Chapter 1 - The Push
The champagne glasses were still in the air when Emma Reed hit the water.
One second, she was walking the narrow stone edge of the pool with a silver tray balanced on her left palm. The next, two hands slammed between her shoulder blades.
The tray flipped. Crystal flashed under the golden lights. Someone screamed. Then the cold blue water swallowed her whole.
Emma came up choking, hair across her face, white blouse plastered to her skin.
Above her, Vivian Cross laughed.
Not a nervous laugh. Not the kind people made after a bad joke went too far.
A clean, polished little laugh.
"Oh my God," said the woman beside her, Lauren Price, covering her mouth while smiling. "She actually fell in."
A few guests laughed with them.
Emma gripped the pool edge.
Her knees were shaking, but not from the cold.
For three weeks, she had served these people wine, carried plates, cleared lipstick-stained glasses, and listened while they spoke around her as if she were furniture.
She had expected insults.
She had expected suspicion.
She had not expected Vivian to shove her in front of eighty witnesses.
Emma pulled herself out. Water poured from her vest and gray skirt onto the limestone.
Vivian raised her glass.
"Watch where you're going," she said.
The people around them went quiet.
Emma looked at her.
Vivian's smile weakened.
That was the first thing Emma enjoyed all night.
She slipped one hand inside her soaked vest and pulled out a black phone. Waterproof case. Still working.
Vivian's eyes flicked toward it.
Emma pressed one number.
A man answered on the first ring.
"Yes?"
Emma kept her eyes on Vivian.
"It's time," she said quietly. "Lock the accounts."
Vivian's face changed.
Only for a second.
But Emma saw it.
So did the man standing in the open villa doors.
Adrian Cross, Vivian's husband and the host of the party, had just walked outside.
His gaze moved from Emma's wet clothes to Vivian's pale face.
Then he looked at the phone in Emma's hand.
"What accounts?" he asked.
Emma ended the call.
"The ones your wife has been hiding from you."
May you like
And somewhere inside the villa, an alarm began to ring.
Behind Emma, one of the guests quietly lowered his phone. He had recorded the entire shove. Within an hour, that clip would be online. Vivian did not know it yet. Emma did.
