Chapter 95 - Blood and Liquidity
The drive north toward Lake Forest was an exercise in pure dread.
The pre-dawn fog hung thick over the Edens Expressway, turning the bare winter trees into skeletal sentinels against the bruised purple sky. Clara drove with one hand on the steering wheel and her service weapon resting beside her thigh, her rearview mirror reflecting the high-beam headlights of the black Suburban trailing precisely two hundred yards behind us.
Thomas sat in the passenger seat, his hands resting on his knees, unnervingly silent. In the back, Beatrice sat curled against the door, holding my encrypted tablet, monitoring the heartbeat telemetry and the LaSalle security pings.
"Julian," Beatrice whispered softly, breaking the twenty-minute silence. "Look at the auxiliary feed on the LaSalle terminal. The IP address... someone is accessing the Lake Forest node right now."
I leaned over from the back seat, inspecting the scrolling text. Beatrice was right. A hardware connection had been established inside the Lake Forest estate fifteen minutes ago.
"Eleanor," I muttered.
Thomas chuckled softly, staring out through the windshield at the mist. "Your mother—pardon me, your adoptive guardian—always had a nose for impending doom. She knows the walls are closing in."
Ten minutes later, we turned off the highway, winding through the private, gated roads of Lake Forest. The towering iron gates of the Vance estate stood open, their electronic motors jammed with physical wedges. As Clara steered the car up the winding gravel driveway, the massive limestone mansion emerged from the shadows like an imperial tomb.
Every light in the house was blazing.
Clara parked on the circular driveway beside Eleanor’s silver Mercedes. The black Suburban pulled up directly behind us, its doors flying open as the four tactical contractors stepped out, weapons held low, establishing a perimeter around the vehicles.
"Stay close to me, Beatrice," I said, stepping out into the biting morning air.
Thomas stepped out of the passenger side, smoothing the lapels of his coat, retrieving his silver-headed walking stick from the floorboard. He looked up at the towering facade of the mansion he had built on stolen bloodlines, completely at home.
"Let’s conclude this thirty-year audit, shall we?" Thomas said, leading the way toward the grand double doors.
The front doors were unlocked. We stepped into the cavernous foyer, our footsteps echoing off the imported Italian marble. The scent of burning paper hung heavy in the air.
"Eleanor!" Thomas called out, his deep voice bouncing off the vaulted ceiling. "The family is home."
From the top of the grand sweeping staircase came the sound of high heels clicking on marble.
Eleanor Vance appeared at the landing. She wore an emerald-green silk dressing gown, her blonde hair perfectly coiffed, but her face was the face of a madwoman. Her eyes were sunken, dark purple rings encircling them, and in her trembling right hand, she held a heavy crystal glass filled with amber bourbon. In her left, she held an antique silver revolver.
May you like
Her gaze swept over the foyer, past Thomas, past Clara, past Beatrice, landing directly on me.
"Julian," Eleanor said, her voice high-pitched, vibrating with hysterical theatricality. "You ungrateful, treacherous bastard. You brought the dead man back to my house."
