Chapter 17 - The Twin Illusion"You're dead..." Claire stammered, backing away until her spine pressed against the cold metal safe deposit boxes. "I watched you die! Martha shot you!"
"Martha did shoot someone," Eleanor said, pacing around the central stainless steel table. "She shot Evelyn. My body double. The woman Father paid $200,000 a year to sit in decoy cars and take security risks for our family."
Claireās eyes widened in sheer horror. "The body at the airfield..."
"Evelyn was trained to look, act, and speak like me," Eleanor explained calmly, leaning against the table. "When you broke into my room weeks ago and stole Mother's diary, I knew you were playing the long game. So I gave Evelyn a special radio earbud and fed her every line she spoke to you in that rainstorm."
"The confession... the bleeding out... it was all staged," Claire breathed, the horrific truth crashing down upon her.
"Of course it was," Eleanor smiled, her cold, beautiful face devoid of any mercy. "I needed you to feel completely victorious. I needed you to execute Mother's final protocol, clear the legal hurdles, unlock the Zurich account, and open this very vault for me."
"Why?!" Claire screamed, her voice bouncing violently off the steel walls. "You already had access to Father's money!"
"Father's money was dirty, tracked by the FBI and the cartel!" Eleanor barked, her calm demeanor snapping. "Mother's diamond reserves are clean. Unlisted. Untraceable. And now that you've opened the biometric lock with her ring... the bank recognizes the transfer as complete."
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Eleanor pulled a suppressed pistol from her trench coat, pointing it directly between Claire's eyes.
CHAPTER 17 HOOK: "Thank you for doing the heavy lifting, Claire," Eleanor sneered, thumbing the safety off. "Now... hand over the hard-drive."
