Chapter 43 - Thirty Thousand Feet of Leverage
Two hours into the flight, when the cabin lights were dimmed to an ambient indigo and the low drone of the jet engines had lulled most passengers to sleep, the soft click of an unfastened seatbelt broke the silence.
I sat with my hands folded tightly over the cream-colored letter, my eyes locked on the narrow aisle.
A shadow fell across the armrest of seat 17B. The empty aisle seat next to me dipped slightly as Julian Vance slid into it, exhaling a quiet, civilized sigh. Up close, his skin was lined with age, but his features were sharp, preserved by wealth and vindictive patience. He smelled of bergamot and expensive tobacco.
"You haven't aged a bit, Myrna," he said, keeping his voice so low it barely registered above the ambient hum of the turbines. "Arthur was a lucky bastard. Right up until the day his heart stopped."
I didn't turn to face him directly, keeping my chin level and my spine rigid. "If you touch me, or make a single threatening move, I will scream and ensure an air marshal puts you in zip-ties before we cross the mid-Atlantic marker."
Vance chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. "An air marshal? Please. I didn't spend three years orchestrating your domestic collapse just to get tackled over international waters. I have far more patience than that."
"You used Tori," I said, cold fury sharpening my words.
"Tori was ridiculously easy," Vance replied, crossing his legs casually. "A greedy, shortsighted girl drowning in retail debt, desperate for status, and deeply resentful of her husband's stubborn, modest mother. All it took was an anonymous business proposal through a dummy shell company in Delaware. We showed her how to skim from your joint accounts, offered her the dream of quick wealth, and whispered in her ear that you were sitting on an untapped goldmine in that old timber house."
"She didn't know what she was looking for," I realized aloud. "She thought she was stealing property deeds."
"She was looking for Arthur's personal archive," Vance said, his voice dropping an octave, losing its veneer of polite charm. "The manifest from October twelfth, 1988. The routing numbers. Arthur stole forty million dollars in bearer bonds from my father's holding trust, Myrna. He sank our shipping firm, bankrupted my family, and lived like a saint in the woods while I spent three decades rebuilding from the dirt."
"Arthur was an honest man," I countered, turning my head to glare into his gray eyes.
"Arthur was a survivor," Vance whispered back. "And he knew that once I found out where he hid the physical certificates, I wouldn't stop until I tore his sanctuary down. Tori was supposed to retrieve the canister while you were stuck babysitting. But your sudden flight to Lisbon ruined the schedule. You were never supposed to leave the house, Myrna. You were supposed to be overwhelmed, distracted, and broken down."
"And instead, she's in jail, and your operation fell apart."
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"Did it?" Vance leaned slightly closer, his lips curling into an icy sneer. "Look where you are. You’re on my plane. And back in New Hampshire, Caleb is all alone with four children."
***
