Chapter 3 - The Bride's Second Voice.
Vanessa ripped the gold ring from her finger and dropped it into a champagne flute.
The blue light vanished beneath the bubbles.
Nathan looked from the glass to the ceiling speakers.
"Who was that?"
"I don't know."
Vanessa's answer came too quickly.
Claire opened the building controls on her white phone.
Halcyon Hall had once been their father's private estate, and every renovated door still reported its status to her account.
The basement archive showed unlocked at 8:47 p.m.
Only three people had clearance.
Claire was in the ballroom.
Mara was beside her.
The third access code belonged to Nathan.
"Where is your black phone?" Claire asked him.
Nathan touched his empty jacket pocket.
"It was in the groom's suite."
Vanessa reached for his arm.
"Don't listen to her."
Claire moved toward the service corridor.
Nathan blocked her path.
"You are not turning this into another one of your investigations."
"Someone used your phone to open Dad's archive."
"There is nothing down there."
"Then why is Vanessa frightened?"
The bride's eyes flashed.
For half a second, the wounded innocence disappeared.
"Because your sister hit me with a financial ambush on my wedding day."
"I never touched you," Claire said.
"No, you made Nathan do your dirty work."
The cruelty of the sentence landed harder than the slap.
Nathan heard it, yet he still turned against Claire.
"Security will escort you out."
One of the officers cleared his throat.
"Mr. Hart, Ms. Claire Hart owns the security contract."
Laughter escaped from somewhere near the bar.
Nathan's humiliation hardened into hatred.
He took a step toward Claire, but the chandeliers dimmed before he reached her.
The room dropped into a warm, uneasy twilight.
Then every exit displayed a red lock symbol.
Claire checked her phone.
Someone had overridden the system from the basement.
An elderly guest struck the door with his cane, and a bridesmaid began crying near the cake.
Claire forced herself to slow her breathing.
Panic could turn a locked room into a stampede before smoke or fire ever appeared.
She asked the bandleader to use the battery-powered microphone and guide guests away from the exits.
Nathan tried to take command, but people looked to Claire because she knew which doors were mechanical, which windows opened, and where the emergency stairs began.
The knowledge only deepened the resentment in his face.
He mistook competence for a public attempt to shame him, even while it kept his guests safe.
The wedding guests surged toward the doors.
Mara raised her voice and asked everyone to remain calm.
Claire used the emergency code to release the front entrance, but the command failed.
"They are not locking us in," she said.
"They are buying time."
She opened a camera feed from the archive corridor.
A tall man in a gray service jacket stood before the Hart family vault.
His back faced the camera.
Nathan leaned close to the screen.
"That's Mason Reed."
Mason was Nathan's closest friend, best man, and business partner.
He was also supposed to be standing near the altar.
Claire looked toward the wedding party.
Mason's place was empty.
On the phone, he turned just enough for the camera to catch Nathan's missing device in his gloved hand.
Vanessa backed away from the screen.
Claire zoomed in as Mason entered a code.
The vault opened.
Inside sat the sealed blue envelope their father had ordered Claire never to open before Nathan's thirty-third birthday.
Nathan's birthday was at midnight.
Mason lifted the envelope and looked directly into the camera.
May you like
Then Vanessa's voice sounded from his earpiece.
"Burn the original."
