Chapter 7 - THE GHOST OF BLACKWOOD ISLANDTwo days later, the private helicopter touched down on the jagged, windswept cliffs of Blackwood Island. The sky above was a turbulent bruised purple, churning with dark, ominous clouds that promised a violent storm.
Below us, half-hidden by thick, choking fog and twisted pine trees, stood the sprawling, gothic skeleton of the original Vance estate. It looked like something straight out of a gothic horror novel—tall, imposing, and entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
I stepped out of the helicopter, the rotor wash whipping my dark trench coat around my legs. I had traded the eighty-thousand-dollar wedding gown for tactical gear and steel-toed boots. The bride was gone. The CEO was in charge now.
Marcus followed closely behind me, holding a secure satellite phone. “The federal team has secured the perimeter of the main house, but the local communications are completely dead. Someone’s running a heavy signal jammer from inside the estate.”
“A signal jammer?” I narrowed my eyes, scanning the jagged coastline where crashing waves smashed against jagged rocks. “That means whoever is in there was expecting us.”
“Or waiting for us,” a cold, unfamiliar voice echoed from the shadows of the boathouse.
Both Marcus and I spun around, our hands dropping instinctively to our sides. Standing near the rotting wooden doorway of the boathouse was a figure wrapped in a heavy fisherman’s cloak, the hood pulled down low to obscure their face.
“Who goes there? Identify yourself!” Marcus shouted, stepping in front of me with his tactical flashlight drawn.
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The figure slowly lowered the hood, revealing a face so startlingly familiar that it made my heart stop beating for a full second. It was an older woman with sharp, piercing blue eyes and silver hair pulled back into a tight bun—a face I had only ever seen in faded photographs tucked away in my father’s old desk.
“Hello, Audrey,” the woman said, her voice raspy like grinding stones. “Welcome home. I’ve been waiting for you to uncover the truth for a very long time.”
