Chapter 9 - Blood on Marble
Nathan stopped me before I crossed the bathroom threshold.
"Nobody touches anything."
Ethan looked ready to be sick.
"That's Chloe's lipstick."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"She leaves it everywhere."
A ridiculous answer.
A useful one.
I called Priya and local police through Sterling Crest security counsel. Within twenty minutes, the upstairs had been photographed, swabbed, and sealed.
The blood was fresh.
The amount was small.
Not enough to prove serious injury.
Enough to frighten us.
Ethan sat on the edge of the guest bed twisting his wedding ring.
I had never noticed he did that when he lied.
Maybe because I had spent seven years wanting not to notice.
"Tell me about the case," I said.
"I already did."
"No. You said your mother had one. Tell me why."
He looked at Nathan.
"Can he leave?"
"No."
"Claire."
"You lost private-conversation privileges when you put your mistress in my bed."
He flinched.
Good.
"The case came from Gabriel," he said.
Nathan's pen moved.
"How do you know?"
"I saw him give it to Mom last month."
"Last month?" I stared at him. "Gabriel Mercer was in this house?"
"You were in London."
"And you invited him here?"
"It was business."
I laughed without humor.
"Of course it was."
Ethan rubbed both hands over his face.
"He said he was helping me build a future. A real division. Imports, distribution, logistics. He told me Sterling Crest leadership was stale and that people like us could modernize it."
"People like you?"
"Entrepreneurs."
Nathan looked up. "You were a regional sales director with a company car."
Ethan glared at him.
"I had ideas."
"I'm sure the prosecutors will appreciate them alphabetically."
"Nathan," I said.
He stopped.
Barely.
"What was in the case?" I asked Ethan.
"Documents. I saw stock certificates. An old key. Maybe a recorder."
My heart accelerated.
"What kind of key?"
"Bronze. Long stem. Like something from a museum."
11-A.
Founder archive key.
So Margaret had it.
Or thought she did.
"Did she take it today?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"She didn't say."
I leaned close.
"Ethan, your girlfriend may be missing. Your mother may have stolen corporate instruments tied to a fraud scheme. Someone burned your warehouse. This is the part where you stop protecting your ego and start remembering details."
His eyes reddened.
"I don't know where she went."
"Then tell me why your mother knows my father."
That landed.
He stared at the old photograph Daniel had brought upstairs.
"She told me your father ruined ours."
The room went still.
"What?"
"My dad had a construction company before I was born. Lawson Marine Works. Mom said Robert Sterling destroyed him. Canceled contracts. Called loans. Blacklisted him."
"My father did not blacklist anyone."
"You didn't know Mom worked for him either."
That hurt because it was true.
Nathan took the photograph.
"Lawson Marine Works. I'll pull records."
A police technician appeared at the door.
"Ms. Sterling? We found something under the vanity."
A torn strip of black fabric.
And a small memory card.
Priya arrived twenty minutes later with a clean laptop.
The card contained one image.
A photograph of Margaret and Gabriel inside my study.
Date stamp: six weeks ago.
On the desk between them sat my father's bronze seal.
And the antique clock's lower cabinet was open.
"Zoom the background," I said.
Priya did.
A legal pad lay beneath Gabriel's hand.
Three words were visible.
FOURTH GEAR EMPTY.
So they had searched before.
And failed.
Another file appeared on the card after Priya ran recovery software.
A short audio recording.
Gabriel's voice.
"If Claire triggers the freeze, we move before the trust wakes up."
Margaret answered.
"She will. Humiliate her and she becomes efficient. She always did."
My skin went cold.
Margaret knew me.
Not as Ethan's wife.
Before Ethan.
Before our marriage.
Maybe since I was a child.
Then a sound snapped from downstairs.
Glass.
Nathan turned.
A second crack followed, sharper.
The window beside him exploded inward.
He jerked sideways and hit the floor.
"Nathan!"
I dropped beside him.
Blood spread across his upper arm.
Daniel dragged me behind the bed as security shouted downstairs.
A third impact punched into the wall.
From outside.
A shooter.
Ethan crouched against the dresser, white-faced.
"Oh my God."
Nathan gritted his teeth and pressed his hand to the wound.
"I'm fine."
"You are bleeding."
"Still fine."
Then Ethan looked toward the broken window.
His expression changed.
"Claire."
"What?"
He pointed through the jagged glass toward the street.
A black SUV accelerated away.
May you like
In the back window, for less than a second, I saw a woman's face.
Chloe.
