Chapter 5 - THE UPPER SUITE
The scream wasn't Victoria’s. It was too deep, too guttural.
Julian blew past Elena and the wheelchair, taking the grand curving staircase three treads at a time. Leo was right on his heels, his jaw clenched, his knuckles white.
"Stay here, Elena!" Julian barked over the wrought-iron banister.
"The hell she will," Evelyn muttered, clicking the manual lock off her left wheel with her foot. "Elena, push me to the service elevator. The study has the master monitor. Move!"
Elena didn't hesitate. She hit the brass elevator call button down the hall. Her knees still throbbed from where she’d smashed them against the pool deck, but the adrenaline running through her blood was pure rocket fuel. Within twenty seconds, they stepped out of the wood-paneled elevator into Evelyn’s third-floor study.
The room smelled of old leather, pipe tobacco from Evelyn’s late husband, and expensive polish. On the oak desk sat an array of security screens showing every angle of the Vance estate.
Elena leaned over the desk, her eyes scanning the panels. "There. The master bedroom."
On screen four, the chaos was unfolding in real time.
The French doors leading to the second-story balcony were completely shattered. Glass shards littered the Persian rug like diamonds. Standing near the open wall safe behind the walk-in closet door was a man Elena had never seen before.
He was wearing a dark windbreaker, a baseball cap pulled low, and work gloves. He had a black duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and in his right hand, he held a heavy steel crowbar. Victoria stood three feet from him, clutching a velvet pouch filled with Evelyn’s heirloom emeralds.
"Who is that?" Elena whispered, leaning closer. "A burglar?"
"That," Evelyn said, her voice dropping into an arctic register, "is Victoria’s 'trainer.' Marcus called him her personal wellness consultant. His name is Tyler."
"He was already in the house?" Elena’s stomach lurched. "Before the pool?"
"Of course he was," Evelyn said with cold certainty. "Victoria wasn't just trying to drown me for the trust fund, Elena. She was cleaning out the vault today. If I drowned, Julian would be at the hospital, the house would be empty, and the family safe would be reported robbed during the confusion. She didn't count on you catching that chair."
On the monitor, Julian burst through the bedroom double doors.
He didn't stop to assess the situation. Seeing another man in his private bedroom with his wife’s hands in his mother’s safe snapped whatever thin thread of civilized restraint Julian Vance had left. Julian tackled Tyler around the waist, slamming the younger, muscled man into the wall.
A high-end modern art painting crashed to the floor. Tyler swung the crowbar in a blind panic.
Crack.
The sound came through the monitor's pinhole microphone with sickening clarity. The steel caught Julian across the collarbone. He collapsed to his knees with an agonized groan, clutching his shoulder.
"Julian!" Leo screamed, entering the frame. He grabbed a heavy bronze horse figurine from the side table and raised it.
Tyler didn't swing at the kid. He reached into his windbreaker waistband.
Elena’s heart stopped.
The matte-black barrel of a compact 9mm semiautomatic pistol cleared the jacket.
"Leo, look out!" Elena screamed at the glass screen, completely uselessly.
Victoria didn't tell Tyler to stop. She shoved the velvet bag of emeralds into the duffel, her face feral and bloodless. "Shoot him, Tyler! Shoot them both and let's go! The gates are locked, we have to take the hillside path!"
Tyler leveled the gun straight at eighteen-year-old Leo’s chest. The kid froze, the bronze figurine trembling in his hands, completely outmatched.
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Evelyn Vance didn't blink. She didn't scream. She reached beneath the mahogany desk, slipped her hand into a concealed drawer under the center blotter, and pulled out an antique brass key tied to a leather cord.
"Elena," Evelyn said, her voice flat, steady, and terrifyingly cold. "Open the credenza behind you. Bottom shelf. The blue steel box."
