Chapter 1 - DON’T OPEN YOUR EYES
My fiancée stepped over the blood on the marble and reached for my phone.
“Grace, give it to me before he sees what’s on it.”
Our wedding was four days away.
I was lying at the bottom of the staircase, and the woman I loved was more worried about a message than whether I was breathing.
So I kept my eyes half-closed.
Grace Parker knelt beside me, pressing a folded towel against my temple.
“Mr. Whitfield, can you hear me?”
My shoulder burned.
My head throbbed.
I remembered a scrape behind me on the landing, then pressure against my back.
My phone lit up inches from my fingers.
DON’T LET ELISE MARRY HIM.
ASK HER ABOUT THE WEST GATE.
Grace saw it.
So did Elise.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Grace said.
“No.”
Elise said it too quickly.
Then she softened her voice.
“Ethan hates hospitals.
Let’s see if he responds first.”
Grace stared at her.
“He’s bleeding.”
“Give me his phone.”
Grace entered my passcode.
I had given it to her a month earlier when my hands were full.
A photograph opened.
Her expression changed.
“Elise, where were you twenty minutes ago?”
“At the rehearsal dinner.”
“You left.”
“So did other people.”
“This photograph has a timestamp.”
Elise descended the remaining steps.
“Hand it over.”
“No.”
Footsteps approached from the hall.
Martin Cole, my sixty-one-year-old security director, entered with two household employees.
He had worked for my father before working for me.
Few people could make him nervous.
The sight of me on the floor did.
“Call for medical help,” he ordered.
Grace passed him the phone.
“You need to see this.”
Then she leaned close to my ear.
“Mr. Whitfield, if you can hear me, don’t open your eyes.”
Martin enlarged the photograph.
“You were at the west gate at seven forty-three,” he told Elise.
“Who’s the man beside you?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone rang.
Martin studied the caller ID.
The call ended, leaving a voicemail.
“Who is Daniel Voss?” he asked.
Elise went pale.
Before she answered, the front doors opened.
A man stepped inside.
He looked at me, then at Elise.
“You were supposed to make sure he never woke up.”
Martin moved between him and the rest of us.
The stranger froze.
Then his gaze dropped to my hand.
May you like
I had curled my fingers against the marble.
“He heard me,” he said.
