Chapter 4 – Eight Seconds of Darkness
The ballroom remained dark for exactly eight seconds.
Long enough for someone to scream.
Long enough for glass to break.
Long enough for the Ashford Rose to disappear from Eleanor’s hand.
When the emergency lights finally glowed red along the walls, every guest seemed to be standing in a different place.
Victoria had backed against the champagne table.
Charles Whitmore was gripping his cane with both hands.
The hotel manager stood near the main doors, staring at Eleanor’s bare finger.
And Eleanor remained perfectly still.
The black velvet glove lay on the marble beside her.
The ring was gone.
“No one leaves,” she said.
Her voice was not loud, but the doors immediately locked.
Several guests protested.
A senator demanded to call his security team.
A woman near the orchestra raised her phone, only to discover that it had no signal.
Victoria stared at Eleanor’s empty hand.
“You planned this.”
Eleanor slowly turned toward her.
“If I had planned it, the ring would still be on my finger.”
“You embarrassed me, exposed my family, and then staged a robbery.”
Victoria’s voice trembled with fury.
“This is some kind of performance.”
Eleanor ignored her.
She crouched near the place where she had been standing before the blackout.
A broken champagne flute glittered across the floor.
Beside it was a small strip of black fabric.
Not from her glove.
This material was rougher, like the lining of a formal coat.
Eleanor lifted it with the edge of the dirty napkin Victoria had thrown earlier.
Charles noticed something else.
A faint mark had been drawn on the marble in red lipstick.
A circle.
Inside it was the number thirteen.
The hotel manager turned pale.
Eleanor looked at him.
“What does thirteen mean?”
He hesitated.
“There is no thirteenth floor.”
“That was not my question.”
The manager swallowed.
“The original Ashford Hotel had a private level between the twelfth and fourteenth floors. It was removed from the public elevators after Henry Ashford died.”
Victoria frowned.
“My father never told me that.”
“He was never supposed to know,” Charles said.
The old banker looked toward the ceiling.
“Only members of the original Ashford board had access.”
Eleanor rose.
“Who is on that board now?”
Charles’s silence provided the answer.
Several powerful people in the room began avoiding Eleanor’s eyes.
She counted them.
A shipping magnate.
A federal judge.
A pharmaceutical executive.
Two bankers.
And Senator William Crane.
Six people who had spent twenty-four years pretending the Ashford empire no longer existed.
Eleanor stepped closer to the elevator bank.
“Open the hidden floor.”
The manager shook his head.
“It requires an old mechanical key.”
A metallic click sounded behind them.
Everyone turned.
A brass key had been placed in the center of the stage.
No one had seen who left it there.
Attached to it was a small white card.
Eleanor picked it up.
Only one sentence had been written across it.
Bring Victoria if you want the diamond back.
May you like
Victoria’s face drained of color.
“For once,” Eleanor said coldly, “someone in this room believes you are valuable.”
