Chapter 20 - The Voice from the Past
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I took the heavy cream envelope from Rosa’s hand, excused myself from the paddock fence, and walked briskly up the stone path into the quiet, wood-paneled library of the main house, locking the oak doors behind me.
Inside the envelope was a single gold-foil butterscotch candy—the exact brand my brother Lucas and I used to steal from our grandfather’s humidor drawer when we were kids—alongside a glossy surveillance photograph and a burner satellite phone no thicker than a credit card.
I turned the photograph over with steady fingers.
It had been taken forty-eight hours ago outside the Palais de Justice in Geneva, Switzerland, during the federal extradition transfer of Viktor Kael. In the background of the rainy street scene, standing beneath a black umbrella across from the police transport van and looking straight into the camera lens with a faint, knowing half-smile, was my younger brother, Lucas Ellison.
Alive. Four years after I stood on a cliff in Nantucket and threw a wreath into the Atlantic Ocean for him.
Before I could even turn the photograph over to look for writing on the back, the ultra-thin satellite phone resting on my desk blotter began to vibrate.
UNKNOWN ENCRYPTED SATELLITE ID.
I pressed the green accept key and lifted the phone to my ear.
"Lucas?" I said, my voice barely above a whisper in the quiet library.
Over the satellite connection came the faint sound of harbor gulls and the low rumble of a ship’s diesel engine—followed by a voice I had heard in my nightmares for forty-eight months.
"Looks like you finally bought the kid her pony, Marc," Lucas said softly.
My hand gripped the edge of the mahogany desk so hard my knuckles turned white.
"Four years, Luke," I rasped, my throat tightening with a mixture of overwhelming relief and furious disbelief. "I dragged the sound off Nantucket for three weeks looking for your plane! Why didn't you come to me?! Why the hell did you orchestrate an entire assassination plot with Julian and Diana just to drop a drive under my dining room table?!"
"Because Julian Vance and Viktor Kael weren't the only ones sitting at your engagement dinner waiting for you to drink that champagne, Marc," Lucas replied, all trace of humor vanishing from his voice. "Four years ago, when I found out Valkyrie Maritime was using Ellison Global ships to move weapons and black-budget cash, I took the evidence to the one person in our house I trusted with my life. And two hours later, the altimeter and fuel lines on my Cessna were sabotaged in our private hangar."
"Dad died two years ago, Luke," I said grimly. "I saw his name on the Valkyrie ledger from the drive—"
"Dad didn't sabotage my plane, Marcus," Lucas interrupted, his voice dropping to an urgent, chilling whisper over the static. "Dad only signed onto Valkyrie’s board six months before my crash because they were blackmailing him to protect someone else in our family. Someone who was sitting three seats to your left at that engagement dinner on Friday night, and who is waiting inside your Manhattan boardroom right now to take Julian Vance’s place."
The blood froze in my veins as I thought back to the seating chart at my engagement dinner.
Three seats to my left—directly across from Julian Vance—had sat only one person: my late mother’s younger sister, Aunt Evelyn, the woman who had raised Lucas and me after our mother died, and whom I had just appointed Interim Vice-Chairwoman of Ellison Global two hours ago.
"Don't get in your helicopter to go back to Manhattan today, Marc," Lucas warned urgently as a loud alarm began sounding in the background on his end of the line. "Look out your library window toward the front drive right now."
May you like
I turned toward the tall bay windows overlooking the gravel driveway of my Connecticut estate.
Rolling slowly through my open iron gates—twenty minutes after my security team had supposedly locked the perimeter for the afternoon—were three unmarked black SUVs with diplomatic plates, and stepping out of the lead vehicle in a black cashmere coat was Aunt Evelyn, flanked by four armed men who were definitely not on my payroll.
