Chapter 1 - The Witness in the Garden
The brick moved before Sadie understood that her father truly meant to use it.
One moment Everett Halston stood beneath the white roses with dust on his navy polo and fury whitening the edges of his mouth. The next, his arm rose above his gray head, the old red brick clenched in his fist. Sunlight flashed across its broken corner.
"You ruined everything!" he shouted.
Sadie stepped backward, but the heel of her blue shoe caught between two paving stones. The garden tilted. Her father's arm came down.
Wyatt hit her from the side with enough force to tear the breath from her lungs. He locked one arm around her waist, covered her head with the other, and pulled her beyond the brick's path. The brick struck the stone where she had been standing. A sharp crack split the afternoon. A red fragment skittered beneath a hydrangea.
Everett lifted what remained of the brick.
"Sir, put it down," Wyatt said. His white shirt was torn at the elbow. He placed himself between Sadie and her father, one hand extended, the other holding her behind him. "Put it down now."
Sadie tried to speak. Her tongue felt thick. A bitter taste rose from the tea her mother had pressed on her twenty minutes earlier. Her knees failed, and Wyatt caught her before her face struck the path.
Celeste Halston stood beside the fountain in an immaculate cream suit. She looked at her daughter sagging in Wyatt's arms, at Everett shaking with rage, and then at the ruined brick.
She laughed.
"Mother," Sadie whispered.
Celeste's smile vanished. "Look what you forced him to do."
From beyond the hedge came the clatter of a metal tool case. Daniel Ruiz, the electrician hired to rewire the east wing, had emerged from the service path. His brown work shirt was dark with sweat. He stared at the brick in Everett's hand, then at Sadie on the ground.
Everett turned toward him. "This is a family matter."
Daniel took out his phone.
"I saw everything," he said. "Police and an ambulance. Rosemont Estate, south garden. A man tried to hit a woman with a brick."
Celeste moved first. "You are mistaken. My husband dropped it. Our daughter fainted."
Daniel backed away without lowering the phone. "I know what I saw."
Everett threw the brick into the fountain. Water slapped the marble rim. Then he rushed toward Daniel.
Wyatt eased Sadie to the ground, folded his body over hers, and shouted for Daniel to run. The electrician disappeared through the hedge as Everett chased him. Somewhere near the front drive, tires screamed against gravel.
Sadie's sight narrowed to a bright tunnel. She saw her mother's cream shoes stop beside her. Celeste crouched, not to help, but to pull a thin silver chain from Sadie's clenched fist.
"Where is the key?" Celeste whispered.
Sadie closed her fingers tighter. The tiny brass key cut into her palm.
"You will never find it," she said.
For the first time that day, fear broke through Celeste's perfect face.
Sirens rose beyond the iron gates. Wyatt looked up and saw Celeste reaching for Sadie's hand. He seized Celeste's wrist.
"Do not touch her."
Two police officers burst around the corner with weapons drawn. Everett froze beside the hedge. Daniel stood behind them, breathing hard, one finger pointing directly at him.
"That's the man," Daniel said. "And the woman in cream watched it happen."
The first officer forced Everett to his knees. The second called for paramedics and hurried to Sadie. Celeste kept insisting that the family had been rehearsing a scene for the engagement party. Her voice remained calm even while Everett was handcuffed.
Sadie heard only fragments. Blood pressure. Possible poisoning. Keep her awake.
Wyatt held her face between his hands. "Stay with me."
She fought through the darkness and looked past him at the west garden wall. Near the base of the wall, one pale stone had been removed. Behind it was a square of darkness no larger than a letter.
"The wall," she breathed.
"What wall?"
"Do not let them close it."
Then the garden vanished.
Sadie woke beneath hospital lights with a police officer outside the door and Wyatt asleep in a chair, his hand still wrapped around hers. A narrow bandage covered his forearm. On the bedside table sat an evidence bag containing the brass key.
Detective June Mercer entered without noise. She was in her forties, with tired eyes and a voice that made no promises.
"Your father says he was repairing the garden wall," she said. "Your mother says the brick slipped. Your fiance says it was attempted murder. Mr. Ruiz agrees with him."
Sadie turned toward the dark window. "My mother gave me tea."
"The hospital is testing your blood."
"She asked for the key while I was on the ground."
Mercer glanced at the evidence bag. "What does it open?"
Sadie thought of the sealed blue room, the scorched ledger, and the voice she had heard beneath the roses the night before. She thought of her aunt Mara, dead for twelve years according to everyone except the woman on the hidden recording.
"I do not know," she lied.
Wyatt stirred in the chair. The detective studied both of them.
"Miss Halston, somebody disabled six security cameras before the incident. The only garden camera left running was pointed at an empty wall."
"Not empty," Sadie said.
Mercer waited.
Sadie looked at the brass key and realized that if she told the truth, her father might not be the only person arrested by morning.
Seven days earlier, she had returned to Rosemont believing the worst thing waiting for her was a wedding argument.
May you like
She had been wrong.
