Chapter 2 - THE LOCKED WING
Every light in the mansion snapped off at once.
The dining room plunged into blackness.
Sophia screamed silently and buried her face against my chest. Rain hammered the windows. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed.
Nathan's voice cut through the dark. "Nobody moves."
A second later, emergency lights glowed red along the floor.
Vanessa was gone.
Her chair was overturned, the back door stood open, and cold rain blew across the terrace.
Nathan swore and reached for his phone.
"No signal," his cousin Mark said.
"Landline," Nathan ordered.
Dead too.
I held Sophia tighter. Her fingers moved against my shoulder.
WOMAN. UPSTAIRS.
"What?"
She pointed toward the north hallway-the private wing Vanessa kept locked.
Nathan noticed. "What is she saying now?"
"She saw Vanessa go upstairs."
"That wing is alarmed."
"Apparently not anymore."
Nathan's jaw tightened. He took a flashlight from a drawer and looked at me. "Stay here."
"No."
"Maya-"
"My daughter saw this. If Vanessa knows Sophia saw her, we're already part of it."
Nathan hated that I was right.
We climbed the curved staircase together while the other guests waited below. At the locked north-wing door, Nathan entered a code. Red light.
Denied.
He tried again.
Denied.
"Vanessa changed it," he said.
Sophia wriggled down from my arms, crawled beneath a narrow console table, and pulled out something shiny.
A brass key.
Nathan stared. "How did she know that was there?"
I signed to Sophia.
YOU SAW HER?
Sophia nodded.
MANY TIMES.
The key opened the door.
Vanessa's study smelled like lavender and printer ink. Drawers had been pulled open. Papers were scattered across the carpet. A small safe stood exposed behind a painting.
Nathan stepped toward it.
I saw the envelope first.
His name was typed across the front.
NATHAN COLE - LIFE INSURANCE AMENDMENT.
He opened it.
Forty million dollars.
Vanessa Hale, sole beneficiary.
The policy became fully active upon marriage.
Nathan looked at the wedding date.
Fourteen days away.
Then Sophia tapped my hip.
May you like
She pointed beneath the desk.
A man's shoe was sticking out from the shadows.
