Chapter 12 - The Ghosts of 1978
The wind howled down the porch, rattling the cedar shingles and carrying the sharp smell of impending snow. The county sheriff, a man whose badge read *Miller*, shifted awkwardly on his boots, his breath pluming in the amber glow of the porch light. He kept his hand resting casually on his duty belt, clearly wanting nothing more than to be home with his own family to ring in the New Year.
"Let’s step inside out of the freeze, folks," Sheriff Miller said, his voice flat with official fatigue. "Mr. Vance has legitimate court-issued injunctions out of the Massachusetts probate division. I’m just here to prevent a breach of the peace while notice is served."
Daniel didn’t move an inch. He stood braced in the doorway, his broad frame blocking the threshold. "Our daughter is asleep upstairs," he said, his tone icy. "You aren't setting foot in this house until I understand why an eighty-year-old man is claiming a dead branch on my wife’s family tree."
Julian Vance didn't flinch. He slowly unbuttoned his woolen overcoat with gloved fingers that were long, slender, and steady. Beneath his coat, he wore an impeccably tailored three-piece suit that belonged to another era—sharp, austere, and cut from charcoal wool.
"I don't blame your caution, young man," Julian said, his gravelly voice remarkably calm. "If Eleanor had spent three decades telling me that a sibling had died in the Danvers State Hospital, I wouldn't open my front door either. But I have no desire to disturb a sleeping child. May we speak in your foyer, Emma? Or would you prefer we discuss your mother's thirty-year fraud on the steps in twenty-degree weather?"
I looked at his face. The resemblance was uncanny, almost sickening. He had the same high, predatory cheekbones Eleanor possessed, the same thin, downturned lips, and the exact steel-grey irises that had stared down at me in disapproval through every birthday, every graduation, and every family dinner of my life. But unlike my mother, whose eyes always flickered with frantic, insecure malice, Julian’s eyes were calm as an open grave.
"Let them in, Daniel," I said quietly, touching my husband’s forearm. "Just into the vestibule. Keep the living room doors shut."
Daniel hesitated, then stepped aside, his jaw tight. Julian Vance stepped into the warm entryway, bringing a gust of arctic air and the scent of old tobacco and polished cedar with him. Sheriff Miller stepped in behind him, remaining planted against the closed front door like a sentinel.
Julian withdrew a thick manila envelope tied with black ribbon from under his arm. He laid it flat on the mahogany console table near the coat rack.
"Five years ago, Emma," Julian began, never taking his eyes off me, "your father approached you in secret. He told you that your mother had run up astronomical debts trying to maintain the facade of Vance Manor. He begged you to buy the deed through a private LLC, paying off the creditors so Eleanor wouldn't face bankruptcy or public disgrace."
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My stomach plummeted. "How could you possibly know that? That was a closed transaction between private attorneys."
"Because the bank they owed money to was a dummy corporation chartered in Delaware," Julian said, a cold, humorless smile touching his mouth. "A corporation owned entirely by me."
