Chapter 1
“We never found his body. Which stairwell?”
Ismeralda’s lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Beside me, Adelise gripped the velvet medal case so tightly that the coins inside rattled.
I did not look away from my fiancée.
“Which stairwell?”
“The west one.”
Too late to retract it now.
Adelise turned sharply toward her.
“My father disappeared from the east drive.”
Exactly.
That was the story everyone knew.
Roland Fernwick had been my bodyguard for nineteen years.
Eighteen months earlier, after a winter dinner at this same estate, he walked a guest toward the east entrance and never returned.
His car remained.
His coat remained.
His phone was found days later near a mountain service road.
No body.
Eventually even I stopped using the word missing.
Tonight we were honoring him as dead.
Ismeralda whispered:
“I must have heard it from someone.”
“Who?”
She looked toward the guests.
Bad choice.
People lie with mouths.
Eyes usually confess first.
Her gaze landed for less than a second on a man standing near the conservatory doors.
Corwin Vane.
Her cousin.
Owner of the security company that had begun handling several of my outer properties after Roland vanished.
Interesting.
I turned toward him.
“Corwin.”
His wineglass stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Dashiell.”
“Did you tell Ismeralda about the west staircase?”
“No.”
Too fast.
I looked back at her.
“Then try again.”
She folded her arms.
“Roland was always wandering where he didn’t belong.”
Adelise’s face went white.
I heard it too.
Always.
Not once.
Not rumor.
Knowledge.
I picked up the medal and placed it back inside the velvet case.
Then handed it to Adelise.
“Your father wasn’t snooping.”
My voice stayed quiet.
“He was protecting me.”
I turned toward Corwin.
“And now I want to know what he found.”
Corwin looked toward the ballroom exit.
One of my bodyguards closed it.
Good.
May you like
For the first time in eighteen months, Roland Fernwick’s disappearance had a location.
And two people at my engagement dinner already wished I had never heard it.
