Chapter 5 - The Confession in the Dust
02:15.
The digital display on the bomb kit hummed louder in the cavernous silence. Dust motes drifted lazily through the beams of sunlight, cutting across the destroyed chapel.
“Julian?” Victoria’s voice cracked. Her emerald necklace felt like an iron collar strangling her throat. She stayed rooted to the pressure plate, tears finally spilling over her lashes, tracing hot tracks down her porcelain cheeks. “What is she talking about? Look at me and tell me!”
Julian looked like a cornered animal. His tailored suit seemed suddenly two sizes too large for his slouching frame. “She was going to ruin everything, Tori! The family, the merger, our entire future! She found out about the offshore dummy corporations. If she went to the federal prosecutors, we were going to lose every penny!”
“So you burned her alive?” Victoria screamed, the sound echoing off the vaulted glass ceiling. “You looked me in the eye for three years, kissed me, told me how much you missed her, while you knew she was screaming in the water?”
“I didn't mean for her to burn!” Julian shouted back, his voice breaking into a hysterical sob. “The charge was supposed to detonate after she left the harbor! It went off early! I tried to throw her a life preserver, but the fuel was everywhere—the whole dock was on fire!”
“You didn't throw a preserver,” Evelyn interrupted, her tone chillingly flat. “You locked the cabin hatch from the outside. You barred the brass latch with an iron crowbar. I beat my fists against that mahogany door until my skin melted against the brass.”
Victoria felt the room spin. The man she was supposed to marry five minutes ago had locked her sister inside an incinerator. The nausea was overwhelming; she leaned forward slightly, almost losing her footing on the platform.
“Careful, Tori,” Evelyn warned softly. “The pressure trigger doesn't care about your heartbreak. If your heel lifts another inch, we all turn to mist.”
Arthur Vance cleared his throat, adjusting his black bowtie with shaking fingers. “A tragic family dispute, Evelyn. But you have overlooked one critical detail.”
From inside his tuxedo jacket, Arthur smoothly produced a small, matte-black snub-nosed revolver. He leveled the barrel directly at Evelyn’s forehead.
“You think this ridiculous stunt gives you leverage?” Arthur sneered, his mask of gentility entirely gone. “The timer has two minutes left. Even if I shoot you dead right now, the signal from your detonator won't change. I walk over, take the locket from your corpse, and Julian and I walk out through the reinforced blast tunnel beneath the vestry. By the time the bomb detonates and levels this glass house, Victoria will be dead, you will be ashes once more, and Julian and I will be grieving family members who barely escaped an unknown terrorist attack.”
Arthur pulled back the hammer of the revolver with a crisp, lethal click.
“You wouldn't kill Victoria,” Julian gasped, horror flashing across his weak face. “Dad, no! Not Tori!”
“Shut up, you fool!” Arthur snarled. “She heard your confession. She knows everything. Do you think she will keep quiet for the rest of her life? She dies with her sister.”
Arthur aligned the iron sights with Evelyn’s violet eyes.
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Evelyn didn't even blink. Instead, the corners of her bandaged mouth curled into a faint, grotesque smile.
“Shoot, Arthur,” Evelyn whispered. “See what happens to the floor.”
