Chapter 4 - The 911 Tape
Eleanor didn't flinch, masking her terror beneath decades of aristocratic authority. ""Marcus, you have served this family for thirty years. Tell me right now why the security servers have been scrubbed, or I will have Sheriff Cole drag you out of this house in chains.""
Marcus stepped into the room, tossing the heavy manila envelope onto the mahogany desk between them. It landed with a dull thud. ""Cole isn't going to arrest me, Eleanor. In fact, Cole was the one who handed me that dispatch report twenty minutes ago. He thought you deserved to see it before it enters the official police record.""
With shaking fingers, Eleanor opened the envelope and pulled out the typed transcript of the 911 emergency call placed from the estate forty-five minutes before the banquet.
DISPATCHER: 911, what is your emergency?
CALLER: (Heavy breathing, female voice) He locked the door. He’s putting it in my tea again. Please... St. Jude’s won’t know...
DISPATCHER: Ma'am, what is your location? Who is locking the door?
CALLER: Not Julian. Julian is helping him. Tell Eleanor that Arthur never died.
Eleanor dropped the paper, her vision swimming as the room tilted around her. Arthur Vance. Her husband. The patriarch whose private jet had plummeted into the Atlantic seven years ago, whose closed-casket funeral had cemented Eleanor's sole reign over the Vance empire.
May you like
""Arthur is dead,"" Eleanor whispered, her voice cracking. ""I identified the wreckage myself. I buried him.""
Marcus stepped closer, his eyes hollow with sorrow. ""You buried an empty titanium casket, Eleanor. And tonight, Clara found out where he’s been hiding.""
