The Emerald Key

The Inheritance

Chapter 1

​The rain on the roof of Blackwood Manor sounded like a thousand drummers practicing poorly—a frantic, uneven beat that had been going since Elias Thorne had crossed the Massachusetts border into the dense, coastal silence of Maine.
​He traced the seam of the water damage across the ceiling of the drawing-room with his thumb. It wasn't the first time he'd watched a beautiful, ornate structure fall apart, but this one was officially his problem now. The will had been clear: all assets, including this glorious, waterlogged, coastal mausoleum, went to the only living relative he’d never met—him.
​The air smelled of sea salt, mildew, and 30 years of undisturbed dust. It was the scent of a life frozen in time, exactly the kind of sterile emotional environment he'd been craving for the last two years. A clean slate, devoid of the toxic human mess he’d caused in New York. He didn't deserve a view this bleakly beautiful, and he didn't deserve a fortune this cursed.
​He pulled the sheets off an immense, marble fireplace, its mantle carved with the Blackwood family crest—a stylized serpent coiled around a thorny branch. Next to it, leaning against the wall, was a full-length portrait of a woman: Seraphina.
​She was the ghost of this house. Seraphina Blackwood. She had high cheekbones, eyes the colour of sea glass, and a challenging smile that hinted at reckless ambition. She looked like a woman who didn't vanish—she chose. Elias felt a dull, familiar clench in his gut—the unreliable instinct he no longer trusted, the one that had ruined him. She felt like trouble.
​“She watches everyone who sleeps here,” said Arthur Blackwood, gliding into the room on silent slippers. He looked like a man sculpted entirely from ash and regret, his skin the colour of old parchment. “They never found her. Never found the body. Just the necklace.”
​Elias stopped rubbing the grime from his hands. "The police concluded she was swept out by the storm surge during the engagement party."
​Arthur sighed, a sound like dry leaves skittering across wood. "The police were wrong. Seraphina was not the kind of girl to let the ocean claim her. She was a fighter. Her death was the last great secret this house has kept." He paused, looking Elias over with a chillingly detached pity. “And now, it belongs to you.”
​Elias accepted the challenge in the man’s voice. "I'm just here to list it. I have no interest in family secrets."
​"Of course not. We’re all professionals, aren't we?" Arthur’s gaze dipped, subtly, but sharply. "The will requires that the heir occupy the premises for six months before the estate can be liquidated. A lovely little legal trap set by your great-aunt, I believe. Until then, you are stuck here, Elias."
​Arthur placed a small, tarnished brass key on a nearby table. "The key to the attic. And to the rest of the secrets. Your room is the master suite, overlooking the Widow's Walk. It’s the highest point of the house. Seraphina’s room."
​Elias frowned. "Why her room?"
​"The other rooms haven’t been aired since the ‘incident.’ This one is merely untouched. I would advise you to keep the windows latched. The Foggart rolls in fast here." Arthur nodded curtly, leaving Elias alone with Seraphina’s haunting gaze.
​It took him an hour just to pry open the master suite door. He set his single worn leather bag down on the threadbare Persian rug. The room was a museum dedicated to a beautiful life cut short. A dressing table held crystal atomizers, still faintly smelling of lily-of-the-valley. The bed was made up with heavy, moth-eaten brocade.
​Elias walked straight to the window, throwing open the thick velvet curtains. The view was staggering. Below him, the jagged rocks met the churning, steel-grey Atlantic. The Foggart—that local, low-lying coastal fog—was already beginning to creep across the water like a predatory organism. He understood why Seraphina had chosen this room: it was as close as you could get to the edge without falling off.
​He took a deep breath, the cold sea air a stark contrast to the stale atmosphere of the room, and began searching. Not for evidence—he wasn't a detective here—but for something mundane. A leak, a fuse box, a property survey. Something to justify the months of bureaucratic hell he was about to endure.
​He was checking the baseboards near the fireplace when his heel struck something loose. He bent down, running his fingers along the dark oak flooring. There it was: a sliver of wood slightly raised and yielding.
​He knelt, pulling out his old, battered Swiss Army knife—the only remnant of his police gear he kept—and carefully pried up the section of floorboard. It lifted easily, revealing a shallow, narrow cavity underneath.
​Inside, wrapped tightly in an old silk handkerchief, was a small, leather-bound diary.
​Elias stared at it, the blood draining from his face. The Bay Ridge Confessor had kept a diary, too, full of poetic nonsense that had seemed to support his guilt. Elias hated diaries. They were narratives, not facts.
​He opened the book, his hands trembling slightly, and flipped past dozens of entries about parties, finances, and bitter family squabbles. He stopped on the final, frantic entry, dated three days after the night Seraphina Blackwood supposedly vanished in the storm:
​October 2nd.
​The trunk is packed, the ticket is bought. He thinks he won, but I always hold the final card. When they find the necklace, they'll believe the sea took me, and that's precisely what I need them to think. Three days of silence, and then I’m gone for good. But I need to grab the earring. The matching emerald. I can’t leave without it. I’ll go tonight.