Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the East Wing
The tension in the study was thick enough to cut with a scalpel. Robert Vance took a half-step backward toward the door, his hand hovering over the brass doorknob.
"Nathan, you're listening to a hysterical girl who spends her days scrubbing toilets," Robert laughed, though the sound was high and brittle, like breaking glass. "If you want to fire her and call security, I’ll handle it. You have the board meeting—"
"Stay where you are," Nathan commanded.
He didn't raise his voice, but Robert froze as if he’d been struck by lightning. Nathan walked slowly toward his cousin, stopping just inches away. At fifty-two, Nathan was broader, harder, and possessed an aura of absolute dominance that Robert clearly lacked.
"Vivi," Nathan said without turning his head. "Go to the east wing. Check on Ethan. Make sure Serena hasn't locked him in his room."
"Yes, Mr. Blackwell," I said, standing up immediately and grabbing my notebook from the desk.
"If you leave this room, Vivi, I swear to God I'll—" Robert started, lunging toward the door.
Nathan’s hand shot out like a striking viper, grabbing Robert by the lapel of his Italian wool suit and slamming him against the oak paneling with a dull thud that rattled the framed diplomas on the wall.
"You don't move. You don't speak. You wait," Nathan whispered into his cousin's ear.
I didn't wait to see what happened next. I slipped out the side door into the grand hallway, my heart racing against my ribs.
The east wing of the Blackwell mansion was always colder than the rest of the house. It was built during the Prohibition era, a sprawling stone addition with high vaulted ceilings, thick Persian carpets, and tall Gothic windows that looked out over the dark waters of Lake Michigan.
When I reached Ethan’s suite at the end of the hall, the oak door was firmly shut.
"Ethan?" I called out softly, tapping on the wood. "It's Vivi."
No answer.
I tried the brass handle. Locked from the outside.
Panic flared in my chest. Serena’s key ring—the master set that opened every door in the mansion—was kept in the housekeeping pantry on the ground floor. I turned and sprinted down the grand staircase, ignoring the formal rules of the estate, my sneakers squeaking against the polished marble.
The pantry was empty. The silver key ring hung on its designated hook beside the washbasin. I grabbed it, spun around, and ran smack into someone standing in the doorway.
Serena.
Her hands were planted firmly on her hips, her face a mask of furious righteousness.
"Going somewhere, little missy?" Serena hissed, blocking the exit. "Mr. Blackwell gave orders for you to be packed. Hand over those keys."
"Ethan is locked in his room," I said, trying to push past her. "Serena, move. If she gave him any of those 'calming drops' while he was agitated—"
"He's the boss's son, and he needs sedation!" Serena snapped, her grip clamping onto my wrist with surprising strength for a woman her age. "Dr. Harrison’s orders! You think you know everything because you read a few medical blogs? Your kind comes in here, cleans the floors, and thinks you belong in the family. You're nothing! A charity case working her way through night school!"
I looked at her—at the blind loyalty in her eyes, the dangerous, fanatical devotion to a regime that kept a boy crippled in a cage.
"My kind?" I whispered.
I didn't argue. I didn't try to wrestle the keys away. Instead, I drove the heel of my sneaker down onto her polished orthopedic shoe with all the weight I could muster.
Serena shrieked, her grip loosening as she hopped backward on one foot.
I snatched the key ring off the hook, darted past her down the hall, and took the back service stairs three at a time.
When I burst back into the east wing hallway, the door to Ethan’s room was standing wide open.
Ethan wasn't in his wheelchair.
He was sprawled across the Persian rug near the foot of his mahogany bed, his face pale, his lips tinged with a frightening blue tint, gasping for air like a fish out of water. An empty glass vial rolled across the hardwood floor near his outstretched hand.
The purple medicine. The same bottle I had seen sitting on his wheelchair tray earlier that afternoon.
"Ethan!" I screamed, dropping to my knees beside him.
His eyes fluttered open, glassy and unseeing. His fingers twitched against the wool carpet.
"Vivi..." he choked out, a thin line of foam appearing at the corner of his mouth. "It... it burns..."
I grabbed his pulse point. It was racing—way too fast, over 140 beats per minute. That wasn't a calming sedative.
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That was a neurotoxin antagonist designed to induce muscular paralysis and respiratory collapse in patients undergoing unauthorized physical exertion.
Someone had tried to kill him.
