Chapter 9 - NIGHT AT THE PIER
A heavy fog rolled in off the Hudson River as my black sedan pulled onto the deserted gravel path of Pier 84. The streetlights flickered against the damp air, casting long, eerie shadows across the industrial dock.
Marcus had urged me to let the police handle the meeting, but I knew that if federal authorities got hold of my mother's illegal offshore ledgers before I secured the original files, Vance & Co. would be dismantled by regulators before my birthday on Friday.
I stepped out of the car, wearing a trench coat, holding a leather folder containing dummy settlement documents. Julian Sterling stood three paces behind me in the shadows of the warehouse wall, his hand tucked inside his heavy coat.
At the edge of the pier, standing near a rusted iron railing overlooking the dark water, stood Celeste. She was alone, wearing her champagne silk dress beneath a dark trench coat, clutching a metal briefcase tightly against her side.
"You came," Celeste said, turning around, her dark mascara smudged from sweat and fog.
"Show me the original Zurich documents, Celeste," I said, stopping ten feet away. "Then we talk about the injunction."
Celeste laughed—a bitter, desperate sound that echoed over the lapping waves below. "You really think you're smart, don't you, Emma? You sat in your mother's shadow for twenty-eight years thinking you were protected. You had no idea that your entire life was paid for with blood money."
She opened the metal briefcase, pulling out a thick binder filled with yellowed medical charts and wire confirmations dating back to 2001.
"Your mother wasn't a saint," Celeste sneered, stepping closer. "She paid off the Swiss doctors to keep Victor in a medically induced coma so he couldn't speak. And when Nathan found out three years ago, I gave him the leverage to control her."
"Hand over the binder, Celeste," I commanded, extending my hand.
Before she could answer, the headlights of a heavy SUV blinded us from the entrance of the pier. The vehicle accelerated rapidly over the gravel, its engine roaring through the foggy night.
"Get down!" Julian yelled, rushing forward and shoving me violently behind a concrete loading pillar.
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BANG.
The SUV slammed directly into the iron railing where Celeste was standing. The impact shattered the metal bars with a deafening screech of tearing steel. Celeste let out a high-pitched scream as her body was thrown over the edge, plunging into the icy, churning black waters of the Hudson River below.
