Chapter 4 - Ghosts of the Past
The digital files on Julian’s secure terminal scrolled downward, painting a picture that grew murkier by the minute.
“Interesting,” Julian murmured, tapping a gloved finger against the glass screen. He zoomed in on a birth certificate and a series of historical property transfers dating back nearly fifteen years. “It appears your former fiancée didn't just wake up one day and decide to hide silver lockets. Her legal name isn't even Amanda Vance.”
Daniel leaned in closer, shifting Sophie gently. “What do you mean? What is her name?”
“Her birth name is Amanda Cole,” Julian read aloud, his eyes scanning the dense legal text. “Daughter of Arthur Cole—a prominent corporate liquidator and estate attorney who was disbarred and prosecuted for asset stripping back in the late two-thousand-and-tens. He specialized in draining private trusts, forging power-of-attorney documents, and disappearing funds belonging to vulnerable clients.”
The words hit Daniel like a physical blow. The pieces were starting to connect in a way that made his stomach turn. “Her father was a white-collar criminal. A thief.”
“Not just a thief,” Julian corrected, pulling up a secondary database linked to local missing persons and unsolved civil disputes. “An artist. But look at this property deed from twelve years ago—right around the time her father’s firm collapsed under federal investigation. A residential estate in the wealthy suburbs of Sewickley was purchased under a blind shell company. And guess who the primary beneficiary of that shell company’s residual trust fund is?”
Daniel squinted at the monitor. “Amanda.”
“Correct,” Julian said smoothly. “Which means the lifestyle she’s been living—the designer clothes, the high-end apartment, the expensive wedding she expected you to finance—was all funded by money her father stashed away before the feds could seize it. But there’s a catch.”
“What catch?”
Julian clicked open a scanned photograph attached to an old police report filed in a neighboring county. It was a picture of a young woman standing outside a grand estate, holding a silver locket remarkably similar to the one Sophie had found. Her hair was dark, her smile radiant, and her eyes—unmistakably—were a striking, brilliant emerald green.
“Meet Elena Cole,” Julian said quietly. “Amanda’s older sister. Or, legally speaking… her half-sister.”
Daniel stared at the photograph, a cold chill running down his spine. “Half-sister? I thought Amanda was an only child. She always told me her parents died in a car crash when she was a teenager, leaving her to fend for herself.”
“Convenient narrative,” Julian remarked dryly, leaning back in his leather chair. “Because according to these probate court records, Elena Cole didn't die in a car crash. She vanished twelve years ago—right after inheriting a controlling stake in the family’s hidden real estate portfolio. And her disappearance was never officially solved because the local sheriff at the time ruled it a voluntary desertion.”
Sophie stirred in her sleep, letting out a soft sigh and wrapping her tiny hand tighter around Daniel’s collar. Daniel gently patted her back, his eyes locked onto the screen.
“If Elena vanished twelve years ago, and Amanda inherited everything… what does that have to do with the locket?” Daniel asked, his voice hardening.
“Everything,” Julian said, his gray eyes flashing with dangerous calculation. “Because that locket isn't just an heirloom. It’s a tracking key. And if Amanda thought that locket was lost or in the hands of someone who could trace its origin… it means she knows something about what happened to her sister that she’s been running from her entire life.”
Daniel stood up slowly from the desk, his jaw set in stone. The confusion he had felt earlier that afternoon had completely evaporated, replaced by a cold, burning determination.
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“Where is Amanda right now?” Daniel asked.
Julian checked his terminal, where a small red GPS dot was blinking on a map of the city. “She didn't go home. She checked into a luxury suite at the Riverside Hotel under a pseudonym. And based on her recent phone activity… she’s currently trying to book a one-way flight out of the country.”
