Chapter 6 - The Visitor from BostonThe private security team swarmed the mansion within four minutes, sweeping the perimeter, checking the biometric logs, and reviewing every camera feed from the gates to the roof. The report was terrifyingly unanimous: no one had entered the property. The gates had not opened. The thermal cameras showed zero human signatures outside the house.
Yet, the silver locket was sitting on the desk, and the note was real.
Julian spent the rest of the night locked in his office, chain-smoking cigars he hadn’t touched in years, staring at the handwriting under a magnifying glass. He was a man of science, a man of logic, a man who built algorithms that predicted global market shifts down to the microsecond. He did not believe in ghosts. He did not believe in the supernatural.
But as dawn broke over the manicured lawns of Greenwich, painting the sky in bruised shades of orange and gray, Julian knew one undeniable truth: someone inside his inner circle was playing a sick, psychological game with him. Or worse... someone from his past had finally tracked him down.
Around 8:00 AM, a sleek black Mercedes Maybach rolled up the gravel driveway. The back door swung open, and out stepped Eleanor Everhart—Julian’s mother.
Eleanor was a formidable woman of sixty-five, draped in Chanel wool and wearing an expression of permanent disappointment. She had never forgiven Julian for marrying Margaux, a woman from a working-class background, and she had never forgiven him for how he handled the aftermath of her death.
Winifred met her at the front door, taking her coat with tight, practiced professionalism.
"Julian is in his office," Winifred said quietly. "He hasn't slept."
"When does that boy ever sleep?" Eleanor snapped, marching past her toward the west wing. "And what is this nonsense I heard about him hiring a maid with a toddler? Have you lost your mind, Winifred? The house is a mausoleum, not a public charity ward."
Eleanor pushed open the doors to the private study without knocking. Julian was sitting behind his massive desk, his eyes bloodshot, the silver locket resting beside a half-empty glass of whiskey.
"Julian, we need to talk about the trust funds for the twins," Eleanor began briskly, before stopping dead in her tracks as she noticed his appearance. "Good lord, look at you. You look like a corpse. I told you, you need to sell this cursed house. Move back to Boston. Let proper people raise—"
"Mother," Julian interrupted, his voice dangerously low. He picked up the note from the desk and slid it across the mahogany surface toward her. "Look at this."
Eleanor frowned, stepping forward and picking up the paper. As her eyes scanned the handwriting, the blood instantly drained from her heavily made-up face. She gripped the edge of the desk for support, her impeccably manicured nails digging into the wood.
"Where... where did you get this?" Eleanor whispered, her voice losing all its usual aristocratic snap.
"It was in my locked library last night," Julian said, his eyes fixed on hers like a hawk. "In a locket that was buried with Margaux. Unless you’re going to tell me my dead wife rose from the grave to leave me threatening love notes, someone broke into this house. Someone who knew about the locket. Someone who knew Margaux’s handwriting."
Eleanor swallowed hard, her eyes darting nervously toward the window before snapping back to her son. "Don't be absurd, Julian. It's a forgery. A sick prank by one of your disgruntled former employees or—or one of those worthless nannies you keep cycling through."
"None of the nannies knew about this locket, Mother," Julian said, standing up slowly, towering over her. "Only three people on earth knew where it was buried. Me, the cemetery director... and you."
Before Eleanor could stutter out a defense, the double doors of the study swung open.
May you like
Standing in the doorway was Carmen, holding a tray with a cup of hot coffee for Julian—and right beside her, holding Lola by one arm, was three-year-old Ana.
Ana looked straight past Julian, stared directly at Eleanor Everhart with those big, solemn dark eyes, and said clearly: "She has the other key in her pocket."
