Chapter 2 - The Gathering at Oakwood Manor
Oakwood Manor wasn't really a manor. It was a sprawling, drafty Victorian house on the north edge of town with wrap-around porches, peeling white paint, and a history that predated the Civil War. Arthur Vance had bought it in 1974 for a song, restored the walnut wainscoting with his own calloused hands, and lived there until the day the ambulance took him away.
By two o'clock that afternoon, the gravel driveway was choked with luxury sedans and dusty SUVs. Mourners who had barely managed a nod of sympathy at the cathedral had transformed into an eager, restless mob, crowding into Dad’s expansive study as if they were attending an estate auction where everything was priced at zero.
The study smelled precisely as it always had: pipe tobacco, old leather, and floor wax. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with leather-bound legal treatises, agricultural journals, and first-edition novels he had collected at estate sales across three states.
Mason paced behind the heavy mahogany desk like a caged panther, his suit jacket discarded, his silk tie loosened at the collar. But he wasn't alone in his confidence. Standing right beside him was Victor Trent, a notorious defense attorney from Kansas City known for getting white-collar embezzlers acquitted by confusing juries with complex tax jargon. Trent wore a bespoke gray suit and a gold Rolex that gleamed under the antique brass desk lamp, looking around the room with the condescending amusement of a wolf inspecting a pen of well-fed sheep.
Near the bay window overlooking the overgrown rose garden stood Mason’s wife, Chloe. She wore a black Chanel dress and a massive diamond tennis bracelet around her wrist—a piece of jewelry they could not possibly afford on Mason’s alleged salary, funded entirely by the steady stream of "loans" he had extracted from our mother before her death, and later from Dad’s dwindling retirement accounts.
Chloe smiled when Mason announced to the room, his voice dripping with triumphant certainty, that the wall safe behind the oil painting of our grandfather contained at least two million dollars in untraceable cash, bearer bonds, and prime commercial real estate deeds.
"He told me himself," Mason proclaimed, gesturing grandly to the crowd of relatives and family friends crammed between the bookshelves. "Two years ago, when we were talking about expanding my logistics firm. Dad said, 'Mason, boy, the real money isn't in the bank accounts where the tax man can see it. It’s in the iron box behind the old man’s portrait. That’s your inheritance, son. That’s the empire.'"
He believed it because Dad had let him believe it.
Dad had mastered the art of silence. He had listened to Mason’s grandiose lies about silicon valley investments and international shipping contracts with the same blank, unblinking expression he used when listening to the weather forecast. He never argued. He never cut him off. He just nodded, poured another cup of peppermint tea, and let Mason dig his own financial and moral grave deeper with every passing year.
I stepped forward from the doorway, my coat still on, the taste of dried blood still lingering on my bruised lip.
"You’re standing in the wrong spot, Mason," I said quietly.
He sneered, turning his heavy shoulders toward me. "Shut up, Eleanor. You’ve done enough damage today. Pull the painting down. Unlock the safe. Let’s get this over with so I can pay these people to leave my house."
"It isn’t your house," I replied, my voice level.
"Everything Dad owned is mine. Firstborn son, remember? Or did your community college bookkeeping classes skip over inheritance law?"
Victor Trent chuckled smoothly, adjusting his cuffs. "Let’s keep things civil, Mr. Vance. Miss Vance, if you possess the key as your brother asserts, I strongly advise you to surrender it immediately. Obstructing the execution of an estate’s primary asset distribution carries severe legal penalties in this state. My firm is prepared to file an emergency injunction within the hour if we encounter any further... difficulties."
I looked at the lawyer, then at my brother, and finally at the oil painting of Grandfather Thomas Vance—a stern-faced man with a handlebar mustache who looked down from the canvas with eyes that seemed to mirror my own exhaustion.
I reached into the pocket of my coat, my fingers wrapping around the cold, heavy brass key.
"Open it," Mason hissed, leaning so close to me I could smell the expensive scotch mixed with the sour stench of his panic. "Open it, you pathetic little accountant, and then get out of my sight forever."
I stepped up to the mahogany desk, bypassed Mason entirely, and reached up to swing the heavy framed portrait of Grandfather Thomas away from the wall.
Behind it sat the flush-mounted steel door of a heavy-duty Chubb wall safe, its black enamel scarred with age, its combination dial polished to a dull silver finish from decades of use. But Dad hadn't used the combination in the final years of his life. His hands shook too badly. Instead, he had installed a high-security pin-tumbler lock right beneath the dial.
I inserted the brass key.
Mason leaned in so hard his shoulder shoved against mine, his breathing hot and ragged. Chloe craned her neck from the window, her diamond bracelet flashing as she lifted a hand to her mouth in breathless anticipation.
I turned the key.
The heavy internal mechanism gave a loud, satisfying click that echoed through the silent study. The steel door unlatched, swinging outward on well-oiled hinges with a soft hiss of trapped air escaping into the room.
Mason let out a sharp breath, his hand darting forward like a striking snake to grab whatever lay inside.
He froze.
His outstretched fingers hovered inches from the open cavity, trembling violently.
Inside the safe were no stacks of shrink-wrapped hundred-dollar bills. No bearer bonds bearing serial numbers of unimaginable wealth. No deeds to commercial skyscrapers or sprawling ranches out west.
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There were only three thick, meticulously organized, color-coded three-ring binders labeled with white adhesive tags, a small black velvet jewelry box, and a single, modern silver USB flash drive.
Mason’s arrogant, triumphant smirk fractured instantly, sliding off his face like wet clay.
