Part 5
Thorne exhaled a plume of spicy smoke directly above her head, watching her with the ruthless patience of an executioner.
"Kenneth came here four nights ago to bleed his blue-blooded brother dry," Thorne continued smoothly. "He wanted Julian's paper trail. He wanted an identity the authorities couldn't touch. Instead, someone put a bullet through Kenneth's throat, dragged him into that mahogany-lined study, and struck a match."
Elena's mind raced, struggling to stitch together the jagged edges of two conflicting realities. The living double claimed Kenneth was the intruder who had burned. Thorne claimed Kenneth was the corpse, but assumed Julian had been the killer.
"If my husband shot an intruder in his own home," Elena said, keeping her chin raised, "it was self-defense. And it has nothing to do with me."
"It has five million things to do with you, Mrs. Vance," Thorne growled, stepping within arm's reach. He tapped a thick, calloused index finger against his chest. "Five million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds vanished from Kenneth's possession the night your manor burned. Kenneth didn't leave this property with them. And neither did Julian."
He reached into his heavy coat and produced a worn leather notebook, flipping it open with a snap of his wrist.
"Julian's private assets are tied up in probate, but you have sole signatory authority over the Vance liquid holdings," Thorne murmured, his hooded eyes narrowing into cold slits. "You have forty-eight hours to deliver those bonds, or the equivalent cash, to my dockside office in the Lower Reach."
"That is impossible," Elena countered coldly. "Bank transfers of that magnitude require trustee approvals. The board doesn't meet until next month."
"Then you had better find Julian's hidden stash, Mrs. Vance," Thorne whispered, his breath hot and rancid against her ear. "Because at forty-eight hours and one minute, I stop asking nicely. I take this manor apart brick by brick, and I bury you in the same unmarked trench Kenneth should have occupied."
A sharp crack of lightning split the storm, illuminating the grand foyer in blinding, skeletal white.
Elena's gaze instinctively darted past Thorne's broad, menacing shoulder toward the floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened out onto the rear terrace.
Standing on the rain-swept flagstones, framed by the thrashing black pines, was the living double.
He had discarded his overcoat, his tailored black shirt plastered to his lean frame by the deluge, his slate-grey eyes locked onto the back of the enforcer's skull through the glass.
