Chapter 5 - Thirty Seconds of Darkness
The blackout lasted thirty-two seconds.
Naomi counted every one.
“Stay where you are!”
A chair scraped.
Someone ran.
Naomi moved toward the sound.
Her hand found an arm near the west door.
The person jerked away.
Vanessa stood beside Adrian.
Marcus was at the security console.
Rachel remained near the table.
They found him in the service hall.
“What happened?”
“Someone grabbed me.”
“Did you see who?”
“No.”
He touched his shoulder.
“They came from behind.”
Naomi checked him for injury.
Then she looked at the floor.
A broken bracelet clasp.
He had given Vanessa that bracelet on their first anniversary.
Vanessa lifted her wrist.
“It broke earlier.”
“Where?” Naomi asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient.”
“You think I attacked a teenager in the dark?”
She found Caleb’s phone twenty feet away behind a linen cart.
The screen was cracked.
One recording had been deleted.
Naomi recovered the cloud copy.
Caleb had secretly recorded Vanessa near the kitchen an hour before the gala.
“If Elena talks, she’s gone.”
“Then make the invoices stick.”
Vanessa:
“After tonight, none of this matters. Once I’m on the Foundation board, I can clean it up.”
“You still have to marry him.”
Vanessa replied:
“He’ll marry me.”
The unknown man said:
“And Naomi?”
Vanessa’s tone changed.
“I’m handling the maid.”
Adrian sat down slowly.
Vanessa whispered:
“It’s fake.”
“I recorded it.”
“You edited it.”
“Who was the man?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You were speaking to him.”
Rachel paused the audio.
“There’s a background announcement.”
Gate Three delivery complete.
“That’s not from this estate.”
“Where is it from?” Adrian asked.
“Cole Foundation headquarters.”
Naomi looked at the timestamp.
4:18 p.m.
Vanessa had told Adrian she spent the entire afternoon at the salon.
Then Naomi noticed something else.
A reflection in a glass door on Caleb’s recording.
A man’s face.
Adrian leaned closer.
He knew him.
“Daniel Reece.”
May you like
His biggest competitor.
And the man trying to buy Lakebridge out from under him.
