Chapter 11: Charles Vance’s Grave
Eleanor stared at the screen.
For the first time, her hands began to shake.
“Who did he bury?” I asked.
She shut off the tablet.
Mercer drove toward the northern edge of the Vance estate, where the family owned hundreds of acres of undeveloped woodland.
Thomas leaned close enough for me to hear him whisper.
“Charles.”
The official Vance family cemetery contained a polished monument bearing Charles’s name, but Thomas had never seen a burial. Eleanor had claimed the ceremony was private.
Nathan had discovered that his father’s coffin was empty.
The sedan stopped near an abandoned hunting lodge.
Mercer forced us inside.
Eleanor ordered him to watch us while she contacted the men searching for Nathan.
As soon as she left the room, Thomas spoke.
“You know this is over, Daniel.”
Mercer laughed.
“Eleanor protects her people.”
“No,” Thomas said. “She removes them when they become inconvenient.”
Mercer’s expression changed.
Thomas told him about the offshore records identifying Mercer as the person who purchased the medication used to kill Charles.
Eleanor had created evidence that would place the entire murder on him.
“She never intended to protect you,” I said. “She intended to bury you beside Charles.”
Mercer lowered his weapon slightly.
A gunshot sounded outside.
Then another.
Nathan entered through the rear door.
He was injured and barely standing, but he was alive.
I ran into his arms.
For several seconds, the mansion, the company, and Eleanor disappeared. There was only Nathan’s heartbeat against my cheek.
Then Eleanor stepped from the hallway holding a gun.
“You always were a disappointing child,” she told him.
Mercer turned toward her.
“Did you frame me for Charles’s murder?”
Eleanor did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Mercer raised his weapon.
Eleanor fired first.
He collapsed.
Nathan pulled me behind a heavy table while Thomas reached for Mercer’s fallen gun.
Eleanor ran through the back door toward the woods.
Before losing consciousness, Mercer pointed toward a map on the lodge wall.
A red circle marked a clearing half a mile north.
“Charles,” he whispered. “She put him there.”
Then the hunting lodge filled with the distant sound of machinery.
May you like
Eleanor had activated an excavator at the burial site.
She was destroying the last physical evidence.
