I came back from the restroom and found my best friend sitting on my husband’s lap in the middle of a crowded birthday dinner.

I spun around in the leather armchair, my heart vaulting into my throat.

Standing in the doorway, bathed in the pale moonlight filtering through the French doors, was Eleanor Vance.

She was holding a warm cup of herbal tea, her silver hair falling in soft waves over her silk robe. She looked frail, yet there was an eerie calmness in the way she stared at me across the shadowed room.

“You shouldn't be awake, Claire,” Eleanor said softly, taking a slow step into the library. “You’ve had a very long journey from Zurich.”

I kept my hand firmly over the laptop trackpad, subtly sliding the screen down an inch. “I was just... checking the last of the Swiss manifests, Eleanor. David’s father left an audio diary.”

Eleanor stopped beside the mahogany desk, setting her teacup down on a leather coaster. Her eyes drifted to the glowing screen, and a faint, melancholic smile touched her lips.

“Arthur always was sentimental before he died,” she murmured, her voice sounding oddly distant. “He thought recording his regrets would absolve him of the sins he committed to build Sterling-Vance.”

“Eleanor,” I whispered, a sickening chill creeping up my spine as the puzzle rearranged itself into a terrifying new reality. “What did his recording mean? Who brought Victoria to Chicago?”

Before Eleanor could answer, the silence of the country estate was shattered by the screech of tires tearing across the gravel driveway outside. High-beam headlights slashed across the library windows, casting long, frantic shadows against the book-lined walls.

Heavy fists pounded against the front oak doors of the manor.

David rushed down the grand staircase, fully awake, his service pistol drawn, his eyes wide with alert. “Claire! Eleanor! Get away from the windows!”

David wrenched the front door open, his weapon raised.

Standing in the downpour on the front porch was not Julian’s men, but Detective Miller from the Chicago Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit, his badge pinned to his dripping trench coat.

“Mr. Vance! Thank God you're here,” Miller panted, catching his breath. “We have an emergency.”

“What happened?” David demanded, keeping himself between the doorway and the dark interior. “Julian Rothschild is in federal custody.”

“Not anymore,” Miller said grimly. “Two armed men intercepted the federal transport convoy on Interstate 94 twenty minutes ago. A smoke grenade was deployed, the escort vehicles were disabled with high-caliber rounds, and Julian Rothschild was broken out.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Where is Victoria?”

“That’s why I drove out here myself,” Miller said, his eyes darting toward the dark treeline surrounding the estate. “Victoria wasn't in custody. When we raided her penthouse suite an hour ago, her security detail was dead. And on the mirror in the master bedroom, written in lipstick, was a message for your wife.”

Miller pulled out his phone, clicking open a crime-scene photograph.

Written across the glass in smeared crimson was: