Chapter 6 - The Trap Shuts
"Julian," Clara said, her voice dropping into a register of icy calm she didn’t know she possessed.
"He didn't come alone," Finch reported, checking the tactical monitors embedded in the wall. "He brought private security. Black-market contractors. They aren't serving an injunction, Ms. Vance. They brought cutting torches and automatic carbines. They came to wipe the board clean."
"Finch, how long can the blast doors hold?" Evelyn asked, shoving the critical hard drives and the murder confession into her leather satchel.
"Against plasma torches? Twenty minutes. Against high-grade C4? Seven." Finch cocked his weapon with a sharp *clack*. "This facility was built with an escape egress through the seawall, directly to Slip 14. Arthur planned for this exact contingency. But the controls must be operated manually from the harbor gatehouse."
"I'll go," Thomas said, stepping forward.
"No," Clara said, turning toward the second trunk. Inside lay rows of velvet-lined cases containing grandfather’s personal security credentials, encrypted radios, and something else—a small black remote control with a single illuminated toggle switch.
Beside the remote was a sticky note in Arthur’s handwriting: *For Beatrice’s curiosity.*
"What is that?" Evelyn asked.
"Grandfather didn't just leave them the debt," Clara whispered, remembering the strange electrical work contractors had spent two weeks doing on the manor’s third floor during Arthur's final hospice stay. "He wired the manor’s primary server farm to this remote. Beatrice and Julian are hunting me here, but Uncle Richard stayed behind at the house, didn't he?"
"Richard is at the manor right now," Evelyn confirmed, checking her encrypted phone. "He thinks he's overseeing the transfer of Arthur’s art collection onto moving vans before the court can inventory it."
Clara flipped open the safety cover on the remote. "Grandfather told me once that the only way to stop a wolf is to burn the den. Let's see how much Richard loves that house."
She pressed the button.
Forty miles away, on the forested cliffs above the valley, the centralized security system of Vance Manor engaged its fail-safe lockdown. The bulletproof steel shutters slammed down over every window, the reinforced iron doors bolted shut from within, and the main servers initiated an irreversible, public upload of Arthur’s complete financial archives directly to the Department of Justice, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, and every major news outlet in the state.
At the same moment, the sound of an explosion rocked the concrete floor of St. Jude's Depository.
Julian had breached the outer blast door.
"Move!" Finch shouted, ushering them toward the rear steel hatch that opened onto the subterranean seawall.
Barnaby let out a low, menacing growl—the first sound he had made all night. His hackles were raised, his golden coat bristling. He turned his head toward the smoke-filled corridor, his aging eyes burning with pure, primal defiance.
"Barnaby, come!" Clara commanded, pulling his lead.
Footsteps pounded against the stone outside. A voice—Julian’s, raw with hysteria and cocaine-fueled fury—echoed down the vaulted ceiling.
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"CLARA! I know you're in there! Give me the Swiss account numbers or I swear to God you won't leave this vault alive! The police won't help you! I OWN THE CHIEF OF POLICE!"
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