Chapter 16 - The Locked Safe at Belle Terre
Richard Hayes wasn't in Europe. He was right here on the Gulf Coast.
Nora didn't run. She forced herself to breathe, taking out her phone and snapping clear, high-resolution photographs of the pry marks, the broken padlock, the tire tracks, and the discarded receipt.
Gavin hadn't acted alone. He had never possessed the intelligence or the nerve to pull off an interstate custody conspiracy. Gavin had been an errand boy. When his embezzlement at Julian’s firm was exposed, he had fled west to Louisiana, reconnecting with the one man who hated Julian Sterling more than he did: Clara’s disgraced cousin.
She walked briskly back to the main house. When she pushed open the study door, Julian was standing by the window, his legal team's voices still buzzing faintly from the speakerphone on the desk.
"Julian," she said, her voice taut. "Hang up."
Julian looked at her face, instantly recognizing the emergency in her eyes. He tapped the screen. "Gentlemen, I’ll call you back in twenty minutes."
He set the phone down. "Nora? What happened? You're pale."
"Richard Hayes broke into the old mill yesterday," she said, laying her phone on the desk and showing him the photos. "He dug up Grandfather’s deed box from under the floorboards."
Julian stared at the screen, his expression darkening with each passing second. "What was your grandfather keeping in that box, Nora?"
"I don't know," Nora admitted, her voice shaking slightly. "My grandfather died when I was twelve. He always told my mother that if the family ever faced total ruin, the truth about the northern boundary of the Vance marsh basin was under the millstone. We thought he was being an eccentric old sailor talking about buried treasure. But Julian... Clara’s family didn't just own shipping lines. In the 1950s, Arthur Vance’s father bought ten thousand acres of timberland right across the state line."
Julian leaned over the desk, his eyes narrowing as pieces of an ancient puzzle began falling into place. "The boundary line dispute of 1974. The Vance Corporation claimed the marsh basin was inside Louisiana jurisdiction to avoid Mississippi environmental trusts."
"And if Grandfather's original surveying map proved the land was actually Mississippi public domain..." Nora whispered.
"...then the entire Vance family maritime trust is built on a fraudulent land patent," Julian finished, his voice electric with sudden clarity. "The trust Arthur Vance is using to claim Maisie doesn't legally exist."
Julian grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. "Hayes didn't break into the mill to find Clara’s codicil. He already had the forged codicil. He came here to destroy your grandfather’s survey before our lawyers could use it to challenge their standing."
"Did he find it?" Nora asked.
"Look at the photo, Nora," Julian pointed at the empty metal box. "The box has a double bottom. See the hinge on the left corner? Whoever pried it open in a hurry took the top papers—probably the old tax receipts—and left the false base intact."
Nora’s breath hitched. "It's still in the mill."
"No," Julian said, his eyes flashing with sudden intensity. "Hayes will realize his mistake the moment he reads those receipts. He’s staying somewhere close. Probably Belle Terre, the old Vance family hunting lodge outside Bay St. Louis."
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"Julian, we can't go there alone. We have to call the sheriff."
"The sheriff won't act on an old surveying map without a court order, Nora. And the custody hearing is in forty-eight hours," Julian said, pulling his car keys from his desk drawer. "We go back to the mill, secure the original survey, and take it straight to the federal magistrate in Biloxi."
