Chapter 2 - The Warning Hidden Behind the Affair

Matthias reached for the door.

Evan caught his arm before he could open it.

“Don’t.”

The word was quiet, but Matthias stopped.

“Fiona—”

“Your communications consultant,” I corrected.

His eyes cut toward me.

I did not care.

Evan moved closer to the glass panel and looked into the hall. “If Ms. Vale used that credential, we don’t know why. If someone used it in her name, charging out there only tells them we noticed.”

Matthias pulled his arm free.

“What do you suggest?”

“That we find her without announcing we’re looking.”

He called Maya and gave her Fiona’s description, then asked Matthias for the locations she was most likely to know well.

“Library. West gallery. My father’s office. The upstairs guest rooms.” Matthias hesitated. “And the communications room near the service corridor.”

Evan’s eyes sharpened. “Why would she know the service corridor?”

“She’s been coordinating tonight’s press and staff logistics.”

Of course she had.

The woman wearing my husband’s necklace had not simply been invited to Christmas. She had been helping organize it.

A pressure tightened beneath my ribs.

I rested both hands on my belly until our daughter shifted again.

Evan noticed.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

“That sounded automatic.”

“It was.”

He accepted the answer anyway.

Matthias walked to the pastry table, poured water into a glass, and offered it to me. The gesture was so familiar that anger rose faster than gratitude.

I took it because I was thirsty.

Not because he had given it to me.

“Who knew about the compliance questions?” Evan asked.

“Malcolm. My father. Me. General counsel. Fiona knew there was a delay, but not why.”

“Are you sure?”

Matthias looked toward the floor.

“No.”

I laughed once without humor.

He looked at me.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m adjusting to how often that word applies to our marriage.”

His mouth tightened.

Evan spared us from the next sentence.

“Tell me about Malcolm Reed.”

Matthias leaned against the mantel.

“He’s chaired Dre Holdings for eleven years. He and my father built the commercial side together. Malcolm is aggressive, but he isn’t reckless.”

“You just told me he’s pushing a questionable acquisition.”

“He believes the questions are manageable.”

“Or he needs the deal closed before anyone looks deeper.”

Matthias did not answer.

A second knock came.

This time Maya entered.

She was in her mid-thirties, with dark hair pulled into a low knot and the unhurried posture of someone who understood that moving faster did not always make other people safer.

“No sign of Fiona in the public rooms,” she said. “Security camera coverage on the west service hall dropped for nine minutes.”

“Technical issue?” Matthias asked.

“Your system reports a manual maintenance override.”

“Who authorized it?”

“No authorization in the log.”

Evan exchanged a look with her.

I caught it.

“What?”

Maya looked at me. “We’re going to start quietly moving guests away from the west side.”

“Without telling them why?”

“For now.”

Matthias shook his head. “My parents will notice.”

“Then give them a reason,” Evan said.

Matthias looked annoyed.

I already had one.

“Your mother has been complaining all night that the conservatory is too cold,” I said. “Tell the staff there’s a heating problem in the west wing and move dessert into the east salon.”

Matthias stared at me.

“What?”

“You want sixty wealthy people to relocate without arguing? Tell them they might be uncomfortable.”

For the first time all evening, Maya almost smiled.

“That works.”

Matthias called the house manager.

He did not explain the real reason.

Within five minutes, servers began closing the west gallery doors and redirecting guests with the kind of polished efficiency rich families paid for precisely so emergencies could look like hospitality.

I watched through the glass.

People moved.

Slowly.

No panic.

Good.

Then I saw Malcolm Reed.

He was standing beside the Christmas tree talking to Matthias’s father, Arthur.

Malcolm was sixty-one, silver-haired, broad through the shoulders, with the permanent tan of someone who considered winter an inconvenience to be escaped. I had met him dozens of times.

He had sent flowers when Matthias and I announced the pregnancy.

He had toasted our daughter at a board dinner.

Now I could not look at him without seeing M.R. printed at the bottom of an anonymous document.

Malcolm glanced toward the morning room.

Our eyes met.

He smiled.

Then his gaze shifted to Evan.

The smile disappeared.

Only for a second.

But I saw it.

“Evan.”

He followed my line of sight.

“That’s Reed?”

“Yes.”

Malcolm said something to Arthur and began moving toward us.

Maya quietly left through the side door.

Evan opened the morning-room door before Malcolm reached it.

“Serena,” Malcolm said warmly. “There you are. Arthur said the baby’s been kicking all evening.”

I forced a polite smile.

“She has opinions about Christmas.”

He laughed.

Then looked at Evan.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Evan Rourke.”

Something changed in Malcolm’s eyes.

Recognition.

He covered it quickly.

“Security?”

“Consulting.”

“For Matthias?”

“For Serena.”

Malcolm turned toward me.

That interested him more.

Before he could ask why, Arthur called his name from across the hall.

Malcolm gave me a small nod.

“We’ll catch up later.”

“I’m sure we will.”

He walked away.

Evan waited until the door was closed.

“He knows who I am.”

“You’re famous?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“That’s a question.”

My phone vibrated inside my clutch.

I flinched.

No one had my private number except family, work, my attorney, and a handful of friends.

The screen showed an unknown caller.

I looked at Evan.

He nodded.

I answered.

“Hello?”

For two seconds, there was only breathing.

Then a woman whispered, “Don’t say my name.”

Fiona.

My grip tightened around the phone.

“Where are you?”

“I said don’t say my name.”

Matthias moved closer.

I held up one hand.

Fiona continued.

“I need you to listen. The envelope was supposed to get you out of the house.”

Every sound in the room seemed to disappear.

“You sent it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t know who else would believe me.”

I looked at Matthias.

He could hear enough from my expression to understand.

His face went pale.

“Where are you?” I asked again.

“In the old linen room near the east stairs.”

“That’s not near the west service door.”

“I know.”

“Your credential opened it.”

Silence.

Then: “I lost my access card this afternoon.”

I closed my eyes.

“Why didn’t you report it?”

“Because I thought I dropped it in Matthias’s car.”

Matthias mouthed, What?

I ignored him.

“Fiona, what is happening tonight?”

Her breath shook.

“I don’t know everything.”

“What do you know?”

“I heard Malcolm talking to someone after the Hensley briefing last week. He said tonight was the only clean window because everyone who mattered would be under one roof.”

My knees weakened.

Evan pulled a chair toward me without a word.

I sat.

“What did he mean by clean window?”

“I don’t know.”

“You sent me a document that said collateral losses were acceptable.”

“I found it in a folder Malcolm left in the communications office. I took a photograph, then I panicked. The next day the folder was gone.”

“Why send it to me?”

“Because Matthias wouldn’t listen to me.”

His face changed.

“You told him?”

“Not all of it. I told him Malcolm was hiding something. He said I was overreacting.”

Matthias looked as if she had struck him.

I understood the expression.

I had probably worn the same one when I saw the hotel reservation.

My voice went colder.

“And the hotel?”

Fiona stopped breathing.

I hated that I asked.

I hated that even with danger hanging over the house, I still needed one truth that belonged only to me.

“Was New Haven business?”

“No.”

Matthias looked away.

There it was.

No ambiguity left.

Fiona’s voice became smaller.

“I’m sorry.”

I closed my eyes for one second.

Then opened them.

“We can discuss your apology when sixty people are safe.”

Evan crouched near my chair.

“Ask her if she has anything else from the folder.”

“Do you have anything else?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“A photograph of one page.”

“Send it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“My phone isn’t connecting to the network.”

Evan looked at Maya, who had just returned.

She checked her own phone.

“No internal Wi-Fi,” she said. “Cell signal’s unstable too.”

That had not been true ten minutes ago.

Fiona whispered, “Serena?”

“I’m here.”

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“The page had a time.”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“What time?”

“Ten forty-five.”

I looked at the antique clock on the mantel.

10:21.

Twenty-four minutes.

“What happens at ten forty-five?”

“I don’t know.”

A sound came through the call.

A door.

Fiona stopped speaking.

“Fiona?”

Nothing.

Then she whispered, barely audible.

“Someone’s here.”

The line went dead.

I started to stand.

Evan put a hand out, not touching me, only blocking the impulse.

“No.”

“She could be in danger.”

“She could also be bait.”

That stopped me.

I hated him for being right.

Matthias was already dialing Fiona. The call failed before it rang.

“Do something,” he said.

Evan looked at him without warmth. “I am.”

Then he turned to Maya.

“East stairs. Two people. Quietly. Nobody goes alone.”

Maya nodded and left.

I looked at the mantel clock again.

10:22.

Twenty-three minutes.

For the first time since the envelope had arrived, the threat had a shape I could measure.

Not a theory.

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Not a warning.

A countdown.