Chapter 7: The Manila Folder
The yellowed manila folder seemed to draw all the oxygen out of the room. Clara stared at the red twine tied around the cardboard edges, her chest heaving as water continued to drip from her damp hair onto the collar of her beige dress. The broken-key symbol on the cover matched the engraving on her pearl necklace down to the smallest etched detail.
“Open it,” Clara whispered, her voice dropping all its earlier defiance, leaving only a hollow, aching need for the truth.
Sarah lowered her revolver an inch, her gaze fixed on the folder in Marcus’s hands. “Don't you dare, Marcus. If you open that, the federal injunction is triggered automatically. You know what’s inside will bring down every political campaign in the tristate area.”
“Let it burn,” Marcus replied without hesitation. He slipped his thumb beneath the red twine and snapped it with a dry, cracking sound.
Victor stopped struggling against the bodyguard, his head hanging low as he stared at the floorboards between his feet. All the fight seemed to drain out of him in a single second, leaving him looking like an old man who had finally run out of roads to hide on. Eleanor, however, stepped closer to Marcus, her eyes gleaming with predatory excitement as she watched the flap of the folder lift.
Inside lay a stack of old photographs, a birth certificate with water-damaged seals, and a heavy brass key identical to the one Victor still held in his vest pocket. Marcus pulled the top photograph out and handed it directly to Clara.
Clara looked down at the glossy print. It was a picture of a smiling woman holding a newborn baby on the steps of this very mansion, but the woman in the photo wasn't Eleanor, and she wasn't the ghost Victor had mourned for a decade. The woman in the picture had Clara’s eyes, Clara’s nose, and a small scar across her left cheek that matched a faint mark on Clara’s own skin.
“That’s…” Clara stammered, her fingers trembling so violently the photograph slipped from her grasp, fluttering down among the shards of broken glass. “That’s my aunt. That’s Sarah.”
May you like
Sarah closed her eyes tightly, a single tear cutting a clean path down her dusty cheek. “I’m sorry we had to hide you, Clara. But it was the only way to keep you safe from the man who killed your real father.”
Before anyone could process the confession, the front doors of the mansion were blown wide open with a concussive blast, and the heavy thud of combat boots shook the foundation of the house.
