Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO WASN'T ON THE LIST
My head of security, Grant Mercer, tackled the stranger before he reached the service corridor.
The man fought like a professional: controlled, efficient, trained.
He broke one guard's nose, drove another into a column, then reached inside his jacket.
Grant drew first.
"Hands!"
The stranger froze.
I moved Noah behind me.
Elena stayed beside him.
"Who hired you?" I asked.
The man smiled.
"Happy birthday, Mr. Vale."
Grant ripped a wallet from his pocket.
The ID said OWEN KANE, Vale Estate Security.
Grant stared at it.
"This credential is fake."
I looked around the ballroom.
Two hundred guests.
Family.
Executives.
Politicians.
People who had passed through three security checkpoints to enter my home.
Somebody had brought this man inside.
Detective Mara Ellis arrived within twenty minutes.
She asked the first question I should have asked.
"Where exactly was Mr. Vale supposed to stand when the tower fell?"
The event coordinator, Susan Park, checked the floor plan.
"Beside Noah. Ethan was scheduled to cut the cake from that mark."
She pointed to a brass star set into the marble.
Three feet behind the place where the crystal tower collapsed.
I stared at it.
"I was late."
"Why?" Mara asked.
"A board member stopped me in the hall."
"Who?"
My eyes moved across the ballroom.
My cousin, Julian Vale, was no longer there.
Grant checked the exits.
"Julian left before lockdown."
"How?"
"Private family elevator."
Only four people had access to it.
Me.
Grant.
My mother, Celeste.
And Julian.
Mara bagged the gold cufflink.
"You said twelve were made. Who received them?"
I started naming people.
Grant.
Julian.
My late father.
Three board members.
Two childhood friends.
My attorney.
My brother, Adrian.
Then I stopped.
Adrian had died four years earlier.
His cufflinks disappeared the night he died.
Mara looked at me.
"How did your brother die?"
"A fall from a hotel balcony."
Her expression changed.
"Accident?"
"That's what we were told."
May you like
Behind us, Noah whispered to Elena.
"The bad man was talking to Uncle Julian before the glasses fell."
