Chapter 6 - The Secret in the Master Suite
For three seconds, the entire ballroom seemed to hold its breath as Vivian snapped her fingers at the tall waiter standing near the marble columns.
Had she recognized him beneath the recessed shadows of the balcony?
No—Vivian was already turning back to laugh at a compliment from a Wall Street hedge-fund manager while she headed toward the grand staircase, never once bothering to look above the silver rim of the champagne tray.
Behind the library archway across the room, Clara caught Nathaniel's eye over the top of her inventory clipboard and gave him a tiny, urgent nod: Evelyn Whitfield had just left her unlocked private laptop and escrow ledger sitting inside the upstairs study next to the master suite!
Keeping his shoulders slightly rounded and his chin tucked down like a career manservant, Nathaniel carried the silver tray and Vivian's white Russian sable wrap up the sweeping marble staircase of his own home while Clara slipped up the back servants' stairs to intercept the study.
When Nathaniel stepped into the candlelit master bedroom suite—the exact room where he had slept for the past ten years—he saw that his personal clothes had already been thrown out and replaced by Julian Sterling's bespoke suits hanging inside the open mahogany wardrobe.
Vivian stood in front of the gilded triple vanity mirror with her back to the door, humming softly to herself as she unclasped one of the diamond winter-star earrings and held it up to the light.
Set the tray on the low table, leave the fur on the chaise, and tell the sommelier downstairs that the vintage in the ballroom tastes flat, Vivian ordered without turning around, picking up a five-dollar bill from the dresser to toss over her shoulder.
Those diamonds never looked flat when you pointed them out to me in the magazine last month, Vivian, Nathaniel said calmly, setting the silver tray down with a soft metallic ring and straightening up to his full six-foot-two height as he unclipped the black bow tie from his throat.
In the vanity mirror, Vivian froze as if she had been turned to solid stone, the diamond earring slipping from her fingers and clattering across the glass tabletop.
She spun around so fast her crimson silk skirt twisted around her ankles, her face draining to the color of chalk as she stared at the man who was supposed to be a penniless fugitive hiding from federal marshals.
Nathaniel, she gasped, backing up until her spine hit the edge of the marble vanity.
How did you get inside this house—security is at every gate!
I walked through the kitchen door wearing an apron, Vivian, because as you made so abundantly clear at the diner this afternoon, people like you and Julian don't look twice at the help, Nathaniel replied, taking two slow, measured steps across the Persian rug toward her.
Now tell me how those diamond earrings got out of Howard Ellis's locked office safe and onto your ears tonight.
Vivian's mind worked with desperate, panicked speed, and within two seconds, crocodile tears welled up in her wide blue eyes as she reached out with trembling hands toward his chest.
Nate, thank God you are here, you have to believe me—Julian and Evelyn forced me to come here tonight and wear these earrings! Vivian sobbed, trying to throw her arms around his neck.
Julian threatened to ruin my father's law firm after the crash unless I pretended to go along with him, and Howard Ellis handed Julian these earrings himself at the airport this morning before the marshals arrested him!
Nathaniel caught her wrists before she could touch him, his gray eyes cold and unblinking as he looked down at the woman he had come within six weeks of marrying.
Save the performance for the federal grand jury, Vivian, because I stood two feet behind the kitchen glass in Millbrook four hours ago when you bragged to Julian about stealing the master passcode off my laptop before our engagement party, Nathaniel told her flatly.
Vivian's tearful mask vanished in an instant, replaced by a venomous sneer as she lunged sideways toward the crystal water decanter on the nightstand and reached for the brass house-security panic button beside the bed!
Don't let her touch that glass or that button, Nate! Clara's voice rang out sharply as the connecting oak door from the upstairs study swung open and Clara stepped into the bedroom holding Evelyn Whitfield's unlocked titanium tablet and a yellowing hospice medical file from three years ago!
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Before Vivian could hit the alarm, Clara kicked the nightstand cord out of the wall socket and turned the glowing tablet screen toward Nathaniel, her hazel eyes blazing with fierce intensity.
She isn't even Vivian Caldwell, Nate—the real Caldwell heiress died in Switzerland four years ago, and the woman standing in front of you is Valerie Cross, the private night nurse Evelyn hired three years ago to inject potassium and ten times the lethal dose of morphine into your father's intravenous line the night he died!
