Chapter 2 - The Poison In The Master Bedroom
The screen flickered as Claire walked out of camera four's frame.
My pulse hammered against my temples.
Buyer?
What buyer?
"Daniel," I whispered. My voice didn't even sound like my own.
"Tracking her now, sir," Daniel said, his fingers flying across the auxiliary keyboard.
Camera nine jumped to the master monitor.
The master bedroom suite.
Claire strode through the heavy double oak doors, locking them behind her.
She pulled the sheer curtains shut over the balcony windows.
She held the burner phone against her ear.
I turned the audio dial all the way to the right.
The static cleared.
"...it’s almost done," Claire was saying, her voice smooth, calm, and businesslike.
"The idiot actually bought the Canada story. He’s thousands of miles away right now."
A man’s deep voice crackled through the speaker on the other end.
"Are the documents ready?"
"I have Sofia’s original trust agreements right here in the nightstand," Claire replied.
She knelt beside my mahogany nightstand.
She slipped a tiny bronze key into the bottom drawer.
I never gave her that key.
Sofia had hidden that duplicate inside the lining of her old wedding dress years ago.
Claire pulled out a thick blue folder tied with black ribbon.
"The forged signature is completely identical," she continued, flipping the pages with manicured nails.
"Once Maria is arrested for grand larceny and child endangerment, Alex will be emotionally wrecked."
"He’ll sign the full conservatorship over the girls' trust directly to me before the week is out."
The man on the phone let out a low chuckle.
"And Sofia’s offshore accounts in Zurich?"
"Eighty-four million dollars," Claire answered, her eyes glowing with raw greed.
"Split fifty-fifty between us, just like we agreed in Milan."
The air in the bunker felt like it had dropped to sub-zero temperatures.
Sofia hadn't left me her fortune.
She had put every single dime of her family’s legacy into an unbreakable irrevocable trust for Emma and Lily.
I was only the trustee.
I could never spend that money, and I never wanted to.
Claire hadn't fallen in love with a grieving widower.
She had hunted an eighty-four million dollar prize from the very beginning.
"Where is the planting kit?" the man asked on the phone.
"Under the floorboards in Maria’s private bath," Claire whispered.
"Three grams of synthetic fentanyl and Sofia’s diamond engagement ring."
My hands clenched so hard the tendons in my wrists popped.
Fentanyl.
She wasn't just trying to get Maria fired.
She was trying to send an innocent woman to federal prison for twenty-five years.
"And the girls?" the man asked. "What if they talk to their father when he comes home?"
Claire stood up, setting the blue folder onto the mattress.
"They won't talk," she said, her voice dropping into a flat, venomous chill.
"Children who suffer severe trauma don't make reliable witnesses in court."
"I have a physician arriving at noon to prescribe them heavy behavioral sedatives."
"Dr. Vance?" the man asked.
"Yes. He’s already prepared the psychiatric diagnosis."
"They will be declared mentally unstable from grief."
"By Friday, Alex won't even be allowed in the same room without my supervision."
Daniel’s hand hit the emergency console.
The monitors zoomed in on Claire’s face.
She was smiling at her own reflection in the vanity mirror.
She smoothed her golden hair, humming a soft tune.
It was the same lullaby Sofia used to sing to Lily before bed.
A white-hot wave of fury surged through my chest, burning away the shock.
I reached for the lock on the bunker door.
"I’m going up there," I said, my teeth grinding together. "I’m going to break her neck."
Daniel grabbed my shoulder with a grip like iron cable.
"Alex, look at monitor twelve."
I turned my head back toward the screens.
Monitor twelve covered the private service entrance at the back of the property.
A black Mercedes van with tinted windows had just pulled into the driveway.
Two men in dark suits stepped out through the sliding doors.
One carried a heavy leather medical briefcase.
The other slipped a suppressed automatic pistol into his jacket pocket.
The clock on the wall showed ten in the morning.
May you like
The buyer wasn't arriving at noon.
They were already here.
