Chapter 6 - THE STERLING ACCOUNT BEHIND THE CAMERA
Richard ripped the webcam from the shelf.
Julian stopped him before he smashed it.
“Don’t destroy it.”
Richard’s breathing was hard.
“Someone is watching my house.”
“Then the device is evidence.”
That word mattered now.
Evidence.
Not accusations.
Not family explanations.
Something tangible.
Vanessa disconnected the camera from the Wi-Fi.
Julian checked the network information.
The device was registered to an external account.
User name:
JS-ORCHIDADMIN.
Richard looked at Julian.
“J.S.”
Julian’s face hardened.
“My initials.”
I felt cold.
“Is it yours?”
“No.”
“Can you prove that?”
He looked at me.
The question hurt him.
Good.
Trust should not be free tonight.
“I can show you my archive credentials.”
“Later.”
Julian nodded.
No argument.
That helped more than defensiveness would have.
The webcam retained a local configuration log.
It had been installed eleven months earlier.
By an estate technology company.
Requested by Olivia Vance.
Administrator access granted to:
OVANCE.
CVANCE-ARCHIVE.
JS-ORCHIDADMIN.
Charles Vance had been dead for five years.
His account still existed.
Julian’s apparent account existed too.
Someone had preserved dead and borrowed identities inside the system.
Vanessa whispered, “This house is disgusting.”
Richard looked at her.
“You’ve spent years filming everybody.”
She flinched.
Fair.
I opened the Evelyn folder again.
“My mother knew something.”
Julian looked at me.
“She disappeared three days before she was supposed to testify in a private Sterling financial inquiry.”
That was new.
“You didn’t mention that.”
“I didn’t know whether it connected.”
“What inquiry?”
“My father suspected somebody was moving family trust money through outside property companies.”
“Vance companies?”
“Some.”
Richard stared.
“My father stole from you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Evidence first,” I said.
Julian looked at me.
Then nodded.
We traced one of the old company names from the file.
Cedar Shore Acquisitions.
Managed in 1993 by Charles Vance.
Registered financial adviser:
Sterling Family Trust Services.
Authorized representative:
J.S.
Julian went still.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I was thirty-two.”
“So?”
“I was not an authorized trust representative.”
“Who was?”
“My older brother.”
I stared.
“You have a brother?”
“Had.”
His name was Jonathan Sterling.
Same initials.
J.S.
He died twenty-one years ago.
Suddenly the camera account made more sense.
Not Julian.
Jonathan.
Or someone using Jonathan’s old credentials.
“What was Jonathan’s relationship with Evelyn?”
Julian’s expression became guarded.
“Complicated.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“He was our oldest brother.”
“And?”
“He believed family problems belonged inside the family.”
I almost laughed.
I had heard that philosophy before.
Every controlling family invents the same sentence independently.
“What did Evelyn think?”
“She hated it.”
“Did she trust him?”
“No.”
Julian looked at the green folder.
“Not at the end.”
Richard sat down.
“Could Jonathan have been the trustee?”
Julian didn’t answer.
Vanessa found a paper beneath the camera equipment.
Old email printout.
From Jonathan Sterling.
To Charles Vance.
Date:
October 1993.
Evelyn is becoming unstable.
Do not let her speak to Julian alone.
Julian read it twice.
His face changed.
“What?”
“That was the week she disappeared.”
The email continued.
If necessary, use the Hale arrangement.
I looked up.
“Hale.”
My mother’s later surname.
Another line:
The ring remains the priority.
Richard whispered, “Your brother knew where Evelyn went.”
Julian looked sick.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t?”
“No.”
I believed the pain.
But belief was not proof.
We kept reading.
Charles replied:
Olivia can handle the woman.
My skin went cold.
Olivia had not merely known Evelyn later.
She had been assigned to “handle” her before she disappeared.
Then Jonathan’s reply:
Once the child is confirmed, the trust problem resolves itself.
The child.
Me.
The sentence was written before I was born.
How had they known my mother was pregnant?
Julian sat down slowly.
“My brother knew.”
Vanessa’s phone buzzed.
Another unknown message.
JONATHAN WAS THE TRUSTEE.
Then:
BUT HE WAS NOT THE LAST ONE.
Then a third.
ASK OLIVIA WHO SIGNED AFTER HE DIED.
I looked at Richard.
“Find your mother.”
This time he didn’t argue.
We searched the first floor.
Kitchen.
Library.
Guest rooms.
No Olivia.
Her car remained outside.
Then Lily’s voice came from the hallway.
“Mommy?”
I ran.
She stood beside the staircase holding a green folder almost as big as her torso.
“Grandma said give you this if she doesn’t come back.”
My stomach dropped.
“Where did she go?”
Lily pointed toward the rear garden.
“Through the little gate.”
Olivia had left on foot.
The folder in Lily’s hands contained the missing trustee page.
Jonathan Sterling.
And beneath his name was a handwritten successor designation.
May you like
Olivia Vance.
📖 Find out how Olivia became successor trustee of my mother’s hidden fortune—and why she vanished the moment we discovered Jonathan Sterling’s original appointment in CHAPTER 7. 👇
