought so hard to escape.
"Arthur Vance wasn’t just my friend back then," Julian said, his eyes distant. "He was Evelyn’s half-brother. A secret her father, old man Mercer, kept hidden from everyone until his deathbed. Arthur handled the off-the-books financing for the marina expansion. When the money vanished—the money they accused me of stealing—Arthur didn't drown. He staged his disappearance on Seneca Lake so the authorities wouldn't look into the shell corporations."
"And Evelyn helped him?" I asked, my blood running cold.
"Worse," Julian replied, looking directly at me. "Evelyn didn't frame me just to keep you away from me, Nola. She framed me to cover Arthur’s theft. She sacrificed me to save her blood. Arthur took over two million dollars from the Keating family holdings and vanished into South America. If someone is hunting Evelyn in Sarasota now, it means Arthur’s old associates have finally figured out that the money never left New York."
My phone buzzed sharply on the steel workbench. An unknown local number flashed across the screen.
Frank exchanged a wary glance with Julian. "Put it on speaker," Frank murmured, slipping an adjustable iron wrench into his coverall pocket.
I tapped the screen. "Hello?"
"Nola Claire Keating," a smooth, cultured baritone voice purred through the speaker. There was no background noise, no wind, just a sterile, icy stillness. "You have such a lovely surname now. Much more historic than Mercer. Did you receive your mother’s little souvenir?"
"Who is this?" I demanded, fighting to keep the tremor from my voice.
"A friend of your grandfather's old estate," the voice answered calmly. "Tell Julian that Seneca Lake is lovely this time of year, but the water is cold. We know about Box 414 in Geneva. Don't bother making the drive. We’d hate for dear Grandma Ruth to spend her twilight years in an empty house."
The line went dead with a hollow click.
May you like
Before I could speak, the glass window in Julian's office shattered. A heavy stone wrapped in red surveyor’s tape crashed onto the linoleum floor, sending shards of glass flying into the timber bay.
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