Chapter 15 - The Bride’s Demands
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Inside the master study, instead of the green unlocking chime Arthur and Vanessa had waited six months to hear, a heavy steel deadbolt thudded into place inside the wall, and the digital screen above the vault flashed in bright crimson letters:
MANUAL OVERRIDE ENGAGED — LOCKDOWN CANCELLED BY OWNER.
At the exact same second, all the titanium hurricane shutters across the first and second floors of Whitaker Hall began rolling upward into the limestone walls, flooding the darkened mansion and the upstairs balcony with blinding midday sunlight.
"What the hell?!" Arthur roared, slamming both palms against the wood paneling covering the vault. "It reset! Somebody manually cancelled the fire protocol from the gallery hub!"
Vanessa spun around toward the study doors in panic just as the heavy oak double doors swung inward.
Standing in the doorway was Evan Whitaker.
He was no longer wearing the muddy flannel shirt or the gray prosthetic beard. While Grace held the server room, Evan had taken sixty seconds to wash the theatrical dirt from his face in his master bathroom and pull on a razor-sharp navy dress shirt, holding the captured nine-millimeter pistol steadily at his side.
Behind him stepped Grace Miller, her left arm bound in white linen and the suppressed submachine gun leveled squarely at Arthur’s chest.
Arthur stumbled backward into the mahogany desk, knocking the crystal decanter of Macallan onto the rug, while Vanessa shrieked and grabbed the edge of the bookshelf.
"Evan!" Arthur gasped, his face turning the color of sour milk as he looked at the gun in his college roommate’s hand. "Evan, put the gun down, man! Listen to me—whatever this woman told you, she’s playing you! I only triggered the vault protocol to keep the shares from falling into hostile hands while you were unreachable in London!"
"Shut up, Arthur," Evan said calmly.
"You can't shoot us!" Vanessa hissed, backing toward the tall French windows that opened onto the upper stone balcony overlooking the crowded terrace below. "There are fifty witnesses down on that patio right now, Evan, including the State Attorney General! If you walk us out onto that balcony at gunpoint, I will scream that you lost your mind and held us hostage, and Arthur’s lawyers will tie you up in court for ten years!"
She lunged for the brass handle of the balcony doors, throwing them wide open and stepping out into the bright sunlight above the terrace, where all fifty guests were standing up from the tables and looking toward the mansion in stunned silence now that the sirens had stopped.
"Help!" Vanessa screamed down at the crowd, instantly summoning her most convincing damsel-in-distress sobs as she gripped the stone balustrade. "Attorney General Vance! Somebody help us! Evan has a gun and he’s trying to kill Arthur and me!"
Across the terrace below, fifty faces turned upward toward the second-floor balcony. Near the wrought-iron gates—which had just clicked unlocked when Grace cut the power breaker—four Connecticut State Troopers and two Greenwich Police officers came running onto the lawn with their service weapons drawn, aiming upward toward the balcony.
Arthur smirked as he stepped out onto the stone balcony beside Vanessa, raising his hands for the police below.
May you like
"Drop the weapon, Evan!" one of the state troopers shouted from the patio steps. "Step out where we can see your hands!"
Evan tucked the pistol into the waistband at the small of his back and stepped calmly out onto the sunny stone balcony with both hands empty—except for a sleek black remote control in his right palm.
