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Chapter 3 - The Morning Screams of Arlington

By 6:30 AM, the rain had cleared, leaving a cold, grey mist hanging over the manicured lawns of the Vance estate on Country Club Lane.

Evelyn Vance’s black Mercedes sedan pulled into the circular driveway. She had cut her Richmond charity trip short after receiving three incoherent, hysterical voice messages from Chloe at dawn. Stepping through the front door in her tailored wool overcoat, Evelyn expected to find her daughter suffering from a standard hangover.

Instead, she walked into a living nightmare.

The grand living room was in shambles. Chloe was curled into a tight fetal position on the antique velvet sofa, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes swollen shut from hours of crying, her body trembling violently. She was still wearing the clothes from the night before, stained with spilled orange juice.

Arthur sat in the wingback armchair across from her, looking as though he had aged twenty years overnight. His eyes were hollow, his hands shook as he held a glass of untouched bourbon, and his collar was still wrinkled and open.

“What on earth happened in this house?!” Evelyn demanded, dropping her leather handbag onto the console table. “Chloe! Arthur! Why were you screaming on my voicemail at four in the morning?!”

Chloe lifted her tear-streaked face, pointing a trembling, accusatory finger at her father.

“He came into Rebecca’s room, Mom!” Chloe screamed, her voice cracking with raw hysteria. “He locked the door! He put his hands on me in the dark! He thought I was Rebecca!”

Evelyn froze in her tracks. Her aristocratic posture stiffened into stone. She slowly turned her head toward her husband of thirty-two years.

“Arthur… what is she talking about?”

Arthur leaped to his feet, knocking his glass over onto the Persian rug. “It’s a lie! Chloe was hallucinating from alcohol! She came home completely intoxicated on gin! I heard a disturbance in Rebecca’s room, and when I went in to check for an intruder, Chloe attacked me!”

“You’re lying!” Chloe shrieked, pulling at her hair. “You whispered to me! You thought I was asleep! You said I belonged to this house!”

Evelyn’s face drained of every drop of color. For thirty years, Evelyn had turned a blind eye to Arthur’s "eccentricities"—the sudden resignations of young female teachers at his private academy, the private settlements paid from family trust accounts, the uncomfortable atmosphere around previous housekeepers. She had buried every scandal under layers of philanthropy and family prestige.

At that moment, the front door clicked open again.

David Vance walked in, carrying his leather carry-on bag, having taken the first 5:00 AM flight back from Chicago.

“What is going on here?” David asked, looking around the room in utter confusion. “I got a text from Rebecca saying she was at a hotel, and now everyone is screaming?”

Arthur immediately lunged toward his son, grabbing David by the lapels of his coat with desperate, theatrical intensity.

“David! Thank God you’re here!” Arthur gasped, spinning the narrative with practiced, manipulative deceit. “Your wife has set us up! Rebecca drugged your sister! She gave Chloe a poisoned drink, set a trap to humiliate this family, and now she’s trying to extort our estate!”

David blinked, his brow furrowing in bewilderment. “Rebecca did what? Where is she?!”

“I am right here, David.”

A clear, icy voice resonated from the foyer.

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I stepped through the front door, wearing a crisp navy coat, flanked by Senior Detective Karen Miller of the Arlington Special Victims Unit and two uniformed police officers.

The entire Vance family fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

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