Chapter 12 - The Unopened File
Julian's body tensed despite the sharp pain shooting through his bruised ribs. He gently patted Lily's knee, signaling for Eleanor to take her over to the window seat with her crayons before turning his full attention to his head of security.
""What is it, Marcus?"" Julian demanded, keeping his voice low.
Marcus handed him a thick manila folder stamped with the seal of the Department of Homeland Security and Naval Intelligence. Inside were declassified sonar scans, maritime wreckage photographs, and a heavily redacted medical examiner's summary from the Mediterranean recovery mission.
""When the yacht was recovered from the sea floor four years ago, they claimed the hull had been entirely consumed by a localized diesel fire, leaving no identifiable remains of your wife,"" Marcus explained, leaning closer. ""Arthur Vance paid off the local coroner in Malta to sign the death certificate immediately. But the federal agents who seized Arthur’s safe deposit box this morning found the original diving logs.""
Julian flipped through the damp-smelling documents, his dark eyes scanning the technical jargon until his gaze locked onto a single sentence highlighted in yellow ink:
Primary cabin hatch opened from the inside prior to vessel sinking; life raft canister number four deployed and unrecovered.
Julian looked up, his heart hammering against his cracked ribs. ""There was an emergency raft missing?""
""Yes, sir,"" Eleanor interrupted softly from across the room, having overheard the exchange. She had a strange, distant sorrow in her eyes. ""Evelyn made me take Lily into the secondary escape pod that drifted toward the Greek coast. But Evelyn stayed behind to trigger the distress beacon manually so the authorities would come for us. When the explosion went off, I thought she died at the helm.""
""She didn't die at the helm,"" Marcus said grimly. ""Arthur’s private logs show he spent three years tracking bank withdrawals from a dead-drop account in southern Argentina. Someone has been accessing Evelyn's maiden-name trust funds until three months ago.""
Julian stared at the page, the room spinning around him. For four years, he had mourned a wife who was buried under the waves. For four years, his entire life had been defined by a graveyard of memories.
Lily hopped off the window seat and trotted back to the bed, holding the silver locket she had given Julian the night before.
""Mommy said she’d meet us where the wild roses grow,"" Lily murmured innocently, snapping the silver clasp open and shut.
May you like
Julian stared at the little girl, the realization hitting him like an electric shock. ""Where did she say that to you, Lily?""
Lily pointed toward the southern window, where the vast mountain range met the coastal highway. ""In the white house by the sea, before the bad men came.""
