Footprints in the Mud
While Leah signed the deposition in the cottage, the silence of the woods outside was disturbed.
A black luxury sedan crept up the unpaved logging road half a mile below Nora’s property. The engine was cut, the vehicle hidden behind a cluster of overgrown hemlock trees.
Stepping out into the damp mud was Bianca Vance.
She was thirty years old, dressed in an oversized beige trench coat and designer sunglasses, though her hands trembled as she clutched a leather handbag containing a burner phone and a stack of unsigned bank authorization forms.
Her phone buzzed. It was her mother, Eleanor.
"Did you find the cottage?" Eleanor’s frantic whisper crackled over the speaker. "The police raided the downtown offices twenty minutes ago, Bianca! Harold has barricaded himself in the estate study. If you don't get Leah’s signature on the trust release before the state attorney freezes the domestic probate registry, we will lose every property we own!"
"I’m walking up the ridge now, Mother," Bianca said, slipping on the wet pine needles. "Are you sure she’s alone?"
"Nora is an old woman with no influence," Eleanor snapped. "Offer her fifty thousand cash from the safe deposit box. Threaten to expose her late husband's tax audits—anything! Just get that signature!"
Bianca crested the hill, stepping into the clearing behind Nora’s barn.
The serene beauty of the property—the blooming wild clover, the clean morning air, the sound of the creek—felt like an alien world compared to the claustrophobic panic of the city.
As Bianca approached the front porch, the wooden screen door clicked open.
May you like
Elena Vance stepped out onto the porch, flanked by two armed State Police investigators in tactical vests.
"Good morning, little cousin," Elena said coldly. "We’ve been waiting for you."
