Chapter 17 - The Siren in the Driveway
The rush of water hissed against the charred remains, sending a column of white steam into the faces of the two men who burst through the splintered door. One of them grabbed Naomi by the arms, twisting them behind her back, while the other plunged his bare hands into the basin, trying desperately to fish out the smoking, black pulp of Clara’s handwriting.
"It's gone," the man coughed, shaking his burned fingers. "It's gone, Sterling! It's mud!"
Judge Vance stood in the ruined doorway, his necktie crooked, his face gray with soot and rage. "Search her. Take everything out of her pockets. The slide. She had a slide."
"No," a new voice rang out from the kitchen corridor—cold, flat, and backed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of steel-toed boots.
Detective Morales stood at the end of the pantry hall, his Glock drawn and leveled at Vance’s chest. Behind him were six uniformed state troopers with tactical shotguns, their flashlights slicing through the smoke-filled air in blinding white beams.
"Drop your hands, Sterling," Morales commanded. "Step away from the woman."
Vance straightened his back, attempting to recover the imperious posture he had used to intimidate attorneys for forty years. "Detective, you are out of your jurisdiction. This is private property, and this woman was caught in the act of destroying personal business documents belonging to the Vale estate."
"Save it for the bail commissioner, Judge," Morales said, not lowering his weapon an inch. "We picked up Bianca DuPont forty minutes ago at the private airstrip in Bedford. She had five hundred thousand dollars in cash in a duffel bag and a flight manifest for the Bahamas. And she had your signature on the authorization form for the charter."
Vance’s jaw twitched. "Bianca is a flight risk. I was attempting to secure her—"
"Bianca was talking before the handcuffs were clicked shut," Morales interrupted. "She told us everything about the lockbox. She told us about the wire transfers from your trust account. And more importantly, she told us where your father kept the second key to the registry archives."
Morales glanced over at Naomi. "You alright, Ms. Jenkins?"
Naomi pulled her arms free from the man holding her, who had already dropped his hands to his sides as the troopers moved in with zip-ties. She smoothed down the front of her cardigan, her breathing slow and measured, though her heart was pounding against her ribs like a sledgehammer.
"I’m fine, Detective," she said quietly. "Adrian is in the library. He needs a medic. One of Vance's men hit him with an iron poker."
Morales signaled with his head, and two troopers brushed past Vance into the library. Within seconds, Adrian was being helped out, holding a bloody towel to his temple, his face white, but his eyes blazing with a fierce, unwavering fury as he looked at the man who had been his father's closest friend.
"You're done, Sterling," Adrian said, his voice shaking with a cold, absolute certainty. "I am the sole surviving director of the Vale Trust. As of five minutes ago, your power of attorney is revoked. The police have the house. The state has the records. And you are going to die in a state penitentiary."
Vance didn't answer. He looked at Naomi, his eyes hollowed out, stripped of everything that had made him dangerous. "You burned it. You burned the only proof your sister ever existed in that office."
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"No," Naomi said, stepping past him into the hallway where the morning light was finally breaking through the tall arched windows of the grand foyer. "I burned the lie you told her. Clara doesn't need your paper to be remembered. I remember her. And now, the whole city is going to know her name."
***
