Chapter 15 - The Man in the Rain
I raised my firearm, centering the sight directly on the driver's silhouette behind the windshield. "Step out of the car with your hands where I can see them, or I’ll open fire!"
The car door swung open slowly, but the man who stepped out did not raise his hands in surrender. Instead, he opened a large black umbrella with calm deliberation. He was tall, dressed in an immaculate charcoal wool coat that remained untouched by the swirling mud. His hair was stark silver, and he leaned lightly upon an ebony walking cane tipped with polished silver.
"Lower the weapon, Julian," the man said smoothly, his tone sounding more like a disappointed schoolmaster than an intruder. "If I intended to harm either you or Sarah’s child, you wouldn't have made it down the service stairs alive."
"Who are you?" I demanded, keeping Lily shielded behind my body as Thomas, hearing the commotion, emerged from the groundskeeper's cottage with a shotgun leveled at the stranger.
"My name is Arthur Vance," the man replied, adjusting his cuff. "I am the senior conservator of the Sterling Trust in Geneva. And more importantly, I was Sarah’s legal guardian long before you ever placed a wedding ring on her finger."
Lily peeked around my waist, her eyes fixing upon the cane the man held. "Daddy... Mommy had a picture of that stick in her book."
The man smiled warmly, his expression softening as he looked down at Lily. "Indeed she did, little one. Your grandfather carved it for me when we were boys. Julian, your late wife didn't hide that floral handbag to save your daughter from Victoria. She hid it to save her from the board of directors who are arriving in this country within forty-eight hours to claim Lily’s legal guardianship."
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"What board?" I growled, refusing to lower the gun. "Victoria and Richard are locked in a maximum-security facility. There is no claim on my daughter."
"Victoria and Richard were merely hired bait," Arthur Vance said gravely, stepping forward until the silver tip of his cane touched the iron gate. "They were sent to draw you into a domestic legal war so you wouldn't look across the Atlantic. Now that their trial is over, the real wolves have arrived."
