Chapter 7 - Blood and Betrayal
Eleanor walked with an unsteady gait, her navy suit jacket soaked from the deluge, oblivious to the umbrella her driver struggled to hold over her. The regal, unflappable matriarch was gone. In her eyes was a haunted, hollow fury.
Callahan slipped from the shadows, catching her by the arm just as she reached the stone steps of the back porch.
"Mrs. Vance," Callahan whispered sharply.
Eleanor startled, turning toward him with wide, bloodshot eyes. "Mark? What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Callahan said, keeping his voice low as he glanced toward the guards patrolling the terrace. "Your son is destroying evidence inside. If you go in there, you're walking into a crime scene."
Eleanor’s lips trembled. She looked down at her hands, the very hands that had lifted Clara’s dress hours ago. "I gave birth to a monster, didn't I?"
Callahan stayed silent.
"I thought... I told myself she was just clumsy," Eleanor said, tears mixing with the rain on her wrinkled cheeks. "When she missed family dinners, when she wore long sleeves in the summer... I looked away because Julian was going to be governor. Because the family name had to remain clean." She looked up at Callahan, her voice cracking with self-hatred. "I helped him break her, Mark. By staying silent."
"You can fix it right now, Eleanor," Callahan urged, leaning closer. "Clara gave me the code to the safe behind the grandfather clock. But Julian’s men are in the study. I need a diversion."
Eleanor straightened her spine. The frail old woman vanished, replaced by the matriarch who had commanded high society for forty years. She brushed a wet strand of white hair from her face.
"He may have the money, Mark, but this house is still in my name," she said, her voice dropping into a deadly calm. "Get your evidence. Leave the boy to me."
Without waiting for his reply, Eleanor strode up the terrace steps, pushed open the French doors, and slammed them shut behind her.
"Julian!" her voice rang out like thunder across the marble floors. "Call off your thugs before I call the State Police myself!"
From the dark hallway, Callahan slipped inside through the unlocked service entrance. The shouting from the study began immediately—Julian's furious, arrogant snarl clashing against his mother’s scathing rebuke.
Callahan moved swiftly through the shadowed corridors like a ghost. He reached the study’s adjoining library. Peeking through the double pocket doors, he saw Julian and Eleanor nose-to-nose, the guards hesitating, unsure of how to handle the family matriarch.
Callahan slid along the oak paneling until he reached the towering antique grandfather clock. He gently pulled the wooden casing aside. Behind it, flush against the brickwork, sat a sleek digital safe, its red LED keypad glowing ominously.
Callahan inserted the micro-SD card into the safe's external port and punched in four digits: 0-4-1-2.
The lock gave a mechanical chime. Unlocked.
Callahan swung the heavy door open. Inside lay a thick stack of blue legal folders, two black external hard drives, and an audio recorder.
Suddenly, behind him, the sound of arguing stopped dead.
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"Sheriff," Julian’s voice purred from the doorway, entirely devoid of emotion.
Callahan turned around slowly. Julian stood there, Eleanor held tightly by the wrist beside him, while two armed security guards leveled semi-automatic pistols directly at Callahan’s chest.
