Chapter 4 - Visitors at the Door
The doorbell chimed a second time, cutting through the heavy silence of the kitchen like a razor blade.
Julian stood frozen between the stainless-steel trash can and his mother, the charred legal document still clutched in his stiff fingers. Clara wiped her remaining tears away with the back of her hand, her chest heaving as she kept her watchful gaze pinned on Eleanor.
"Are we expecting company?" Julian asked, his voice strained and suspicious as he looked back and forth between the two women.
"Nobody knows we are here today," Eleanor replied smoothly, though a subtle twitch near her left eye betrayed her calm facade. "It must be a delivery. Ignore it. We have unfinished family business to attend to."
"At ten o'clock on a Tuesday morning?" Julian scoffed, shaking his head. "Deliveries don't ring like that. That’s an official chime."
Without waiting for permission, Julian strode past the kitchen island, scooping his dark suit jacket off the floor as he headed toward the grand foyer. Clara took a tentative step to follow, but Eleanor intercepted her path with surprising agility, blocking the doorway with her shoulder.
"You stay right here, you little parasite," Eleanor hissed under her breath, her voice barely a whisper so Julian wouldn't hear from the hallway. "You think you've won something with your little bank box trick? You have no idea what kind of people you are dealing with."
"The kind who go to prison for fraud and identity theft?" Clara fired back, her chin held high despite the lingering ache in her throat where Eleanor’s fingers had dug in. "Because federal marshals tend to frown upon stealing a dead man's entire estate."
Eleanor’s smile was venomous. "Let’s see how smug you feel when Julian reads the document waiting for him at the front door."
From the foyer, Julian’s voice rang out, sharp and filled with profound confusion. "Mom! Clara! You need to come out here right now. There are two federal agents at the door, and they are asking for you by name."
Clara pushed past Eleanor’s shoulder without another word, stepping out into the bright marble hallway where Julian stood holding a manila envelope. Two men in dark suits flashed leather-bound federal badges under the crystal chandelier.
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"Mrs. Eleanor Vance and Mr. Julian Vance?" the taller agent asked, his expression completely devoid of warmth. "We have a federal warrant to search the premises regarding missing probate assets from the 1994 estate settlement of Arthur Vance."
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