Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN GREEN HEELSI did not cancel the engagement dinner.
That was Marcus’s idea.
“If Rebecca knows we found the drive, she’ll disappear.”
“So we let her walk into the house.”
“With every camera recording.”
Hannah hated the plan.
I could see it in the way she held Lily.
“You want my daughter under the same roof as the woman who may have helped take Daniel?”
“I want Lily upstairs behind six locked doors with two guards.”
“I don’t trust your guards anymore.”
Neither did I.
That was the problem.
Someone had planted a transmitter under my library desk.
Someone had known security schedules.
Someone had gotten Evelyn’s son out of his apartment.
A conspiracy that large required access.
Money.
Patience.
And probably more than one person wearing a Whitmore paycheck.
“Then choose the guards yourself,” I told Hannah.
She looked surprised.
“I don’t know them.”
“Marcus does. He’ll give you four names. Pick two.”
Marcus nodded.
“Former military. Both have families. Neither worked here when Daniel disappeared.”
Hannah still hesitated.
Then Lily tugged her hand.
“Atlas can stay.”
I looked at my dog.
Atlas was already beside her.
“He stays.”
Lily hugged his neck.
That decided it.
At seven-fifteen, the Whitmore mansion looked exactly like it had every other time powerful people came to eat expensive food and lie politely to each other.
Crystal chandeliers.
White roses.
Silver place settings.
A string quartet in the west gallery.
Nothing about the house suggested that beneath our feet sat a flash drive containing evidence of murder, fraud, and possibly a man everyone believed had been dead for two years.
Rebecca Whitmore entered the drawing room first.
She was sixty-one and still carried herself like a woman who expected everyone else to move.
She kissed my cheek.
“Grant.”
“Aunt Rebecca.”
“You look exhausted.”
“Busy morning.”
Her eyes held mine a fraction too long.
Then Audrey stepped inside.
Red hair.
Ivory dress.
Emerald earrings.
No green shoes.
No silver feathers.
She smiled.
“Are we still pretending this dinner isn’t a formal engagement?”
“We’re discussing the future.”
“My father considers that a yes.”
“Your father considers contracts marriage certificates.”
Audrey laughed.
Normally that laugh irritated me.
Tonight I studied everything.
Hands.
Jewelry.
Shoes.
Reactions.
She noticed.
“Something wrong?”
“Should there be?”
Before she could answer, Charles Sinclair entered.
He was seventy, silver-haired, impeccably dressed, and incapable of entering a room without treating it like territory he intended to buy.
“Grant.”
“Charles.”
He glanced around.
“Where’s your housekeeper?”
There it was.
Too fast.
Too specific.
“Why?”
“Evelyn always greets me.”
“She’s occupied.”
“With?”
I smiled.
“Family problem.”
Rebecca picked up a champagne glass.
“Grant, must we interrogate guests before appetizers?”
Something cold moved through me.
I had not told her Evelyn had a problem.
Maybe harmless.
Maybe not.
Dinner began.
Hannah remained downstairs.
That surprised Marcus.
It surprised me more.
She insisted on serving.
“If Rebecca expects me gone, I want to see her face when I walk into the room.”
I argued.
Hannah won.
At seven-forty, she entered carrying soup.
Rebecca’s spoon stopped halfway to her mouth.
There.
Only half a second.
But I saw it.
Audrey saw it too.
Hannah served Rebecca first.
“Mrs. Whitmore.”
Rebecca recovered immediately.
“Hannah. I heard about the unpleasant misunderstanding.”
“Did you?”
“Everyone hears everything in a house this size.”
Hannah looked directly at her.
“Yes. Apparently they do.”
Marcus stood near the doorway pretending to check his phone.
The hidden cameras were recording every expression.
Charles looked between them.
“What misunderstanding?”
I answered.
“My mother’s necklace was stolen.”
Audrey touched her throat.
“That sapphire piece?”
“Yes.”
“Was it recovered?”
“Inside Hannah’s coat.”
Charles leaned back.
“Well. That seems rather obvious.”
Rebecca sipped her wine.
“Unless someone planted it.”
I looked at her.
“Interesting.”
Her fingers tightened slightly around the stem.
“Why?”
“I didn’t say it was planted.”
Silence.
Then Rebecca smiled.
“You’re being theatrical, Grant.”
“Maybe.”
Audrey put down her fork.
“What is happening?”
I reached into my pocket.
Then placed the silver feather beside her plate.
All color left her face.
Charles stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“Lily found it.”
Audrey touched her hair.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to my mother.”
The entire table went still.
I had assumed the feather came from Audrey.
So had Hannah.
“Your mother?”
Audrey picked it up.
“My mother had a pair of custom heels made for a charity gala fifteen years ago. Each had silver feathers with emerald eyes.”
Charles’s jaw tightened.
“Audrey.”
She ignored him.
“When she died, my father gave them away.”
Charles stared at her.
“No, I didn’t.”
Audrey frowned.
“You told me you did.”
Rebecca suddenly stood.
“I need some air.”
Marcus blocked the door.
Rebecca looked at him.
“Move.”
“No, ma’am.”
Her eyes turned toward me.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Sit down.”
“Grant.”
“Sit.”
She did.
Charles rose next.
“This dinner is over.”
“No.”
He stared at Marcus.
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re staying until I understand why jewelry belonging to your dead wife appears in footage from the night Daniel Mercer disappeared.”
Hannah entered.
Not with food this time.
With the isolated laptop.
Charles’s face changed.
That reaction was larger than Rebecca’s.
“You found it,” he whispered.
Hannah stopped.
“What?”
Charles realized too late.
I stood.
“You knew about the drive.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Audrey looked at her father.
“What drive?”
Charles said nothing.
I opened Daniel’s video.
The sideways image appeared.
The green shoes crossed the screen.
Audrey gasped.
“My mother.”
Charles grabbed the table.
“No.”
“You recognize them?”
His voice dropped.
“Those shoes were buried with her.”
No one moved.
Audrey’s mother, Victoria Sinclair, had died sixteen years earlier in a car crash.
I had attended the funeral.
If those shoes had been buried with her, someone had either lied—
or stolen them from a coffin.
Before anyone could speak, Marcus received a message through his earpiece.
He touched it.
“Say again.”
His face hardened.
He looked at me.
“We have an intruder at the east perimeter.”
“How many?”
“Unknown.”
Then every light in the mansion went out.
The room fell black.
Audrey screamed.
Glass shattered.
Marcus shouted.
“Everybody down!”
I reached for Hannah.
Found her arm.
Then heard something upstairs.
Atlas barking.
Not his warning bark.
His attack bark.
“Lily.”
Hannah tore free.
I chased her into the hallway.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Two guards ran toward the staircase.
A gunshot cracked above us.
Then another.
Hannah screamed her daughter’s name.
We reached the second floor.
One guard lay bleeding near the nursery door.
Atlas was attacking a masked man.
Another intruder ran down the corridor carrying Lily.
Her pink pajamas flashed beneath his arm.
“Daddy!”
She screamed the wrong word.
Not Grant.
Not help.
Daddy.
The masked man froze.
So did I.
Lily reached toward him.
“Daddy!”
Hannah stopped breathing.
The man slowly turned.
His mask had been torn by Atlas.
Beneath it was a scarred cheek.
A beard.
Eyes Hannah recognized immediately.
Her knees buckled.
“Daniel?”
The man holding Lily stared at his wife.
“Hannah.”
Two years of grief shattered in one word.
Then a third gunshot came from behind us.
Daniel jerked.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
He pushed Lily into my arms.
“Run!”
May you like
At the opposite end of the corridor, Rebecca Whitmore stood holding a pistol.
And she aimed it directly at Hannah.
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