Chapter 20 - The Reflection in the Dark
The Zodiac cut through the black ocean swells, leaving the burning coastline behind as Julian steered blindly into the fog-drenched expanse of the Pacific. Clara’s heart hammered so hard against her ribs she felt she would vomit blood. Her mind was fractured, pieces of the truth rearranging into a terrifying, monstrous mosaic.
Victoria hadn't been killed by Charles. Charles hadn't outmaneuvered Victoria.
They were working together. The entire falling-out, the secret codicil, the explosion, Evelyn’s confession—it was all an elaborate, grand theater designed to eradicate Victoria Sterling’s criminal record, fake her official death, and force Julian and Clara off the grid where their disappearance would never be investigated by federal authorities.
"Julian," Clara gasped over the scream of the outboard motor, wiping saltwater and rain from her eyes. "She wasn't in the prison. She’s on the cliff! She’s alive!"
Julian didn't answer. His hands were frozen on the tiller, his eyes fixed on the GPS compass on the console.
"Julian?!" Clara yelled, turning to look at him.
In the faint, green glow of the instrument panel, Julian’s expression was not one of terror, nor rage.
It was utterly blank.
He slowly reached up, his gloved fingers finding the zipper of his tactical jacket. He reached inside his breast pocket, pulling out an antique, gold-rimmed compact mirror—the exact compact mirror Victoria had carried every day of Clara’s married life.
The boat’s engine suddenly sputtered and died, the fuel line deliberately cut. The Zodiac drifted into the deafening, total darkness of a ocean swell, swallowed by the suffocating Pacific fog.
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Julian looked down at Clara, then down at the baby crying against her chest. When he spoke, the warm, loving cadence of the man she had loved for five years was completely gone. In its place was the cold, aristocratic drawl of a Sterling.
"Did you really believe, Clara," Julian whispered, the moonlight catching the icy gray of his unblinking eyes, "that a mother could ever truly lose her favorite son?"
