Chapter 25 - The Footsteps Below
My breath stopped in my throat.
The police cruiser was supposed to be stationed at the end of the private drive, a quarter-mile away through dense woods. In this snow, nobody could drive up without their headlights cutting through the trees.
Whoever had just stepped through the shattered front door had come on foot.
Slowly, carefully, I slid my hand away from Emma’s blanket. I slipped off my wool socks so my bare feet wouldn't make a sound against the rustic floorboards. I reached toward the corner of the nursery, picking up the heavy steel baby-monitor base—the only heavy object within reach.
The floorboards downstairs groaned again. The intruder was moving slowly, cautiously, navigating the debris from the fight with Evelyn.
Then came the sound of paper rustling.
They were searching the hearth. Searching for the lockbox.
I crept to the top of the stairs, pressing my back against the wall, peering down through the wooden balusters. The living room was bathed in the faint blue glow of the moonlight reflecting off the snow outside the broken window.
A tall figure in a dark, hooded parka was kneeling beside the fireplace, his flashlight beam focused on the empty slate where the lockbox had fallen. The beam darted across the floor, searching for the papers I had taken upstairs.
"Looking for these?" I asked from the shadows at the top of the stairs, keeping my voice cold and lethal.
The figure froze. The flashlight beam snapped up instantly, blinding me with raw white light.
"Clara," a voice whispered.
It wasn't Jason.
The voice was deeper, calmer, and horribly familiar. The man lowered the flashlight slightly, revealing the patrician, silver-haired features of Marcus Vance—my grandmother Sarah’s former personal attorney and the sole executor of the Vance Family Trust.
"Marcus?" I stepped down one stair, keeping the heavy steel base hidden behind my hip. "What are you doing here at three in the morning? The police just left."
"I know," Marcus said quietly, turning off the flashlight and letting the pale moonlight illuminate his tailored wool coat and leather gloves. "I saw them hauling your mother down Route 9 in the back of a squad car. Which means you opened the hearth."
"You knew about the box," I stated, descending another step. "You knew what Sarah hid behind the chimney flue."
Marcus sighed, removing his leather gloves one finger at a time. "I didn't just know, Clara. I drafted the documents inside it thirty-two years ago. I promised your grandmother that the box would only be retrieved if Evelyn completely lost her mind."
"Evelyn didn't just lose her mind, Marcus! She broke into this house with a tire iron! She tried to get to Emma!"
"Evelyn didn't want to hurt the baby, Clara," Marcus said, his voice terrifyingly matter-of-fact. "Evelyn wanted the baby's DNA."
I stopped dead on the fourth step from the bottom. "What?"
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"The trust terms Sarah set up were ruthless," Marcus said, walking toward the base of the stairs with slow, measured steps. "Sarah never trusted Evelyn. She knew Evelyn was vain, reckless, and greedy. So she tied the trust to a biological imperative. But Evelyn found a loophole. Or rather, she thought she did."
Marcus looked up at me through the banister, his dark eyes hollow. "Clara, whose child do you think you’re holding upstairs?"
