[COMPLETED] The Christmas Party Behind the Dre Family’s Perfect Facade

I did not chase Fiona.

That surprised Matthias more than it surprised me.

A month earlier, I might have. I might have marched after her with my marriage cracking open in my chest and demanded an explanation before I could think. But the paper in my clutch had changed the order of my fears.

My husband’s betrayal could ruin my family.

Whatever was happening in the west wing could ruin far more.

“Noah,” I said, “what do we do first?”

“Confirm whether the security problem is deliberate.”

Matthias stepped between us. “We are not turning my parents’ Christmas party into an emergency drill because a light flickered.”

Noah looked at him. “Then don’t call it one.”

He nodded toward the ballroom.

“Move people gradually. Use the weather. Say the west side has an electrical issue and shift everyone toward the conservatory. Keep the exits clear.”

Matthias’s mouth tightened. “You don’t give orders in my house.”

“No,” I said. “I do.”

Both men looked at me.

I had spent nine years in trauma nursing. I knew what panic did in crowded spaces. I also knew the difference between creating fear and creating distance from a possible problem.

I turned to Matthias’s mother, Evelyn, who was speaking with the caterer near the tree.

“Evelyn.”

She took one look at my face and stopped smiling.

“What is it?”

“Possible electrical issue in the west wing. Nothing dramatic. Can you ask the staff to open the conservatory and move dessert there?”

She did not ask why.

That was the first useful thing anyone in the Dre family did that night.

Within five minutes, waiters began carrying trays through the glass doors at the far end of the ballroom. Guests followed because rich people will move almost anywhere if someone tells them the champagne is going there.

The move looked effortless from the outside.

Evelyn announced that the conservatory had been opened for the dessert course. A waiter rolled out coffee service. Someone adjusted the quartet’s chairs so the music carried toward the glass room. Guests drifted after the food without realizing they were being moved farther from the west wing.

I watched their faces as they passed.

A surgeon from Manhattan complained about the snow. A retired judge asked for more bourbon. Rebecca paused to squeeze my shoulder. Nobody looked frightened.

That was exactly what I wanted.

Across the room, Graham spoke with Matthias’s father near the tree. Fiona stood by herself, one hand around her champagne stem, watching the western corridor instead of the guests.

When she noticed me looking, she smiled.

It was not a social smile.

It was the expression of someone asking a question without words.

I did not yet know whether the question was Please help me or How much do you know.

Both possibilities made my skin prickle.

Matthias remained furious.

He also did not stop us.

Noah found the estate’s security director, Raymond Cole, near the foyer. Cole was a retired state trooper with a calm face and an earpiece he touched too often once Noah explained what he had seen.

“The cameras are live,” Cole said.

“Show me.”

They moved to a narrow security room off the library. Matthias insisted on joining them. I followed because the diagram in my clutch had my name nowhere on it, but the building around me suddenly felt personal.

Nine screens showed different parts of the property. Snow drifted across the driveway. The kitchen staff moved through the service corridor. A guard passed the east gate.

Noah pointed at three images.

“Those.”

Cole frowned.

At first I saw nothing.

Then I understood.

The snow on the monitor fell in the exact same pattern on each loop.

Not similar.

Identical.

“Recorded footage,” Cole said.

Matthias stared at the screens. “How long?”

Cole checked the system.

“Fourteen minutes.”

Noah looked at me. “The flicker was a test. This is cover.”

Matthias swore under his breath.

“Lock the outer gates,” he told Cole.

“No,” Noah said.

Matthias rounded on him.

“If someone inside did this and sees the gates lock,” Noah continued, “they know they’ve been noticed. Keep the estate looking normal until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Cole nodded slowly. “He’s right.”

Matthias hated hearing that.

I could see it.

“What about the west corridor?” I asked.

Cole selected another camera.

The screen showed a quiet hallway lined with framed black-and-white photographs of the Dre family’s early factories. At the end stood the records-room door.

Nothing moved.

“Can you pull the last thirty minutes?”

Cole did.

At 8:41 p.m., Fiona appeared on the recording.

She walked down the corridor alone.

Matthias leaned closer.

Fiona swiped a card and entered the records room.

At 8:47, she came back out carrying nothing.

At 8:49, two men in dark work jackets entered from the service stairs.

Their faces were turned away from the camera.

They did not use access cards.

Someone inside opened the door for them.

At 8:52, the camera loop began.

I felt cold despite the crowded room.

“Who can open that door remotely?” I asked.

Cole answered without looking away from the screen. “Security control. Facilities director. Executive override.”

“Who has executive override?”

He hesitated.

“Matthias. His father. Graham.”

Graham Dre was Matthias’s cousin and chief financial officer. He had been in the ballroom all night, moving from donor to donor with the polished warmth of a man born knowing which fork to use.

I pictured him thirty feet away, laughing beside the tree.

“Anyone else?”

“Temporary override can be issued.”

“To Fiona?”

Cole checked the access list.

His brows came together.

“No.”

Matthias looked at him. “What?”

“Her card should not open that room.”

“But we just watched it happen.”

“Yes.”

Noah crossed his arms. “Meaning her access level was changed.”

“By whom?”

Cole started typing.

Behind us, the library door opened.

I turned so quickly that my back twinged.

It was Rebecca Sloan, chair of the Dre Holdings board, seventy-two years old and usually impossible to startle. Her white hair was immaculate. Her left hand was not.

It was trembling.

“Serena,” she said.

Something about my name in her mouth made me step toward her.

“Rebecca?”

She looked behind her.

“Can I speak to you?”

Matthias moved forward. “What happened?”

Rebecca’s expression hardened.

“I asked for Serena.”

He stopped.

I took Rebecca into the adjoining reading room and closed the door, leaving it open an inch because I no longer trusted closed rooms.

“What is it?”

She held out a folded cocktail napkin.

On it, someone had written one sentence in blue ink.

WEST ARCHIVE. 9:30. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT PROOF.

I checked the clock.

9:17.

“Who gave you this?”

“A waiter. He said a woman asked him to deliver it.”

“Which woman?”

“He didn’t know.”

“Did you keep the waiter?”

“No. I assumed this was some ridiculous investor game until the lights went out.”

I felt anger climb through the fear.

“You were going to go?”

Rebecca met my eyes.

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“I am old, not helpless.”

“That is not the distinction I’m worried about.”

A faint smile touched her mouth and vanished.

“Matthias chose well when he married you.”

The words hurt more than I expected.

“He has not been choosing especially well lately.”

Rebecca looked toward the door.

“I wondered.”

“You knew?”

“I know people. Not details.”

I sat beside her because my lower back had begun to ache.

“Rebecca, why would someone think you wanted proof?”

Her face changed.

“Because I do.”

She took a breath.

“Three months ago, Noah Mercer sent me a memorandum before he was pushed out. He had found vendor payments that did not fit the Hensley acquisition. I asked Matthias to review them.”

My chest tightened.

“What did he say?”

“That the figures had been reconciled.”

“Were they?”

“No.”

The answer was immediate.

“I found eighteen million dollars in payments routed through consultants whose work I cannot verify. Last week, I asked Graham for the supporting contracts.”

“And?”

“He told me year-end document migration had delayed retrieval.”

“Where are the originals?”

“The west archive.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Collateral losses within acceptable parameters.

The marked corridor.

The west archive.

“Rebecca,” I said, “you are not going anywhere alone.”

The reading-room door opened another inch.

Matthias stood there.

His face had gone pale.