Chapter 20 - THE CIPHER AT DAWN
Dawn broke over the glass towers of Manhattan in a pale wash of silver and slate.
The executive boardroom on the eightieth floor of Sterling Tower was filled with high-ranking board members and silent security guards.
I sat at the head of the long obsidian table, my hands clasped together, my eyes watching the heavy double doors.
Beside me stood an empty chair where Arthur usually sat with his leather portfolio.
At precisely eight o’clock, the elevator chimes resonated through the marble corridor outside.
The heavy boardroom doors swung open, but it was not Arthur who walked through the threshold.
A courier dressed in a dark uniform walked directly to my chair, carrying a wooden box lacquered in black and bound with heavy gold wire.
"Delivery for Clara Sterling," the courier announced, bowing respectfully.
"From whom?" I asked, my voice cutting through the tense silence of the boardroom.
"The sender requested that you open it before the proxy vote begins," the courier said, placing the box in front of me and quickly departing.
The board members exchanged bewildered looks as I took a silver letter opener and cut the gold wire.
I lifted the heavy lacquered lid.
Inside lay a single piece of parchment, an ancient mechanical pocket watch, and a heavy gold signet ring engraved with the Sterling family crest.
It was the exact signet ring my father was wearing the night his car plummeted off the cliff five years ago.
The ring that had supposedly burned along with his vehicle and was never recovered by the state police.
I unfolded the parchment with trembling fingers.
Written in familiar, elegant fountain-pen script were three short sentences:
*The silent game is finally over, Clara.*
*Julian was never the predator; he was merely the distraction.*
*Look out the window.*
My heart slammed against my ribs as I stood up from my chair and walked toward the panoramic glass wall.
Eighty floors below, stepping out of a private black motorcade flanked by eight armed security guards, a tall figure in a tailored coat looked up toward my window.
The man lifted his face to the morning sun, adjusted his lapel, and stepped toward the private elevators of my building.
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The face beneath the brim of the hat was one I had mourned for five years.
My father was alive.
