Chapter 11 - The Knock at Midnight
The chiming bell wasn't the delivery driver.
Elias frowned, setting his mug down on the stone railing. "Are you expecting someone? The groceries weren't supposed to arrive until three."
"No," I said, standing up, an instinctive prickle of unease brushing against the back of my neck. "Nobody has this address except the firm and Clara."
Elias walked through the living room toward the grand foyer, motioning for me to stay behind him. He checked the high-resolution security monitor mounted discreetly behind the hallway mirror.
On the front stone porch stood a courier wearing an unmarked black uniform. No FedEx logo. No UPS insignia. Just a nondescript black cap and sunglasses, holding a slim, heavy wooden lockbox wrapped in thick red twine.
Elias opened the heavy oak front door, leaving the iron security grate locked. "Can I help you?"
"Special delivery for Elias Vance," the courier said in a monotone voice. He slipped the wooden lockbox through the package slot beneath the iron grate, turned around without asking for a signature, and walked briskly down the driveway toward an idling black sedan with diplomatic plates.
Elias watched the car speed away, disappearing down the private coastal road.
"Elias?" I asked, stepping into the foyer, holding my breath. "What is that?"
Elias knelt down, inspecting the box. It was made of polished mahogany, sealed with black wax stamped with an emblem that made Elias's breath hitch in his throat: a double-headed eagle clutching an anchor.
"That's not Vivian's," Elias whispered, his voice suddenly stripped of all certainty.
"Whose is it?"
Elias broke the wax seal with his pocketknife and lifted the heavy wooden lid. Inside, resting on a bed of black velvet, was an antique silver compass—the very compass our father had carried during his naval deployment thirty years ago, the one that was supposed to have burned in the car crash that killed our parents.
Tucked beneath the compass was a handwritten letter on heavy parchment paper, written in bold, familiar strokes:
*My dear Elias and Lena,*
*You played the court game well against Graham and Vivian. They were greedy, clumsy pawns, and they deserved their prison cells. But do not deceive yourselves into believing Graham found that trust fund on his own.*
*The boys you are raising in that house do not carry Graham Mercer's blood. Check the clinic’s original donor records in Zurich.*
*I am coming to collect what is mine.*
May you like
*— Father.*
A cold draft swept through the grand hallway as the grandfather clock struck noon. From upstairs in the nursery, both babies suddenly began to wring the silence with piercing, synchronized cries.
