Chapter 7 - Smoke Beneath the HouseThe explosion did not destroy the mansion.
Arthur Sterling loved his house too much for that.
It was controlled.
Precise.
A warning blast in the tunnel system, enough to fill the passage with smoke and collapse the old brick arch behind him.
Enough to slow the police.
Enough to bury Mason if he was too close.
Vivian tried to run toward the library, but Reyes stopped her.
“No.”
“My brother-in-law is down there.”
“My officers will get him.”
Clara clung to Vivian’s hand.
“He helped us.”
Reyes looked toward the smoke.
For one second, the detective’s face changed. The job disappeared, and a human being stood there.
Then the job came back.
“Get them out,” she ordered.
Officers guided Vivian and Clara through the front doors, past the broken gates, into the cold night air.
For the first time in years, Vivian stood outside the Sterling mansion without Arthur’s permission.
Camera flashes erupted beyond the police line.
Reporters had arrived.
Of course they had.
Helena Sterling had planned everything.
A woman shouted, “Mrs. Sterling! Is it true Arthur Sterling murdered his brother?”
Another yelled, “Where is Arthur now?”
Vivian turned her face away.
Clara buried her head against her mother’s waist.
Then a voice cut through the crowd.
“Vivian!”
An older man pushed toward the barricade, held back by police.
Vivian stared.
Her father.
Robert Ellison.
Arthur had told her he wanted nothing to do with her. He had told her her family had accepted money to stay away. He had shown her letters with her father’s signature saying exactly that.
But Robert Ellison was crying.
“Vivian, I never stopped looking for you!”
Vivian could not move.
Arthur’s lies unfolded inside her memory like poison.
Clara looked up.
“Grandma Helena said Daddy forged letters.”
Vivian’s knees weakened.
Reyes gave a nod.
Police let Robert through.
He stopped before touching Vivian, as if afraid she might break.
“My girl,” he whispered.
Vivian fell into his arms.
For the first time in a decade, she let someone other than her daughter hold her while she cried.
Behind them, firefighters entered the mansion.
Smoke poured from the west wing.
Then a radio crackled on Reyes’s shoulder.
“Detective, we found Mason Sterling. Alive. Injured but breathing.”
Vivian exhaled.
The radio crackled again.
“Arthur is not with him.”
Reyes’s eyes hardened.
“Where’s the tunnel exit?”
An officer answered.
“Old chapel road. North woods.”
Clara went pale.
Vivian looked at her daughter.
“What is it?”
Clara whispered, “That’s where Grandma said he buried the first box.”
Reyes turned slowly.
“What box?”
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Clara looked toward the dark line of trees beyond the estate.
“The one with the bones.”
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