Chapter 9
The photograph lay on the mahogany desk between them like an accusation from the grave. Clara traced the faded outline of the second woman’s face with her fingertip, feeling a cold shiver run down her spine despite the warmth of the library fire.
"If she didn't die in a charity ward like my mother, and she wasn't disposed of like yours," Clara said, her voice dropping to a cautious whisper, "where did she go? Arthur Sterling was thorough. If there was a third woman carrying his child, he would have made sure she vanished completely."
"He tried," Vincent replied, leaning back in his leather chair and folding his hands over his stomach. "But Arthur wasn't infallible. The private investigator I hired found a sealed file buried deep in the county clerk’s archive—documents related to a hush-money settlement paid out to a private clinic in upstate New York over thirty years ago. The recipient didn't cash the checks. She used the initial retainer to buy a small farmhouse near the Canadian border, completely off the grid."
"Is she still alive?" Clara asked, her eyes fixed on Vincent.
"We don't know yet," Vincent said honestly. "The property was abandoned ten years ago after a fire, but local land records show the deed was never transferred. It still belongs to an estate trust under a pseudonym—the same pseudonym Arthur used when booking travel to Europe during the winter of nineteen-ninety."
Clara stood up, walking over to the tall windows to look out at the sprawling, frost-covered gardens where she had once been forced to shovel snow in thin shoes. The anger that had sustained her through the beatings and the humiliation had transformed into something colder, sharper, and far more dangerous: a relentless pursuit of the truth that had been stolen from them.
"We need to go there," Clara said without turning around.
Vincent didn't hesitate. He stood up from the desk, grabbing his dark green velvet coat from the back of the chair. "The car is already fueled. I didn't want to bring it up until I knew you were physically strong enough for the drive, but I was planning on leaving at dawn tomorrow."
"My back doesn't hurt when I'm moving," Clara said, turning to face him with a fierce, determined spark in her eyes. "Let's go find our sister."
The drive north took them away from the manicured lawns of the wealthy suburbs and into the desolate, windswept landscapes of upstate New York, where the fading grandeur of the Gilded Age gave way to abandoned mills, empty storefronts, and forgotten towns swallowed by the relentless advance of nature. As the miles ticked away on the dashboard, the silence inside the sleek black sedan was heavy with anticipation. They were driving away from the Sterling name, away from the corporate boardrooms and the velvet-draped halls, toward the dark roots of a family tree that had poisoned everyone it touched.
Four hours later, the paved highway dissolved into a narrow dirt road choked with dense pine trees and piled high with rotting autumn leaves. The car bounced over potholes, the engine growling in protest, until it broke through a clearing and stopped in front of a desolate, charred ruin of a farmhouse. Blackened timber beams reached up toward the gray sky like skeletal fingers, and the surrounding fields had been reclaimed by briars and overgrown weeds.
Vincent cut the engine, the sudden silence broken only by the whistling wind rustling through the pine branches.
"This is it," Vincent murmured, stepping out into the cold air.
Clara stepped out beside him, pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders. She walked slowly toward the charred remains of the front porch, her boots crunching on glass and ash. Near the foundation, half-buried under a pile of rotted floorboards, something caught the pale afternoon light—a glint of yellow metal protruding from the debris.
May you like
She knelt down, ignoring the damp chill seeping through her trousers, and pulled the object free. It was a small wooden box, warped by fire and water, but sealed shut with a rusted brass clasp.
Vincent knelt beside her, holding his breath as Clara pried the lid open with a metal strip from the wreckage. Inside, resting against a bed of scorched velvet, was a third gold medallion bearing the exact same circular emblem—and beneath it, a leather-bound diary with a name embossed in faded gold leaf: Miriam.
