PART 2 — The Shadow of Julian
The room felt ice-cold after the connection was cut. I stared at the blackened phone in my hand. My breathing was heavy, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. The name haunting my mind was Julian.
Julian Miller.
He was the man who had moved through our lives like a shadow for thirty years. Daniel introduced him to me when we had been married for just three years. He called Julian a childhood friend, someone he grew up with in a small town in Maine. Julian occasionally came over for dinner, brought gifts for our children on their birthdays, and was even present at our twentieth wedding anniversary. He was always friendly, discreet, and a bit in the background. A man with clear, deep blue eyes and a calm smile.
Those same eyes were now looking at me from the photo on the second phone. The eight-year-old boy with Daniel’s smile... had Julian’s exact eyes.
My hands trembled so much that the phone almost slipped from my grip. I forced myself onto the sofa and compelled myself to think. If Julian was Daniel’s first son, how could he be older than our eldest daughter Emma? Emma was twenty-eight. Julian was in his late thirties. That meant Daniel already had a child before he met me. But why had he ever introduced Julian to me as an ‘old friend’? Why did he allow his own son into our house under a false identity?
I stood up and walked to Daniel’s study. Since the day of the accident, I had kept the door closed. The smell of his tobacco and old books still hung heavy in the air. I turned on the light and looked at the solid oak desk. For thirty years, this had been his sanctuary.
I began searching through the drawers. Financial records, tax forms, old bank statements. Everything looked impeccably organized, as always. But I wasn’t looking for folders. I was looking for spaces that didn’t fit right.
I pulled the bottom drawer all the way out. In the back of the wooden frame was a small seam. I pressed my fingers against it, and with a soft click, a wooden panel sprang loose. Behind it lay a weathered metal box.
My heart beat in my throat. I took the key I found attached to the second phone and inserted it into the box’s lock. It fit perfectly.
When I opened the lid, I found no money or jewelry. There were letters. Dozens of letters tied together with a red ribbon. And at the very bottom lay a notarized document from 1994.
I unfolded the document. It was a legal agreement. My eyes scanned the text until I came to the names.
Daniel Vance. Julian Miller. And the third party: Monique Laurent.
Monique. The letter M from the messages on the phone.
In the document, it was stated in black and white that Daniel made monthly payments to Monique for Julian’s upbringing, on the condition that Julian would never carry the surname Vance and that the true circumstances of his birth remain secret from "the legal wife of Daniel Vance." From me.
But there was another clause. A clause that made the blood run cold in my veins.
"In the event of the death of Daniel Vance, 50% of the total assets of the Vance Estate shall pass to Julian Miller, provided he has not broken the oath below."
I dropped the paper. For thirty years, I had worked hard building our family business. I had put my own inheritance from my parents into Daniel’s company. And now it turned out that half of everything we built would go straight to a man who had sat at my dining table all those years as if he were a stranger.
And then the doorbell rang.
It was almost two in the morning. Who could be ringing the bell at this hour?
I walked slowly to the hallway. The frosted glass of the front door showed the silhouette of a tall man. I held my breath and looked through the peephole.
Outside stood Julian.
He wore a dark coat, and his face was rigid and pale under the streetlight. He stared intently at the door, as if he knew I was watching from the other side.
I didn’t open the door. "Julian?" I called out through the wood in a hoarse voice.
"Claire," he said. His voice was calm, calculated, exactly as I knew it. "I know you were in his study. I know what you found."
"Go away," I said, panic tightening my throat. "Go away or I’ll call the police."
"You could do that," he answered calmly. "But if you call the police, you will never find out what Daniel was really doing the night he died. Because it wasn’t an accident, Claire. He was on his way to me. And he wasn’t alone."
My hand hovered tremblingly above the alarm keypad.
"What are you saying?" I whispered.
"Open the door," Julian said. "Or I’ll make sure the Portland secret is on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow."
