Chapter 12 - The paper trail
The private library inside the newly restored Sterling estate fell into absolute silence. Thick mahogany shelves lined the walls, smelling of old leather, polished beeswax, and rain. Marcus locked the double doors, pulled the heavy blackout drapes closed, and stood guard while Claire leaned over the oak desk under the warm glow of a reading lamp.
She read the single-page letter three times, refusing to accept the ink staring back at her.
"Could it be a forgery?" Marcus asked, his jaw tight. "Richard might have hired someone before the state confiscated his accounts. A desperate psychological game to drag you into his misery."
"Richard doesn't have the intellect for this kind of cruelty," Claire said, running her thumb over the embossed watermark embedded in the linen paper. "Look at the paper stock. It’s hand-pressed cotton rag, milled in Zurich. My mother only ordered this paper for her private trusts. And look at the lower corner."
Marcus leaned down, his brow furrowed. Pressed into the bottom fiber was a tiny, faint alphanumeric sequence: *OBS-884-CH*.
"An overseas safety deposit code?" Marcus murmured.
"Not a deposit box," Claire said, remembering the legal dossiers she had spent seven agonizing years deciphering. "Obsidian Capital. When I audited the estate to bankrupt Richard’s new wife, I found millions in missing assets that vanished six months prior to my mother’s illness. I assumed Richard had siphoned it away into his mistress's dummy corporations. But the forensic accountants never found that capital."
Her phone buzzed abruptly on the desk, vibrating loudly against the dark wood.
Claire looked down at the caller ID. It was an unlisted Queens landline.
She hesitated, her thumb hovering over the screen. Marcus gave a slow nod, stepping beside her as she activated the speakerphone.
"Claire?" Richard’s voice rasped through the speaker. He was wheezing, his breath ragged and shallow, stripped of the arrogance and cruelty he had worn like armor at the gala. "Claire, please... don't hang up. If you hang up, we’re both dead."
Claire kept her voice cold as ice. "I told your lawyer never to contact me again, Richard. You traded your freedom for cooperation. Enjoy your studio apartment."
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"You don't understand!" Richard choked out, a sob rattling in his throat. "They were here. Two men in black coats. They tore the floorboards out of my apartment, Claire. They weren't looking for money. They were looking for your mother’s Obsidian journal!"
***
