Chapter 7 - The Second EstateThe blackout lasted eleven minutes.
Eleven minutes was enough.
When the power returned, Richard was gone.
So was the necklace.
Meredith stared at the empty room.
Julian slammed his fist onto the desk.
“He took it.”
“No.”
Meredith looked down.
The necklace lay on the floor.
Richard had not taken it.
Someone else had.
And that someone had placed it deliberately beside the chair.
Meredith picked it up.
“There’s something else.”
A tiny red light blinked inside the pendant.
Julian frowned.
“It’s transmitting.”
“Tracking?”
“Possibly.”
He grabbed a signal detector.
The device screamed.
Meredith suddenly understood.
“Dad wanted us to find something.”
“What?”
She turned toward the map of the family properties.
“There’s another estate.”
Julian frowned.
“We own only three.”
“No.”
Meredith pointed.
“My father bought land nobody knew about.”
Richard had disappeared.
But the old property records remained.
After three hours of searching, they found it.
A remote estate in northern Vermont.
Purchased thirty years earlier.
The deed was under a shell company.
No utilities listed.
No public records of residence.
Julian stared at the screen.
“Why would he keep a second house hidden?”
Meredith looked at the photograph from the bunker.
“To hide from people who thought he was dead.”
They left before dawn.
By the time they arrived, snow covered the long private road.
The house looked abandoned.
No lights.
No footprints.
Meredith inserted the trust key into a hidden panel beside the entrance.
The door unlocked.
Inside, dust covered every surface.
But one room looked recently used.
The kitchen.
A cup of tea sat beside a newspaper.
Still warm.
Meredith froze.
“He was here.”
Julian looked around.
“Recently.”
A chair scraped upstairs.
They both turned.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Julian drew a weapon.
“Dad?”
No answer.
They climbed the stairs.
A bedroom door stood open.
Inside was an elderly man sitting beside the window.
Meredith stopped.
Her father turned.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then she ran.
She collapsed against him.
“Dad.”
His arms wrapped around her.
“I’m sorry.”
Meredith was crying.
“You were alive.”
“I had to disappear.”
“You let us bury you.”
“I had no choice.”
Julian stood frozen.
“Why?”
Their father looked at him.
“Because someone in the Sterling family betrayed me.”
Julian’s face hardened.
“Who?”
His father hesitated.
“Your mother.”
Meredith froze.
“My mother died before you.”
“She died knowing what I had discovered.”
“What did you discover?”
Their father looked toward the window.
“The trust wasn’t created to protect our money.”
He lowered his voice.
“It was created to protect evidence.”
Julian stared.
“Evidence of what?”
His father answered:
“The murder of a United States senator.”
Silence.
Meredith whispered:
“And Genevieve’s family was involved?”
“No.”
Her father shook his head.
“They were worse.”
He looked at Julian.
“They were witnesses.”
A loud crack came from downstairs.
Then another.
Gunfire.
Their father shouted:
“Get down!”
The bedroom window exploded.
May you like
And someone screamed from the hallway:
“Find Meredith!”
