Chapter 128 - The Ghost of Penobscot Bay
Inside the convent's cool, vaulted library, the light filtered through narrow lancet windows, illuminating rows of vellum-bound theological volumes that had rested undisturbed since the seventeenth century.
Sarah laid Arthur’s ledgers alongside a second, smaller document she had produced from beneath her shawl: a handwritten letter, folded into quarters and sealed with the red wax crest of the Pendleton estate.
"Eleanor gave this to the mother superior in Saint-Malo the day she was forced back to America," Sarah said, pushing the letter toward me. "She made a covenant with the church. If Arthur died, the letter was to be sent to Zurich. If Arthur killed her, the letter was to be sent to the United States Department of Justice."
I broke the wax seal with my thumb. The paper was crisp, brittle, and carried the faint, powdery scent of lavender—Eleanor's signature scent.
*My dearest Martha,* the letter began.
*If you are reading this, Arthur has finally succumbed to his own greed, or I am in the ground beneath the Camden pines. I have committed many sins in my life, but my greatest cowardice was allowing Arthur to make you a shield for his crimes. He used your name on the shipping registries. He made you a partner in the timber mills so that if the Corsicans ever came for their accounts, the law would find your signature on the manifests instead of his.*
*Sarah is your sister. Not by blood of Arthur, but by the blood of the sea that Arthur tried to control. Protect her as you should have protected yourself. Do not give the Corsicans the money. The money is poisoned. Give them what they fear more than bankruptcy.*
I looked up from the page, my eyes locking onto Sarah’s. "What do they fear more than bankruptcy?"
"The port concession of Bastia," Sarah answered. "In 1982, Donato Rossi transferred the legal deeds to the deep-water docks in Corsica into Eleanor’s maiden name as collateral for an arms shipment Arthur smuggled through Halifax. Marc Rossi’s entire shipping empire sits on land that legally belongs to Eleanor Pendleton’s heirs."
Patrice let out a low whistle from the doorway where he stood watch. "The sixty million euros in Zurich was pocket change. The docks in Bastia are worth hundreds of millions in European commercial subsidies."
"And if Marc Rossi doesn't have the original deed," I realized, the pieces finally snapping together in my mind like the teeth of a steel bear trap, "the French maritime authority will seize the port within thirty days. He didn't come to Catania to recover sixty million. He came to kill us and burn this deed so his forged papers in Corsica cannot be contested."
"He has two hours before he tracks us here," Sarah said, looking toward the heavy wooden door of the library. "The local carabinieri in Taormina are on his payroll. He won't send his own men into a convent—he will send the local police to arrest us for illegal entry and vehicle destruction, and then take us from the cells."
"Then we don't stay in the convent," I said, standing up with absolute finality.
May you like
"Aunt Martha," Clara spoke up from the corner, where she had been watching through the narrow arrow-slit window. "There are blue lights climbing the hill from Castelmola. Two police cruisers. No sirens."
"Local carabinieri," Patrice confirmed, checking his Kimber once more. "Marc Rossi’s cleanup crew."
