Chapter 159 - The Road to Placid
The revelation hung in the air like poison gas.
"She knows," Emma whispered, her hands shaking so violently she had to lace them together to stop the tremor. "If she knows about Saint Mary's, she's already sending men across the border to seize the vault."
"She can't seize the vault without the keys," Julian countered, his voice hard, fighting back the tide of despair. "Even with Arthur's confession, the mother superior answers to no civil court. Eleanor can surround the convent, but she cannot open that iron gate without a riot that would bring the Sûreté du Québec down upon her head in daylight. What Eleanor wants now... is an exchange."
"Arthur for the keys," Emma said, cold realization washing over her.
"Arthur for the child," Julian corrected bitterly. "She doesn't care about the ledger if she has Maya. If Eleanor secures physical, court-mandated custody of Maya as her legal guardian, she can sign the trust liquidation documents herself. The ledger becomes worthless because there will be no trust left to audit."
"I will never hand my daughter over to that monster," Emma snarled, maternal rage finally breaking through the terror that had paralyzed her for days. "I walked out of her dining room on Christmas Day because she called Maya a burden. I will burn every dollar in Zurich to ash before she touches one hair on Maya's head!"
Julian looked at her, and for the first time, an expression of grim pride crossed his weathered face. "That is the Vance blood I remember. Not Eleanor’s greed, but your grandfather’s spine."
"What do we do?" Emma asked, looking down at Maya, who was stirring, rubbing her eyes with a fist.
"We don't run north to Canada," Julian said, pulling a map from his coat and spreading it across the crate by the dim firelight. "That's what Eleanor expects. She has the border checkpoints sewn shut with private contractors. Instead, we go directly where she thinks we are least likely to turn."
"Lake Placid," Emma said, reading the map. "We walk straight into the hornet’s nest."
"The Vance Estate is a fortress, yes," Julian said, tapping the shore of the dark mountain lake. "Electric fences, security outposts, thermal cameras along the perimeter. But Eleanor has brought all her heavy enforcement south to guard Arthur and prepare for the trust execution at sunrise. The perimeter will be staffed by local private security—men who work for hourly wages, not zealots."
"And Arthur?"
"Arthur is held in the boathouse cellar," Julian said. "It’s where our father used to lock up the contraband during the seventies. I built the drainage conduits beneath that boathouse with my own hands fifty years ago. There is a submerged intake pipe that leads directly from the lake ice into the foundation."
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"The lake is frozen," Emma noted, her brow furrowing.
"The lake ice is fifteen inches thick," Julian replied, folding the map with sharp, decisive snaps. "Which means we don't need a boat. We need skates, an auger, and eighty minutes of complete darkness before the sun crests Whiteface Mountain."
