Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Oak Street
Ten minutes later, the sleek Maybach rolled slowly down a narrow, sunless alleyway six blocks away in a dilapidated neighborhood of West Chicago.
Inside the quiet, heated interior of the luxury vehicle, the air smelled of fine leather and warmth. Sadie and Nora sat on the plush leather rear seat, each wrapped in a thick cashmere blanket that Julian had pulled from the car's trunk. In their tiny hands, they held silver cups of warm hot chocolate provided by Julian’s shocked assistant, who was still trying to process why his ultra-wealthy, notoriously unemotional boss was sitting on the floor of the vehicle, staring at an old painting with red, haunted eyes.
Julian sat on the folding jump-seat facing the children, his hands tightly clasped around his knees to stop them from shaking.
"Tell me about your house," Julian said, his voice quiet, raspy, and filled with a desperate gentleness. "How long has your mother lived here?"
"A long time," Sadie said, taking a greedy sip of the hot chocolate, her chin covered in brown foam. "Since the landlord said the rent went up. Mommy works at the laundry place at night, but last week she got sick. Her chest made a bad noise, so she couldn't go."
"And the painting?" Julian asked, his eyes drifting back to the canvas propped against the front seat. "Did she ever talk about it?"
"She said it was her home," Nora offered softly, her blue eyes bright now that her feet were finally warm. "She said a very bad fire took the house away. And she said her brother was gone."
Julian closed his eyes, a sharp pang of agony slicing through his chest.
Gone. She thought he was dead. And for fifteen years, he had believed she was dead.
Fifteen years ago, the Vance estate in Lake Forest had burned to the ground in a catastrophic midnight explosion triggered by a faulty gas line. Julian, nineteen at the time, had been away at college in Boston. By the time he reached the smoldering ruins of his childhood, the police and fire marshals had delivered the devastating news: his father, mother, and twelve-year-old sister Clare had all perished in the blaze. Human remains had been identified, dental records matched by a corrupt county coroner whom Julian had spent the last decade trying to investigate without success.
Julian had inherited the massive, debt-ridden shipping company, transformed it into an empire, and built a wall of ice around his heart, believing he was the sole survivor of the Vance bloodline.
Now, sitting three feet from him, were two little girls who bore his mother's eyes and his sister's stubborn smile.
"Sir," Marcus, his head of security and driver, said softly from the front seat as he put the car in park. "This is the address. Building 412."
Julian looked out the window.
The building was a six-story brick tenement with rusted fire escapes, peeling paint, and a broken front door that flapped uselessly in the wind. Half the windows on the ground floor were boarded up with plywood.
A wave of cold, lethal fury washed over Julian’s mind—fury at the world, fury at the systems that had allowed his little sister to slip into such squalor, and fury at himself for not searching harder, for accepting the official police report fifteen years ago.
"Marcus," Julian commanded, his voice dropping back into its razor-sharp authority. "Stay at the entrance. Call Dr. Harrison. Tell him to have a private medical team and an ambulance on standby two blocks away. Do not let anyone into this building."
"Yes, Mr. Vance."
Julian stepped out of the car, extending a warm hand to each of the twins. "Lead the way, girls. Let's take the painting home."
May you like
Sadie took his right hand, her small fingers wrapping around his palm. "Are you going to give us the hundred dollars now?"
Julian looked down at his niece, a faint, sad smile breaking through his tears. "Sadie, I am going to give you and your mother everything in this world. But first, let's go buy that bread."
