Chapter 60 - The Grandfather's Last Will
The diesel engine roared to life under Julian’s hand, its exhaust bubbling into the black surf as the Whaler surged forward, slicing out of the cave into the violent chop of the Atlantic.
The wind hit us like a wall of wet iron, pelting our faces with salt spray. Behind us, on the bluff, the Vance mansion was a pillar of roaring orange flame, lighting up the low clouds like an artificial dawn. Fire engines wailed in the distance, their sirens thin and useless against the gale.
We were five hundred yards off the rocky point when the boat’s searchlight suddenly kicked on from overhead, blinding us in a cone of searing blue brilliance.
A heavy bullhorn boomed across the water, echoing off the cliffs:
*"CLARA VANCE. CUT YOUR ENGINES."*
It wasn't the police.
Sweeping in from our starboard flank, cutting across the surf at fifty knots, came a tactical interceptor craft—a sleek, Kevlar-hulled cutter bearing no flags, no registration numbers, only a red crescent painted on the prow.
Standing on the foredeck of the interceptor, lashed to the railing against the crashing waves, was Hannah. Her hair was whipped wild by the storm, her designer coat soaked black with rain, holding a flare gun pointed straight at our fuel tank.
Beside her, two men in full maritime tactical gear raised suppressed automatic rifles, lasers painting red dots directly onto Julian’s chest and my forehead.
And standing between them—immaculate in a tailored cashmere overcoat, unaffected by the freezing rain, leaning heavily on an ebony walking cane with a silver wolf’s head—stood a man who should have been buried in the Atlantic thirty years ago.
May you like
Arthur Vance smiled down at me across thirty feet of churning water, lifted his cane, and pointed it at the lockbox in my hands.
"Hand over the ledger, granddaughter," the dead man called through the storm, his teeth flashing in the searchlight. "Or watch your sister pull the trigger."
