Chapter 47 - The Midnight Inquest
The harbor fog was thickening, creeping over the seawall like a cold, gray hand. The *Zephyr*’s engines slowed to a low, rhythmic throb, and a heavy iron launch was swung over its side, splashing into the choppy water.
Two minutes later, the launch bumped against the low wooden stairs of the pier.
A solitary figure climbed up the rungs. Christian Sterling stepped onto the wet stones of Commercial Wharf, his tall silhouette cutting through the mist. Up close, the resemblance to Harold was almost sickening. He had the same broad shoulders, the same slightly sardonic tilt of the mouth, even the faint scar running along the left hairline where a piece of flying shrapnel had nicked Harold during the Normandy landings.
He stopped ten feet from where I stood, Julian shifting instantly to my side, his body tensed like a coiled spring.
"Aunt Eleanor," Christian said, bowing his head slightly in a gesture that was more mockery than respect. "You look remarkably well for a woman whose life’s work is hanging by a thread."
"And you look remarkably small for a man who claims to own this harbor," I replied.
Agent Vance and three federal marshals moved forward, their hands resting cautiously near their utility belts. "Mr. Christian Vane-Sterling? I must inform you that by stepping onto American soil, you are submitting to the jurisdiction of the Federal Maritime Court for the District of Massachusetts."
Christian smiled, pulling a slim passport with a burgundy cover from his coat pocket and flicking it open. "United Nations Special Envoy for Maritime Cultural Heritage. Diplomatic passport number 4409. I am here under temporary diplomatic safe-conduct, Agent Vance. If you lay a finger on me, your career will end before the six o’clock news."
Vance gritted his teeth, glancing at me with helpless frustration.
Christian turned his pale, piercing eyes back to me. "Now, Eleanor. The key."
"Before I give you anything," I said, "I have a question. Helena. When she came into my home, when she spent six months pretending to love Julian, was that your idea, or was it Vivienne's?"
Christian’s face remained impassive, but a flicker of cold amusement touched his eyes. "Helena was an expense. An operational cost. She was supposed to find the logbook in your safe. When she realized you were smarter than she was, she panicked. Smashed the frame out of petty frustration because she couldn't find the combination."
Julian took a sudden step forward, his fists shaking. "You used her to destroy my marriage. You used her to tear my life apart."
Christian looked at Julian with genuine, withering pity. "Your marriage was a hollow fiction, Julian. You married a woman who didn't love you because you were desperate to prove you weren't just Harold Sterling's shadow. Look at you. You have his clothes, you have his title, you sit in his boardroom... but you don't have an ounce of his blood in your veins."
The words hung in the freezing air like a toxic vapor.
May you like
Julian stopped dead in his tracks. The color drained from his face, leaving it the color of ash. "What did you say?"
"Ask her," Christian whispered, pointing a gloved finger straight at me. "Ask the grand matriarch of Beacon Hill. Ask her why Harold spent the last twenty years of his life sleeping in the carriage house. Ask her who your real father is, Julian."
