Chapter 5 - The Trap is Sprung
VIRAL HOOK: "Locked in the Burning East Wing, I Discovered the Chilling Truth About the Night Clara Died!"
Panic struck like a physical blow.
Without a word, Julian and Isabelle turned and ran out of the gala, leaving the stunned crowd behind. They threw themselves into the SUV, Julian screaming at Marcus to drive faster.
The drive back to Vance Manor was an agonizing blur of speed and terror. The snow was falling heavily again, burying the roads in white. When they finally pulled up the long driveway, the mansion was dark. Too dark.
Julian threw the doors open, sprinting inside with Isabelle close behind. "Sophia! Olivia!" he roared.
There was no answer.
They ran up to the nursery. The beds were empty.
"No, no, no," Isabelle cried, tears streaming down her face. She spotted a piece of paper lying on Sophia’s pillow. She grabbed it.
If you want the girls back, bring the ledger from the East Wing to the cliffside dock. You have ten minutes. Come alone, Julian. Or they go into the ocean.
Julian turned toward the forbidden East Wing. "The ledger. It’s in Clara’s old room. I have to get it."
"I'm coming with you," Isabelle said.
"No, it's too dangerous!"
"They are my girls too now, Julian!" she yelled. "I won't let him hurt them!"
Julian looked at her, a flash of deep, profound respect in his eyes. He nodded once. They ran down the dark corridor of the East Wing. Julian pulled a heavy iron key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
The room was preserved exactly as Clara had left it. But as Isabelle stepped inside, her eyes fell on a high-tech medical monitor in the corner, its screen dark. Nearby lay a safe, its door already blown open.
Suddenly, the heavy oak door slammed shut behind them.
The lock clicked into place from the outside.
"Julian!" Isabelle screamed, rushing to the door and rattling the handle. It wouldn't budge.
Through the small glass pane of the door, a face appeared. It was Evelyn. She held a lighter in one hand and a can of gasoline in the other.
"You honestly thought you could outsmart us?" Evelyn sneered through the glass. "Julian, you were always so blinded by grief. You kept this room locked, thinking you were preserving Clara’s memory. But you were really preserving the evidence of how I slowly poisoned her."
"Evelyn, why?" Julian roared, slamming his fists against the reinforced glass. "She was your sister!"
"She was weak! And she had the fortune that belonged to me!" Evelyn screamed back. "And now, you and your little charity case here are going to perish in a tragic, accidental house fire. The twins will be left in my custody, along with the entire Vance estate."
Evelyn tipped the gasoline can, pouring it along the base of the door. She struck the lighter and dropped it.
Whoosh!
A wall of orange flames erupted, licking the glass and filling the hallway with thick, black smoke. The heat was instantaneous and suffocating.
"Julian, the window!" Isabelle choked out, coughing as smoke began to seep under the door.
Julian grabbed a heavy metal floor lamp and began smashing it against the reinforced glass window overlooking the ocean cliff.
As Julian fought the glass, Isabelle’s eyes landed on a hidden, fireproof lockbox beneath Clara's vanity that Evelyn had missed. She dragged herself toward it through the thickening smoke. Inside the box was a physical diary and a flash drive labeled: THE TRUTH.
With a final, desperate shatter, Julian broke the window. The freezing ocean wind rushed in, feeding the flames but giving them a desperate breath of air.
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"Isabelle, jump!" Julian yelled, grabbing her hand.
Below them, thirty feet down, was the churning, freezing ocean.
