Chapter 1 - The Scream Upstairs
The scream hit me before I reached the staircase.
Then porcelain shattered.
I dropped my keys on the marble floor and ran.
"Mom?"
No answer. Just another cry from the second floor, sharp enough to hollow out my chest.
My fiancée, Vanessa Sterling, stood beside my mother's bed with an empty soup bowl in her hand.
On the floor, Grace Bennett was on her knees, clutching her bare forearm. The skin was already angry red where she had thrown herself between the bowl and my mother.
Then Vanessa gasped my name.
"Adrienne! Thank God. Grace dropped the tray. She pushed me. She almost burned your mother on purpose."
Grace looked up at me, tears in her eyes from the pain.
"That's not what happened."
Vanessa's voice hardened. "Of course you'd say that."
"Stop. Both of you. Mom, look at me."
Eleanor's breathing was ragged. "Adrienne... she..."
"Don't strain yourself."
I reached for the call button beside the bed. Vanessa caught my wrist.
"Before you start treating me like a criminal, maybe ask your mother what she's been doing behind your back."
"You have ten seconds to explain why Grace is burned and my mother is covered in soup."
Vanessa's face changed. The tears vanished. Her jaw tightened.
"You want the truth? Fine. Ask your precious mother why she's secretly signing away part of your fortune to the help."
Grace went still.
My mother closed her eyes.
"Mom?"
Eleanor opened them again, and what I saw there was not confusion.
It was fear.
"Adrienne," she whispered, "lock the door."
Vanessa took one step back.
My mother pointed toward the antique writing desk in the corner.
May you like
"Before anyone leaves this room, you need to see what's inside the bottom drawer."
And suddenly Vanessa looked more frightened than Grace did.
