Chapter 1 - The First Breath
The crystal chandelier overhead spun in fractured arcs of gold and diamond light. Christian Whitfield sucked in a ragged breath, the bitter sting of copper coating his tongue. Cold Italian marble bit through his black dress shirt, anchoring him against the encroaching dark. Above him, framed by warm backlight, hovered a face—delicate, wide-eyed, stripped of pretense. Her fingers, small and trembling, pressed a folded linen towel to the gash above his brow.
""Don't move,"" she whispered, her voice a fragile anchor. ""Please, Mr. Whitfield.""
Christian tried to speak, but the words withered into a breathless groan. He looked past her shoulder. At the base of the grand dual staircase stood Evelyn Vance, clad in a sleek blush-pink gown. Her hands were clasped over her mouth, diamonds glinting at her throat. Yet her eyes were completely dry. There was shock there, certainly, but beneath it lay a cold, calculating stillness that struck Christian far deeper than the blow to his skull.
""Clara,"" Christian rasped, the name catching against his throat.
The maid smiled through a veil of unshed tears, her thumb grazing his cheekbone to steady him. ""I'm here, sir. The ambulance is coming. Just breathe.""
May you like
Footsteps echoed from the west wing—hurried, deliberate. Christian tried to lift his head, his vision blurring as the world tilted violently. Someone in this house had pushed him from the mezzanine railing. He remembered the heavy leather gloves, the sudden shove in the dark, the sickening plunge. He had landed hard, miraculously spared a broken neck.
Clara turned her head toward the gallery above, her grip tightening on the bloody cloth. Her gaze locked onto a shadow retreating down the dark corridor upstairs, and her blood ran cold. The killer was still inside the house.
