Chapter 13 - The Voice in the Wire
Neither of us moved for three full rings. The old rotary bell inside the wall unit struck the brass cups with a deafening rhythm that seemed to rattle the plates in the pantry.
"Don't pick it up," Daniel whispered, his hand clamping down on my forearm. "Mom, if they're watching the house—"
"If we don't pick it up, they know we're inside reading this," I replied, my voice steadier than my pulse. "If it's Arthur's people, we have to know."
I stepped across the linoleum, reached out, and lifted the heavy black handset. I didn't say hello. I simply held it to my ear and listened to the hollow hiss of open trunk lines.
"Margaret?"
The voice was raspy, thin, carrying the dry rattle of a heavy smoker, but beneath the age, there was a familiar, aristocratic cadence that turned my blood to vinegar. It was not Arthur.
"Richard," I said, my knuckles turning white against the plastic.
A low, humorless chuckle vibrated across the wire. "I had hoped we could avoid this level of unpleasantness, Margaret. Truly. I took you for a woman of quiet dignity. A woman who understood when her family was outmatched."
"You sent your daughter to ruin my son," I said, every word clipped and hard. "You sent a fraud into my home, and now you have the insolence to call this house?"
"Jessica was an amateur," Richard Vance said, his voice flat, stripped entirely of the jovial, backslapping charm he had paraded at the rehearsal dinner. "She let her vanity get in the way of a very simple corporate transfer. She wanted the diamonds and the society column. But you and I know that the wedding wasn't about Jessica, and it wasn't about your son’s charming little residential contracts."
I glanced at Daniel. He was leaning in close, his ear pressed to the back of the receiver, his eyes dark with a furious, protective flame.
"Arthur gave you everything he had fifteen years ago," I said, bluffing to test what he knew. "You bled him dry. You took the design patents. What else could you possibly want?"
A short pause hung on the line, punctuated by the rustle of papers on Richard's end. "Arthur was clever, Margaret. Smarter than I gave him credit for. But he was also sentimental. He hid the secondary maritime patents under a foreign custodian account that can only be unlocked with two original biometrics: his signature, and Daniel's adult countersignature as heir."
My breath hitched. Arthur's note flashed through my mind: *They failed at the altar. Now they will stop playing by civil rules.*
"Jessica was meant to secure that signature through the marriage settlement," Richard continued smoothly. "A standard prenuptial agreement with power-of-attorney clauses embedded in the trust addendum. Daniel would have signed it over champagne, and nobody would have been hurt. But your sister had to play the hero with her little video projection."
"My sister saved my boy from a den of thieves," I spat.
"Your sister delayed the inevitable," Richard retorted, his voice hardening into cold steel. "Here is the reality, Margaret. The note you received twenty minutes ago? My associates saw the Swiss courier drop it. Arthur has made a critical mistake. By reaching out to you, he gave up his sanctuary. He thinks he can meet you in Boston tomorrow night. He won't make it to that wharf."
"You're lying," Daniel shouted into the receiver, unable to contain himself any longer. "You're a pathetic crook hiding behind shell companies, Vance! If you come near my mother, I will put you in the ground myself!"
Richard didn't sound startled by Daniel's intrusion. He merely sighed. "Hello, Daniel. You have your father's temper and none of his foresight. Pack a small bag for your mother. There is an attorney from my firm driving to your cottage right now with an irrevocable release form. Sign the maritime assignment over to Vance Holdings, and I will allow your father to disappear back into whatever hole in Europe he crawled out of. Refuse, and the state police will receive anonymous tip-offs regarding an arson investigation at your newly opened architectural office within the hour. Along with evidence that Arthur Vance faked his death to defraud insurance creditors—making both of you accomplices to felony wire fraud."
"You wouldn't dare," I whispered.
"I have eighteen million dollars riding on the harbor redevelopment bonds, Margaret," Richard said, the venom dripping from every syllable. "I dare anything. You have four hours before the courier arrives. Sign the papers, or watch everything your family has left burn to ash."
The line went dead with a flat, mechanical click.
Daniel and I stood in the kitchen, surrounded by the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the hall. For fifteen seconds, neither of us breathed.
May you like
"We aren't signing," Daniel said, his jaw locked tight.
"No," I replied, looking down at the small brass key that had slid out of Arthur's envelope onto the cutting board. "We aren't. We're going to Boston."
