The Emerald Key

The Initial Web

Chapter 2:

The Initial Web

​Elias held the leather-bound diary between two fingers, the way a bomb disposal technician might hold a live wire. The handwritten entry was dated October 2nd. Seraphina Blackwood’s engagement party—and presumed date of death—was September 29th. The sea hadn't taken her. She had planned to walk away, making the disappearance a calculated piece of misdirection.
​This wasn't a cold case. It was a cover-up.
​He found Arthur Blackwood in the sprawling, disused kitchen, carefully counting dusty silverware into a velvet-lined box. Arthur moved with the fussy precision of a man who was organizing his life to avoid noticing the structural damage.
​“A question about the finances, Arthur,” Elias said, tossing the word finances out like bait.
​Arthur stiffened, the spoon he was holding clattering against the silver. “I don’t handle those matters anymore. The estate is in escrow, being appraised for probate.”
​“Of course. But I noticed Seraphina had a large offshore account listed in some of the archived legal papers I found in the study. She planned to liquidate it a few days after the engagement party. Were you aware of that?”
​Elias was bluffing. The diary mentioned no account, only a "ticket." He watched Arthur’s eyes flick toward the tall, stained-glass window overlooking the cove, a fleeting glance that confirmed fear, not surprise.
​“Seraphina was… flighty,” Arthur said, regaining his composure with a tight smile. “She had many plans. She certainly never shared the details of her wealth with me. I was merely the caretaker, Elias. The poor relation.”
​“Right,” Elias said, leaning against the cold stone counter. “But a caretaker with significant debts, perhaps? Ones that Seraphina might have known about, or even offered to pay, in exchange for your silence?”
​Arthur’s face went white. He clutched the silver box tighter. “You’re projecting, former Detective. You’re looking for a New York motive in a Maine tragedy. Please focus on the sale of the house. I’d hate for you to find yourself in any sort of local trouble.”
​Elias had his answer: Arthur was hiding a financial motive, and he knew enough about Elias’s past to use it as a threat. Elias left Arthur to his counting and headed into St. Jude.
​The town of St. Jude was exactly the kind of seaside New England community that cultivated secrets the way other towns grew hydrangeas: slowly, stubbornly, and behind high, weathered fences.
​Eliza Dubois’s gallery, The Sea Glass, was housed in a converted fishing shack near the dock. Inside, it smelled of turpentine and salt. Eliza herself was a study in artistic melancholy, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a paint-splattered fisherman’s sweater. She looked exactly like the childhood friend who’d lived forever in the shadow of the Blackwood heiress.
​“You’re Elias Thorne,” she stated, not asked, wiping her hands on a rag. “Arthur called. He said you were asking intrusive, insensitive questions.”
​“I’m trying to understand the woman who owned the house I’m trying to sell,” Elias countered, admiring a striking, abstract canvas painted in violent greens and blues. “You were her close friend. What was she planning after the wedding?”
​Eliza stepped closer to the painting, her voice low. “She was planning to be married to Dr. Finch, whom she did not love. She was using him for respectability, or maybe just boredom. Seraphina was always cruel when she was bored.”
​“Was there jealousy, Eliza? On your part?”
​Eliza laughed, a genuine, brittle sound. “Jealousy? No. Pity. I saw the cage she was building for herself. We had history, yes. We grew up here. We shared a secret or two.” She gestured to the painting. “This is the ocean the night she vanished. I was the last person to speak to her outside. She was wearing the dress, the necklace, and a frantic look.”
​“Did she mention leaving town?”
​Eliza shook her head slowly. “She mentioned the emerald necklace was bothering her. She thought it was tacky. She went back inside the parlor before the main storm hit, looking for her mother’s jewelry box. She wanted to trade the emerald for a sapphire before the guests noticed.”
​The earring. Seraphina hadn't been planning to flee until three days later, but she was seeking a specific item that night. A memory clicked in Elias's mind: Seraphina’s room was only missing the earring, the necklace itself was found on the beach.
​“Where was Dr. Finch during that time?” Elias asked.
​Eliza’s gaze hardened. “Alistair? He was tending to his sick mother, a few blocks away. The perfect alibi. Everyone knows that. It was why she was so frustrated. Her perfect life was running on rails, and he was the most immovable rail of all.”
​Dr. Alistair Finch’s office was neat, modern, and smelled powerfully of antiseptic—the opposite of the manor. The doctor himself was impeccably dressed and offered Elias a handshake that was both firm and perfectly measured.
​“Arthur warned me you’d be making the rounds,” Dr. Finch said, settling behind his polished desk. He looked younger than his 40-odd years, but there were deep, vertical lines of fatigue around his eyes. “I understand you need closure to sell the estate, but my memories are painful, and they are also public record.”
​“I understand your alibi is air-tight,” Elias said, cutting to the chase. “You were with your mother, Mrs. Finch, who was gravely ill. She later passed, tragically. No one would question that you were attending her between, say, 10:00 PM and midnight—the critical window.”
​Dr. Finch nodded slowly, his expression one of polite, wounded grief. “That’s correct. The local constable, a personal friend, was even in the house when I left briefly to refill her prescription at the pharmacy.”
​“But you didn’t marry Seraphina,” Elias observed. “You were engaged, but you didn’t make it to the altar. Did you realize she didn't love you, Doctor?”
​Finch finally bristled, but the emotion was expertly contained. “I loved her deeply. She was tempestuous, yes, but her heart was good. I have nothing but peace knowing I was caring for my mother when she… when she succumbed to the tide.”
​Elias leaned forward, ignoring the doctor’s veneer. “What if I told you Seraphina was still alive three days after the party? That she was planning to run away? It means her killer wasn’t the sea, but someone here, someone local, someone who knew she was planning to leave and decided she couldn't.”
​The doctor didn’t flinch. He didn’t shout. He simply picked up a silver letter opener and started cleaning his fingernails with deliberate care.
​“That sounds like the kind of sensationalism that ruined your career, Detective Thorne. I suggest you stick to the facts on file, or you might find the sale of Blackwood Manor complicated by a cease-and-desist order. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have patients to see.”
​As Elias left the office, he noted the chilling control. Arthur was financially cornered, Eliza was professionally jealous, but only Dr. Finch seemed capable of burying a monumental secret with such surgical precision.
​Elias walked back toward his rental car, the Foggart now thick and silent over the town. He opened his phone, pulling up the records he’d smuggled from the manor. He started with the date: October 2nd. Seraphina’s planned escape day. Who in St. Jude had reason to believe she’d be vulnerable enough to be intercepted? And who, more importantly, had possession of the earring she went back inside to find?