Chapter 3
Beatrice finally found her voice, though it emerged as a thin, reedy rattle that seemed to scrape against her throat. "Richard, tell me this isn't true," the elderly woman pleaded, her jeweled fingers clutching the lace of her dress as if searching for an anchor. "Is he really back? After all this time, after everything we did to secure this estate?" Richard didn't answer his mother. His eyes remained fixed on Elena, tracking the way her thumb brushed against the back of the smartphone. The screen was still lit, displaying a caller ID that bore no name, only a ten-digit number from a county three hours north—a county where the timber mills had shut down in the late nineties. "You're making a mistake," Richard said, his tone shifting from panic back to the practiced, manipulative cadence of a man used to buying his way out of catastrophe. He took a slow step around the corner of the table, his black leather shoes clicking softly against the parquet floor. "Whatever he told you, Elena, it’s a fabrication. He’s a bitter man who abandoned this family when the debts piled up. He wants what we built, nothing more." Elena stood up slowly, her white shirt catching the light as she stepped back from the table to keep distance between herself and her father. The cut on her head throbbed in time with her pulse, but her focus remained absolute. "He didn't abandon us, Richard. You pushed him out the window of that second-story office and paid the local sheriff to call it an accident." Beatrice let out a sharp cry, slumping back into her chair as the diamond necklace around her neck rose and fell in a sickening rhythm. Richard lunged again, but this time Beatrice’s frail hand shot out, catching his sleeve with surprising strength. "Stop it," the old woman hissed, tears finally spilling over her powdered cheeks. "Just stop lying, Richard. The walls are falling down."
