CHAPTER 3: THREE SECONDS OF DARKNESS
Adrian stared at the gun in his hand as though he had never seen it before.
Claire knew better.
She had found the same weapon in their bedroom six months earlier, hidden beneath a false panel in his closet.
Richard’s security guards raised their weapons.
“Put it down,” Richard ordered.
Adrian slowly lifted his free hand.
“I didn’t take it out.”
Claire looked at the empty display platform.
“Someone used the blackout.”
“To steal the case?” Adrian asked.
“To put that gun in your hand.”
For the first time, uncertainty appeared on his face.
A security guard removed the weapon and placed it inside an evidence bag. Another guard searched Adrian and found a small brass key in his jacket pocket.
Claire recognized it immediately.
It belonged to the basement archive beneath the old Vale estate.
Richard looked at her.
“What is it?”
Claire didn’t answer.
She had last seen that key in the possession of Miriam Shaw, the woman who had pulled her from the burning estate twenty-three years ago.
Miriam had raised Claire under a different name, moving from city to city every time someone came too close.
Three weeks earlier, Miriam had vanished.
Now her key was in Adrian’s pocket.
“Where did you get this?” Claire asked.
Adrian looked genuinely confused.
“I’ve never seen it before.”
Evelyn stepped toward him.
“Stop speaking.”
That was the moment Claire knew Adrian wasn’t the person controlling the room.
His mother was.
Richard’s head of security, Marcus Reed, approached with a tablet.
“The blackout was triggered from inside the hotel. Someone accessed the electrical system using an executive code.”
“Whose code?” Richard asked.
Marcus hesitated.
“Yours.”
A wave of murmurs swept through the ballroom.
Richard took the tablet and examined the access log.
Claire watched his face.
For one terrible second, he looked afraid.
Not surprised.
Afraid.
“You knew this could happen,” she said.
Richard handed the tablet back.
“There are things about the fire I never told the police.”
“You never told anyone.”
“I thought silence would keep you alive.”
Claire moved closer to him.
“Silence kept them powerful.”
Before Richard could respond, a phone began ringing from inside Evelyn’s purse.
She refused to answer it.
Richard’s guards placed the purse on the table and removed the phone.
There was no caller ID.
Marcus answered on speaker.
A distorted voice filled the ballroom.
“You found the wrong daughter.”
Claire’s heart stopped.
The voice continued.
“Clara Vale died in the fire.”
A pause.
May you like
Then came the words that shook Richard more than anything else that night.
“The woman standing beside you is her sister.”
