Chapter 2 - The Wrong Staircase
The glass shattered so sharply that several guests flinched. Conrad Arden, whose name was printed across half the gala's donation cards, stood absolutely still.
Celeste moved first. "This is disgusting. She's exploiting your mother's death."
"I asked her a question," Gideon said. His voice had turned quiet and dangerous. "Let her answer."
My name was Mara Ellis. I was twenty-seven, worked double shifts whenever I could, and had never planned to make a scene at a charity dinner. The brooch was the only valuable thing my mother owned. Until yesterday, she'd kept it wrapped in a dish towel at the back of a kitchen drawer.
"My mother was Ruth Ellis," I said. "She worked in the old Bellwether laundry. On the night of the fire, she carried a boy through the service staircase."
Gideon stared at me. "A firefighter carried me out."
"That's what the report says."
"It was the west staircase. I remember the brass rail."
"The west staircase had been chained shut. She took you down the east one. She burned both palms on the door handle."
He looked at my hands as if the scars might somehow have passed from my mother to me.
"You were twelve," I continued. "You had an asthma inhaler in your pajama pocket. You kept saying your mother was still upstairs."
His jaw tightened. No one else at the dinner could have known that detail. His family had spent years keeping it from the papers.
"Where is Ruth now?" he asked.
"At home. Sick. She wanted to come herself, but she couldn't walk down the stairs."
"She had twenty-four years to say something," Celeste snapped.
"She tried," I said. "Twice. Both times, someone threatened her job and her family."
Conrad cleared his throat. "Gideon, we should discuss this privately. This young woman is clearly upset."
"A private conversation would have been easier," I said. "But my mother told me never to go into a private room with an Arden."
A murmur passed through the tables.
Gideon turned toward Conrad. "Why would she say that?"
Conrad's expression didn't change. "Because grief makes people invent villains."
I put the brooch in Gideon's open hand. "Look at the ray beside the clasp. It's hollow."
He pressed the narrow silver seam. A sliver of folded paper slid free, yellow with age. He opened it carefully.
There was only one line, written in a woman's cramped handwriting:
IF THEY SAY I DIED IN THE WEST STAIRWELL, ASK WHO LOCKED THE EAST DOOR.
May you like
Underneath was a name.
CONRAD ARDEN.
