Chapter 10
The interior of the abandoned farmhouse offered no shelter from the bitter wind, so Vincent and Clara retreated to the warmth of the idling car. The heater blew a steady stream of hot air against their cold hands as Clara carefully opened the scorched leather diary on her lap. The pages were warped and brittle, stained with soot and water damage, but the handwriting scrawled across them in faded black ink was still remarkably legible.
Vincent leaned over the center console, watching intently as Clara turned the first page.
“December 14th,” Clara read aloud, her voice trembling slightly in the confined space of the car. “Arthur came today. Not through the front door like a master, but through the root cellar like a thief in the night. He told me the child I am carrying is a threat to his marriage, a crack in the foundation of the Sterling name. He offered me a settlement—enough money to disappear into the frozen north where no one would ever trace the bloodline back to his estate. I told him to keep his money. I told him that a child born in the shadows will always find a way back into the light.”
Vincent swallowed hard, his jaw tightening. "He threatened everyone," he whispered bitterly. "Every woman who trusted him, every life he touched. He was a parasite feeding on the vulnerability of people he considered beneath him."
Clara turned another page, her eyes scanning lines of hurried, desperate handwriting. “January 3rd. A daughter was born in the middle of a blizzard. I named her Rose. She has Arthur’s eyes—cold, sharp, impossible to fool. I had a duplicate medallion cast from the one he left behind in the guest wing. Not as a token of affection, but as a receipt. A reminder that she is a Sterling, whether he acknowledges her or not.”
Clara paused, her breath catching in her throat. She looked up at Vincent, horror dawning in her eyes. "Rose," she whispered. "There was another sister. Not just you and me. A third sibling born out here in the wilderness."
"Keep reading," Vincent urged, his voice urgent. "Where is she now?"
Clara flipped frantically through the remaining brittle pages, skipping past descriptions of harsh winters, starvation, and the constant, crushing paranoia of being hunted by Arthur Sterling’s private agents. Near the back of the diary, the handwriting changed—becoming shakier, more hurried, as if written under extreme duress.
“November 2nd. The men came. Not Arthur’s usual lawyers, but strangers wearing expensive suits who asked too many questions about the property deed. They know we are here. Rose was old enough to run into the woods before they reached the porch. I hid this box beneath the floorboards before they set the fire. If anyone finds this—if my sweet Rose or anyone else stumbles out of the dark—remember this: Arthur Sterling did not just build an empire. He buried the people who built it for him. Look for the orphanage in Burlington. That is where they took her.”
The car fell into absolute silence. The wind howled against the exterior windows, buffeting the sedan, but neither Vincent nor Clara moved. The horrifying scope of Arthur Sterling’s cruelty was expanding outward, revealing a trail of human collateral that spanned decades and crossed state lines.
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"Burlington," Vincent said finally, breaking the silence. He put the car into drive, his hands gripping the steering wheel with such force that his knuckles turned white. "That’s a four-hour drive north across the border into Vermont. If she survived the fire, and if the orphanage records weren't purged like everything else..."
"We find her," Clara finished, her voice steady and resolute. She closed the scorched diary and placed it safely inside her leather portfolio alongside the gold medallion. "We finish what our mothers started."
