The Stand-in Wife's Deception

l of the Croft Estate, and it was the

s were dressed in white linen. The chandelier was a wheel of cryst

. Everybod

nking and stood where Caspian had left me, at the edg

ilies. Nobody sat wit

at me before the

like a seawall. White hair pinned back. A

e was gravel and har

" I gave her Vivienne's smile, the

't blink. "How

inside of my ribs

ght. Something careless. She would hav

said. "She doesn't

moved. It was not suspicion. It

" she said quietly, a

alked

nd understood I had just made my first real mistake-not be

nd one w

d a lawyer's smile. Draycott was sixty, silver at t

ord about the

ortman matter was. I had

quarter turn, the way she did. "My husband d

e stayed exactly where it was. "You know, when we last spoke, y

arrowed to

said

raction. He had caught som

said slowly, watching me. "And tha

osed over

rm and pleasant, with a blade in

my arm, then back to Caspian's face. Wh

d his head. "Congratula

ian did not m

, without looking at me. "He brought it up to see if y

know the

e against my elbow, and he le

ntouched champagne and thinking: he is covering for me, and h

t at e

came up out of the dark like something surfacing. Black

ng, and the floor was the same wet black stone, and our foots

ned before h

ent floor to ceiling and looked out on nothing but black water

oor, on a black velvet tray

t to sit,"

"I want to kno

cked

t with diamonds in a pattern that looked almost like fros

the wedding," he said. "

de of the band was a small dar

ee meters." He said it flatly, the way a man reads out a list

f I re

ll know

the choker.

just ask

ser. "But we both know as

ot put it on me. He he

ught about most since. Not that h

ound and li

throat, snug, not tight. The clasp closed

n't st

it feel?

a co

as quiet behind me.

The lock turned

of the room and did no

did wha

with the

It took me four minutes to find it: a pinprick of glass inside the s

ow was reinforced - I could see the faint grid in the

wn on th

rm to the back of my hand. I put the rug back exactly

ed the hinges - recently oiled. Someone had bee

ened

I couldn't name, hanging in rows like they were waiting for her

erfum

door and my eyes shut, and I let

y eyes and look

t was behind

ng the wall on the other side of the room. Here it ran straight. Som

lder against

uch. An inch, m

e room, but it could not see into that gap. I squeezed in sideways and stood wit

ng ha

eye on the bed. The sensor by t

s entire house where no machine

t time all day

e of the wall, brass, old, with

ole room was spotles

d the wrong way - the slot marks ran north-south on three screws and east-west on the fou

with the edge of a hairpin

n disturbed. A clean li

nt, tucked flat against the

hick, aged, slightly gone bro

o the light fr

ck type, from a font I knew the way I know my own handw

m Grimm's

e our father read to us, the one that had a wa

y cipher

closed a

I sto

ewhere. And a page torn out of a book means the book is

ld at the seam where the stitching was loose, and I put the register back the

rom behind t

re with the diamonds cold at my throat and the torn

The hum of somethi

ound that di

nical sound.

smoke detector, and the little pinprick o

nting at t