Chapter 4 - THE GHOST OF ARTHUR
The foyer spun around me.
Julian stood up slowly, the sapphire necklace dangling from his fingers.
“Arthur?” Julian repeated. “I don’t have a brother.”
“You do,” Beatrice smiled, though it didn’t reach her cold eyes. “An older half-brother. Your mother had him out of wedlock before she met your billionaire father. She gave him away to keep her perfect reputation.”
Margaret wept silently into her hands.
“He found me a year ago,” Beatrice continued, pacing the marble floor. “He’s a very talented locksmith, Julian. We made a deal. He gets into the safe, takes the will your father supposedly wrote, and plants the necklace. In exchange, I give him a very generous cut of the estate once you put your mother in a nursing home for going insane.”
Julian stared at his wife as if looking at a stranger.
“You planted the necklace,” Julian stated.
“To prove she’s losing her mind,” Beatrice shrugged. “Who steals their daughter-in-law’s jewelry and hides it in their own safe? A crazy woman. A woman unfit to manage her own finances.”
“You monster,” I whispered.
Beatrice shot me a venomous look. “Keep your mouth shut, maid, or I’ll have you arrested for assault.”
Julian looked down at his mother.
“Mom. Is it true? About Arthur?”
Margaret lowered her hands. Her face was streaked with tears, but her eyes were suddenly clear.
“Yes. I had a son before you,” she said quietly. “But I didn’t abandon him. His father took him from me when he was a baby. I spent twenty years looking for him. But he died, Julian. Arthur died in a car crash twelve years ago.”
The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.
Beatrice stopped pacing.
“What?” she snapped. “No, he didn’t. I literally spoke to him this morning. He was in the study!”
Margaret reached into her cardigan pocket.
She pulled out a crumpled, yellowed newspaper clipping.
An obituary.
She handed it to Julian.
Julian read it aloud. “Arthur Pendelton. Deceased at age thirty-four. Survived by his wife, and his younger sister... Beatrice.”
My jaw dropped.
Julian looked up from the paper, his eyes locking onto Beatrice.
May you like
Beatrice took a step backward, her face suddenly the color of ash.
“That’s right,” Margaret said, her voice turning cold. “I knew who you were the day Julian brought you home. You aren’t Arthur’s accomplice. You’re his sister. And you didn’t marry my son for love. You married him for revenge.”
