Chapter 5 - Blood and Water
Detective Miller’s office at precinct four was locked from the inside. Outside her blinds, officers paced back and forth, whispering frantically about the dead man who had walked through their rear entrance twenty minutes ago.
Miller sat behind her steel desk, a heavy cassette player resting between us.
She hit PLAY.
A harsh hiss came from the speaker, followed by the deep, steady voice of our father, Edward Vane.
"If you are listening to this, Edward Jr. or Liam, it means I failed to protect myself. Eleanor has discovered the changes to my will. She knows that if I die, the family trust doesn't pass to her—it passes entirely to the boys upon their twenty-eighth birthday. She and her nephew Travis have been altering my medication for two months. My heart is failing. If I die suddenly, demand a full toxicology screening for digitalis poisoning. Do not trust Eleanor. She sees our family not as human beings, but as assets to be liquidated."
The tape ended with a soft, hollow click.
Silence hung in the office like gunsmoke.
Detective Miller leaned back, rubbing her temples. "This tape is six years old, Liam. It proves your father suspected foul play, but legally, without physical evidence from his buried remains, it's not enough to arrest Eleanor for murder today."
"What about Julian Vance?" I demanded, leaning across the desk. "You have a body in the morgue that isn't Evan! That's murder and body swapping!"
"The DNA results for the body in the casket won't come back from the state lab for forty-eight hours," Miller said grimly. "Travis cleared out the shelter records this morning. He’s covered his tracks. Right now, on paper, Eleanor is the victim of a terror campaign by her unstable surviving twin."
"She’s holding the final trust execution meeting at the family estate at sunrise," Evan spoke up, his voice cold and steady. "She thinks I'm dead, and she thinks Liam is on the run. If Liam doesn't show up to sign the trust surrender, she has a court order ready to declare him mentally incapacitated, granting her full power of attorney."
"If she gets that power of attorney, she liquidates the fifty million and vanishes to offshore non-extradition jurisdictions before the sun sets tomorrow," I added.
Detective Miller stared at us for a long, heavy moment. She looked at Evan's swollen face, then at the vintage watch lying open on her desk.
"I can't authorize an official raid on the Vane Manor without a signed warrant from a judge, and no judge will sign one based on a six-year-old tape before dawn," Miller said slowly.
May you like
She reached down, opened her desk drawer, and pulled out two heavy bulletproof vests, dropping them onto the desk.
"Which is why," Miller continued, her eyes dark, "I'm off the clock in ten minutes. And I think I'll conduct a personal, off-the-record welfare check on Mrs. Eleanor Vane."
