“Oh,” Neve said faintly, and kept working.
It made a strange kind of sense.
Over the decades, Sinclair Holdings had earned more than enough to keep Margaret and Neve comfortable for the rest of their lives.
No one had ever needed to touch what lay down here, so it had simply waited, generation after generation, in the dark.
Neve moved from pallet to pallet, box to box, and room to room.
She laid her palm on each and focused, and each vanished into the space.
The gold went, then the lacquered chests, then the jade and the jewelry and the old leather cases whose contents she didn’t even stop to check.
When she finally lifted her hand from the last crate, the three rooms stood completely bare.
Only pale rectangles on the concrete floor showed where everything had once been.
The moment she stopped, the dizziness came crashing back.
The room tilted.
She put a hand against the wall and closed her eyes.
Margaret saw it at once.
For a moment, though, she didn’t move.
She stood in the doorway of the empty vault and looked around at the bare walls, and a strange, quiet feeling settled over her.
It felt almost like closure.
At least I haven’t failed the ancestors.
Her whole life had turned on one purpose, which was keeping the Sinclair bloodline alive.
She had held the company together through a dead husband and a dead son, and she had raised orphans into guards.
And now, at last, everything the Sinclairs had gathered across two centuries was in the hands of the last living heir.
Perhaps she had finally carried her burden as far as she could.
She still had regrets, of course.
Her son had died so young and left behind only one daughter.
Some nights Margaret still lay awake wondering what he would have become.
But there was nothing to be done about that now.
All she could hope was that Neve would live, and live safely, and someday give the Sinclairs another heir.
Margaret let out a long, quiet sigh.
Then she saw Neve swaying and was at her side in two steps, an arm firmly around her waist.
“Up we go.”
“I’m okay,” Neve mumbled as they climbed the long staircase.
“It’s just the mental energy again.
I used too much.
I’ll be fine after I sleep.”
Margaret didn’t argue.
She took her granddaughter back to her bedroom, tucked her under the covers, and sat on the edge of the bed smoothing her hair until her breathing slowed and deepened.
Only then did she go back to her study.
She picked up the phone before she had even fully sat down.
The first call was to Wyatt.
“Go to Highcrest County today.
Find the highest land there is and buy as much of it as you can.
Use a holding company, not our name.
Report back to me when it’s done.”
She hung up and dialed again, and then again.
One by one, she summoned the people she trusted most.
They were Lucas, Kai, and Ben, Jordan Lyle and Sasha Woods, Gavin Walsh, Caleb Hunt, and Miles Marsh.
They were all orphans Margaret had taken in as children, raised in this house, fed at her table, and put through school.
And according to Neve, they were the same people who had fought desperately to protect her in her past life.
They had never wavered and never left.
Margaret trusted them without reservation.
When they had all gathered in the study, she looked at each of them in turn.
“I have a job for you.”
They straightened as one.
“I want you to start buying construction materials.” Her voice was firm.
“The best that money can buy.
Reinforced modular buildings, structures that can stand up to earthquakes, with proper insulation against extreme heat and cold.
Water storage.
Generators.
Solar panels.
Anything you would need to build a place that could survive without the outside world.”
The eight of them exchanged confused glances.
“The world is going to end,” Margaret said, “in a little over three months.”
Silence.
“Do any of you know what an apocalypse is?”
A couple of them shook their heads slowly.
Sasha opened her mouth, then seemed to think better of it.
“Then go look it up tonight.” She didn’t wait for questions.
“I’m giving you five hundred million to start.
Buy the best materials you can find and as much of them as you can.
If you run out, tell me, and I’ll send more.
Once everything is purchased, ship it all to Highcrest County.
Understood?”
Caleb hesitated.
He was the most outspoken of the group and had never been able to hold his tongue for long.
“Madam, is there really going to be an apocalypse?
How do you know?”
Margaret’s expression didn’t change at all.
“How I know doesn’t matter.”
Walter, Declan, and the rest of her inner circle already knew where the warning had come from.
But Margaret had no intention of widening that circle one inch more than necessary.
The fewer people who knew Neve had come back from the future, the safer she would be.
“You’ll understand soon enough,” she said.
“For now, do exactly what I tell you.”
“Yes, madam.”
They rose together.
“I’ll transfer the money into Gavin’s account first.” Margaret turned to him.
“If anyone needs funds, go through him.
He’ll decide how the budget is split between purchases.”
Gavin Walsh was quiet and precise.
He was the kind of man who labeled his spice jars and balanced his checkbook to the cent.
“You’re in charge of all construction purchasing.
You’re more methodical than the rest of them put together, and I won’t have eight people running in eight different directions and buying the same thing twice.”
Gavin nodded once.
“Understood, madam.”
“Good.
Go.”
They filed out, and the study fell quiet again.
Neve woke a little before noon.
The heaviness in her head was gone.
She lay still for a moment and felt, very faintly, the space at the edge of her awareness.
It was a quiet presence, like a room she knew was just behind her.
It felt fuller now.
She went down for lunch, but once again, Nana wasn’t there.
One of the staff told her Madam had been shut in her study all morning.
Neve ate quickly and went upstairs.
When she opened the study door, she stopped on the threshold.
Nana wasn’t alone.
Walter was there, and so was Silas, standing near the window with his arms folded.
And in the chair across from Nana’s desk sat a man Neve had never seen before.
He was middle-aged, in a rumpled gray suit, with tired eyes and an unremarkable face.
“Nana, have you eaten?”
“We just finished.
How about you?” Margaret patted the seat beside her.
“Come sit.”
“I ate downstairs.”
Walter and Silas both straightened and nodded respectfully to her.
So did the stranger, who actually rose halfway out of his chair.
Neve smiled politely, then looked at him more carefully.
“Nana, who is this?”
With everything going on, Nana would never let someone unimportant sit in her study.
The man stood up fully this time.
“Miss Sinclair.
My name is Neil Madden.
I’m a private investigator.” He gave a short, slightly awkward laugh, as if he wasn’t used to being looked at so directly.
“Neil, you don’t have to stand up every time someone walks in.” Margaret waved him back down.
“Sit, sit.”
She turned to Neve.
“From now on, you can call him Uncle Neil.
You can trust him.”
Neve studied him for another moment, taking in the tired eyes and the careful, watchful way he held himself.
Then she nodded.
“All right.
Nice to meet you, Uncle Neil.”