Chapter 6 - The Boathouse Secret
The chilling mountain air bit into Eleanor’s skin as she stepped out of the car, shivering inside her light jacket. Arthur held his revolver low at his side, motioning for her to stay behind him as they crept through the wet grass toward the weathered wooden structure. The scent of pine and decaying lake water hung thick in the twilight air.
The boathouse was an old relic of cedar logs and rusty corrugated iron, built during their family’s prime in the late 1980s. A single yellow bulb flickered above the side door, casting long, erratic shadows across the rotting timber. Inside, the muffled sound of heated voices could be heard over the gentle lapping of the lake waves.
""I brought her here just like you asked, damn it!"" Thorne’s voice snarled through the wooden slats. ""The mother recognized the locket. The husband saw my badge. They aren't going to let this go.""
""You were paid to keep her out of sight, Thorne,"" a second voice replied—a smooth, refined voice that sent an icy jolt through Eleanor’s spine. It was a voice she had known her entire life, cultured and calculated. ""You let her take a public job in the city center. You became sloppy.""
""She needed money for college!"" Thorne shouted defensively. ""She refused to stay cooped up in that cabin anymore. You didn't increase the stipend, and groceries aren't free.""
Arthur pressed his ear closer to the wood, his hand trembling slightly on the trigger of his gun. Eleanor leaned in beside him, peering through a small knot in the weathered timber.
Inside, tied to a wooden chair near the water’s edge, was Chloe. A strip of gray duct tape covered her mouth, her eyes wide with terror as she struggled uselessly against thick hemp ropes. Standing over her was Thorne, holding an open duffel bag packed with clothes and cash.
Facing him was a slender man dressed in a bespoke cashmere coat, his back turned to the door. He wore gold signet rings on both pinky fingers. When he turned slightly to inspect his watch under the dangling bulb, Eleanor let out a strangled gasp that she barely managed to swallow with her palm.
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It was Victor Sterling. Her own first cousin, the lead managing trustee of her family’s immense billion-dollar estate.
""College is irrelevant,"" Victor spoke calmly, checking the chamber of a small black automatic pistol. ""Because the trust explicitly states that if the child is found alive before her twenty-fifth birthday, every single asset under the Sterling Vance foundation reverts entirely to her. And I have worked far too hard for twenty-two years to let an illiterate waitress take my inheritance.""
