Chapter 10 - The Unwelcome Guest
“David? Are you down here, darling?”
The voice drifted down the grand hallway, smooth, icy, and dripping with an arrogant familiarity that froze the blood in my veins.
Victoria Sterling.
David’s face drained of every remaining drop of color. He snatched the manila folder off the desk, desperately trying to shove the papers back into the metal safe deposit box, but his trembling hands made him clumsy, scattering documents across the Persian rug.
“She shouldn't be here,” David whispered in sheer panic, grabbing my arm. “The bail hearing downtown isn't even finished yet. How did she get out here so fast?”
“Because the whole legal circus downtown was a distraction,” I said, my mind racing as I pulled my arm out of his grip. “They knew Detective Vance was watching the precinct, so they sent Julian to occupy the courts while Victoria came here to clean up the physical evidence before morning.”
Heavy footsteps were approaching the library door now, closing in with terrifying speed.
“David, sweetie, I know you’re in the study,” Victoria’s voice called out again, sounding closer now, just outside the doorway. “Julian called. The injunctions are secured, but we have a small housekeeping problem to address before the county inspectors arrive at dawn.”
There was no time to run, no time to slip back down to the root cellar. The library had only one primary entrance.
Without thinking, I grabbed David by the collar of his shirt, pulling him behind the heavy velvet drapes of the floor-to-ceiling bay window just as the library door swung open with a smooth, silent click.
Through a narrow gap in the heavy red fabric, I held my breath and peered into the room.
Victoria Sterling stepped across the threshold, looking immaculate in a charcoal winter coat, her silver-streaked blonde hair perfectly in place. She didn't look like a woman who had just orchestrated a felony corporate sabotage and an infant poisoning; she looked like a CEO arriving early for a board meeting.
She walked slowly toward the mahogany writing desk, her heels clicking rhythmically against the hardwood floor. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the open safe deposit box and the scattered papers on the Persian rug.
Victoria’s calm, composed expression vanished instantly, replaced by a dark, predatory scowl. She turned her head sharply toward the hallway, her voice ringing out with lethal authority.
“Marcus! Sweep the perimeter. Someone has been in this room.”
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From the hallway outside, a heavy, familiar tactical boot slammed onto the floorboards, and a low, gravelly voice responded instantly:
“On it, Ms. Sterling. Nobody leaves this estate alive.”
