Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 102280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
“May I?” She gestured to a blank notepad on the table.
Porter slid it toward her. Vivienne began writing, translating the codes into plain language. Origins, destinations, types of artifacts, estimated values, buyers. Information Lily had died protecting, information her family had preserved for twenty-five years.
“My grandmother taught me to read these. She’d studied the Aldrich operation for decades, learned their systems, their patterns. She passed that knowledge to my mother, who passed it to me.” Vivienne looked up from her notes. “We’ve been preparing for this moment across generations. Waiting for someone brave enough to bring these criminals to justice.”
The room absorbed that statement. Sullivan shifted uncomfortably. Brooks remained silent, but she felt his attention on her, steady and grounding.
“The artifacts themselves,” Porter continued. “Do you know their current locations?”
“The FBI seized items from the warehouse. But there are more—pieces the Aldriches sold years ago, scattered in private collections across the world. Lily photographed records of every transaction. With her documentation, you can trace them, begin the process of repatriation.”
Porter’s expression suggested she’d already begun that process. “We’ll need your continued consultation as we work through the evidence. Your family’s knowledge of the Aldrich operation is proving invaluable.”
After the briefing ended, the officer walked Martha home while Brooks walked Vivienne back to The Mystic Cup. The morning had turned bright, cold, the October air carrying salt and promise of early winter.
“You did well in there,” Brooks said. “Porter’s impressed. So is Sullivan, though he won’t admit it.”
“Sullivan’s afraid. He spent years ignoring what my family tried to tell him, years dismissing our warnings as superstition. Now he has to face the fact that we were right all along.”
They reached the shop. Dawn was helping a customer at the counter, the normalcy of the transaction a stark contrast to the morning’s FBI briefing. Vivienne stepped inside.
“What happens now?” Vivenne asked.
“Now we ensure Lily’s evidence leads to convictions. We make certain every person involved in the Aldrich operation faces justice.” Brooks said. “And we watch for the ones who will inevitably try to fill the power vacuum. The Aldriches weren’t working alone. Their network extended beyond Westerly Cove, beyond New England. Taking them down was just the beginning.”
“You think there will be retaliation?”
“I know there will be. But this time, we’re prepared. This time, the truth is documented, protected, impossible to bury.”
She touched the pendant at her throat—Mathilde’s charm, worn by three generations of Hawthorne women. “My family has been preparing for this confrontation since the 1920s. We’re not stopping now.”
After Brooks left, Vivienne closed the grimoire and locked it away. The maps had served their purpose. The evidence had been found. The guilty would face trial.
But as she looked out toward the lighthouse, its beam still dark since the FBI had seized it as evidence, she felt Lily’s presence. A whisper of gratitude, of peace, of a spirit finally able to rest.
Martha was right. Lily had been brilliant—thorough and brave and determined. And now, twenty-five years after her death, she’d finally succeeded in bringing down the criminal empire she’d died fighting.
Vivienne lit a candle at the small altar she kept in the reading room. For Lily. For her mother Cordelia. For all the women who’d fought for truth and paid terrible prices for their courage.
The flame burned steady and bright, casting no shadows.
Just like justice, when it finally came.
SIXTEEN
brooks
The financial anomalies didn’t make sense.
Brooks sat in his office after the FBI briefing, staring at transaction records that refused to align with what he knew about the Aldrich family. Agent Porter’s team had been cataloging evidence around the clock, but these shipping manifests kept catching his attention.
A contract from 1923 bearing Winston Aldrich’s signature. Another from 1945. A third from 1978. The handwriting matched across fifty-five years of documents, down to the distinctive curl in the capital W.
Mayor Winston Aldrich’s birth certificate stated 1962.
He cross-referenced death certificates. Winston Aldrich Senior died in 1961, one year before his grandson was born. Yet the shipping company continued operating under the same signature, the same hand.
The genealogy records made even less sense. Winston Aldrich appeared as his own grandfather in some documents, his own son in others. Marriage certificates showed him wedding women listed as both his wife and their great-grandmother.
“Chief.” Brooks didn’t look up from the spreadsheet. “Can you verify something?”
Sullivan appeared in the doorway, coffee mug in hand. The manhunt for Winston had pushed everyone past exhaustion.
“What’ve you got?”
Brooks turned the laptop screen. “Transaction records from the Aldrich shipping company. Contracts signed by Winston Aldrich in 1985, 1978, even 1963. His birth certificate says 1962.”
Sullivan studied the screen. “Could be a father with the same name?”
“Death certificate for Winston Aldrich Senior, dated 1961. So the current Winston conducted business a year before his birth and two years after his grandfather died.”
“Family name on the business registration?”