THE ANNIVERSARY CHAIN

For one breath, no one moved.

Then the ballroom erupted.

Guests dropped behind tables. The quartet abandoned their instruments. Melissa screamed and crawled toward the bar. Cole drew a pistol and aimed at the secret doorway.

Emily threw herself over the leather ledger.

Howard lay several feet away, one hand pressed to his side. The bullet had struck below his ribs. His eyes remained open.

"Stay with me," Emily tried to say through the gag.

Brandon tore the ledger from beneath her.

Its cover bore no title, only the same silver wolf embossed on Abraham's black card.

Brandon opened it. The first pages contained columns of dates, cities, initials, and amounts. Some entries were twenty years old. Others had been added in Margaret's handwriting only months before her death.

"Where is the index?" Brandon shouted at Howard.

Howard coughed. "Gone."

Brandon kicked him.

Emily surged against the chain so violently the metal cut her ankle. She struck Brandon's leg, and he stumbled. Cole pointed the pistol at her.

"Do it," Emily said with her eyes.

Cole hesitated.

He was willing to terrorize an injured woman before wealthy witnesses, but murder demanded a different kind of surrender.

Brandon saw the hesitation. "Put the gun away. She is worth nothing dead until she signs."

He carried the ledger to the fireplace.

"No," Howard whispered.

Brandon held the book over the flames. "Tell me where the index is."

Howard looked at Emily.

"Your mother called it the mirror," he said.

Brandon lowered the ledger slightly.

"What mirror?"

Howard smiled despite the blood at his lips. "The one that shows monsters what they are."

The fire alarm began to ring.

Sprinklers burst across the ballroom. Water hammered the chandeliers and drenched the guests. The fireplace hissed into darkness before Brandon could drop the ledger.

Emergency shutters descended over the windows.

Cole pressed his earpiece. "Control, report."

Only static answered.

Emily rolled onto her back, brought both feet toward her hands, and reached for the chain. The brass padlock was too strong, but the floor ring had been installed in haste. Two bolts held it to the marble. One had loosened when Brandon's hammer struck beside it.

She wrapped the chain around her forearm and pulled.

The ring shifted.

Across the room, Howard saw her and nodded once.

Brandon seized Melissa by the arm. "Take the ledger upstairs. Lock it in my office."

"What about me?"

"For once, do exactly what I say."

Melissa ran toward the grand staircase.

Emily pulled again. The loosened bolt rose another fraction.

Cole sent guards into the east corridor. They disappeared behind the portrait. A moment later, the first man shouted. A dull impact followed. The second guard fired twice.

Silence.

Cole aimed at the doorway.

A small cylinder rolled onto the ballroom floor.

White smoke poured from it.

Guests screamed again and stampeded toward locked exits. In the confusion, Commissioner Grant drew his own weapon. Judge Weller crawled beneath a banquet table. Peter Dalca tried to climb onto the stage.

Brandon grabbed Emily by the collar.

"Your father is going to watch you sign."

He dragged her toward the staircase. The chain scraped behind them, still fixed to the floor.

Emily let him pull until the links stretched tight.

Then she kicked the damaged ring.

The second bolt tore free.

Brandon fell backward as the chain released. Emily landed on top of him, drove her forehead into his nose, and tore away the gag.

He roared and struck her across the temple.

Hands appeared through the smoke. One caught Brandon's wrist. Another pulled Emily away.

She could not see the man's face, only gray hair and rain-darkened modest clothes.

"Dad?"

Abraham turned toward her.

All the hard control in his expression broke.

"Little bird."

It was the name he had not called her since childhood.

Emily threw her arms around him. For half a second she was nine years old again, safe in the pantry while danger moved through the house.

Then Abraham saw the blood on her dress and the swelling around her knee.

His face became still.

Brandon crawled backward through the smoke. "You trespassed on my property."

Abraham removed his coat and placed it around Emily's shoulders.

"This property belongs to my daughter."

"Not after tonight."

"Tonight is not over."

Cole stepped from the haze and pointed his pistol at Abraham's chest.

"It is for you."

Abraham looked at the weapon, then at Cole.

"Safety is on."

Cole glanced down by instinct.

Abraham moved.

He trapped Cole's wrist, turned, and sent the pistol skidding beneath a table. The motion was efficient, almost gentle. Cole hit the marble hard enough to lose his breath.

Two of Abraham's people emerged from the passage and secured him.

Brandon stared.

"Who are you?"

Abraham did not answer.

Emily did.

"The man you invited."

From the upper floor came Melissa's scream.

Then a woman's voice sounded through every speaker in Blackthorn House.

"Abraham," Mara said, "the ledger is incomplete, and someone has initiated a purge. We have ninety seconds before every server in the mansion erases itself."

Brandon smiled through the blood beneath his nose.

"Then you came all this way for nothing."