Chapter 1 - The Call from the Marble Floor
"You should've stayed on the floor, Claire. That's where you belong."
My husband said it beneath a crystal chandelier that cost more than my mother's house. My left shoulder burned. One strap of my blue satin dress had slipped down, exposing a bruise the color of a storm cloud. Adrian Vale stood six feet away, smiling as if he'd just delivered the funniest line at a dinner party.
"Get up," he said. "The staff comes in at seven. I don't want them gossiping."
I pushed one palm against the cold marble. My arm folded. A laugh escaped him. I heard it clearly over the hum of the heating system.
Five minutes earlier, I'd told him I knew about the money. Not the little transfers he called investments. The forty-two million dollars quietly moved out of the charitable foundation my father had built. Adrian had taken my phone, and when I tried to retrieve it, he'd shoved me into the sharp corner of the console table. He hadn't even looked frightened afterward.
"You found some papers," he said. "Congratulations. You still don't understand anything."
He tossed my phone back. It landed near my knee. The screen had cracked, but it lit up when I touched it. One contact remained pinned beneath a false name: WEATHER. I had promised myself I'd never call it.
"Who are you texting?" Adrian asked.
"Nobody." I coughed and tasted blood where I'd bitten my lip.
I pressed the call button. Once. Twice. Then a voice answered.
"Claire?"
I shut my eyes. "Dad."
There was a long silence. We'd been told he died eleven months ago. I'd identified a watch in a burned car and buried an empty coffin because his lawyer said there wasn't enough left to recover.
"Are you safe?" he asked.
I looked at my husband, still smiling. "No."
"Put the phone down and move away from the front doors."
A dull engine growled beyond the iron gates. Adrian heard it too. He turned toward the windows.
"Who did you call?"
The first headlight spilled across the marble. Then the second. And the enormous doors began to swing inward.
Three men walked out of the darkness. The tallest stepped into the light and looked straight at Adrian.
My husband whispered a name I hadn't heard at my father's funeral.
"Daniel Mercer?"
May you like
But the man answered, "You should've checked the coffin."
THE DOORS SHE OPENED •
