Chapter 24 - The Serpent in the Kitchen
Nora did not drop the phone. She held it steady in her palm, her face hardening into an expression of unyielding resolve.
"Your phone was vibrating," Nora said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, measured calm. "Strange for a woman who claimed she barely had fifty dollars for bus fare to be carrying an encrypted satellite device."
The woman tilted her head, a slow, mocking smile curling at the edges of her lips. The meek, weeping mother from the iron gate was gone. In her place stood a woman who moved with lethal confidence.
"Curiosity killed the cat, little artist," she whispered, stepping closer until she was only an arm’s length away. "Give it back."
"Who is Evelyn?" Nora demanded, stepping back and slipping the phone into the deep pocket of her robe. "And what trust filings are you preparing while Julian is upstairs drowning in your manufactured grief?"
The woman chuckled, a low, rasping sound that raised goosebumps on Nora's arms. "Julian has always been weak when it comes to guilt. He blamed himself for the storm. He blamed himself for not holding on to Clara's hand when the cabin flooded. All it takes is a familiar face and a few tears, and he'll sign whatever papers are put in front of him to make amends to his daughter's 'mother.'"
"You aren't Clara," Nora said, the realization clicking into place with sudden, terrifying clarity. "You know too much to be a stranger, but you don't love Maisie. A mother who spent five years separated from her child would be on her knees begging to hear her laugh, not texting co-conspirators about estate trusts in the dark."
The woman took a half-step forward, her hand darting out to grab Nora's wrist in a vise-like grip. "Give me the phone, or I scream bloody murder right now. I'll tell Julian you attacked me in the dark because you're terrified of losing his billions. Who do you think he'll believe? The mother of his child who returned from the dead, or the divorcee he picked up out of pity?"
"Try it," a deep, thunderous voice rang out from the kitchen doorway.
Both women turned instantly.
Julian stood beneath the archway, his tall frame silhouetted against the ambient glow of the courtyard lights. His face was carved from granite.
"Julian," the woman gasped, instantly loosening her grip on Nora's wrist and clutching her own chest, tears miraculously springing to her eyes. "She went through my private belongings! She was interrogating me—"
"Shut up," Julian said.
The command was so absolute, so laden with venomous authority, that the woman instantly choked on her words.
Julian walked past her without a glance and stepped directly to Nora's side. He placed a protective hand on the small of Nora's back, his gaze locked entirely on the intruder.
"Marcus from our legal team called me twenty minutes ago," Julian said, his voice deadly quiet. "He ran the emergency facial recognition scan we pulled from the gate cameras through the federal database. Clara never had a secret twin. But she had a first cousin who was disowned fifteen years ago for stealing her grandmother's identity to loot the family trust."
Julian stepped closer, his jaw clenched until the bone showed white beneath the skin. "Her name was Evelyn Vance. She went to prison in North Carolina. And she had the exact same cheekbones as Clara."
The woman’s tearful facade shattered completely. Her posture straightened, the meekness replaced by a venomous, sharp-toothed sneer.
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"Very clever, Julian," Evelyn spat, brushing her damp hair behind her ear. "You always were so terribly smart with your little databases. But you're too late."
***
