Chapter 8 - The Wrong Villain
Mara slapped the forged packet onto the steel table.
"Then who did?"
Celeste shook her head. "I don't know."
"You expect me to believe you forged one signature and never asked about the others?"
"I never saw your page."
"It's in the same packet."
"Not the packet I signed."
Victor looked up sharply.
Mara turned to him. "What does that mean?"
Celeste grabbed the pages and flipped through them.
"Mine had eleven pages."
Mara counted.
Twelve.
The black-ink page sat at eight.
Her forged consent sat at twelve.
"Someone added a page."
"Two," Celeste said. "At least."
Adrian moved toward the table.
Nora stepped in front of him.
"Stay where you are."
He stared at her.
"You think I'm going to steal paper in front of six witnesses?"
Nora didn't blink. "I think you've done worse in quieter rooms."
One of the security guards shifted his weight.
Adrian heard it.
Mara did too.
Trust inside the room was breaking in real time.
Mara picked up the packet.
"Celeste, start from the first message you got. Exact order."
"Here?"
"Now."
Celeste looked at Adrian.
Mara caught her chin and turned it back.
"Stop looking at him before you answer."
Celeste's jaw tightened.
Then she nodded.
"First message said Adrian was bringing a woman to the gala. Second said gray dress, silver mask. Third said you had access Margaret never gave me."
"When did you learn my name?"
"I didn't. Not until Adrian said it in the ballroom."
"So whoever messaged you knew exactly what I would wear."
"Yes."
Mara looked down at her gray dress.
She had not chosen it.
The invitation had included a handwritten styling note:
NEUTRAL COLORS REQUESTED FOR TRUST GUESTS. SILVER MASK PROVIDED AT CHECK-IN.
Her pulse kicked.
"The mask."
Celeste frowned.
"What?"
"Mine was waiting at the registration table."
Nora's eyes sharpened.
"Who chose the masks?"
Celeste answered before anyone else could.
"Adrian."
The room went silent.
Adrian gave her a disgusted look. "I approved a vendor deck. I didn't hand-select every mask."
"You rejected three versions of mine."
"Because this is a donor gala and you wanted feathers wider than a doorway."
"You chose Mara's too."
Adrian turned to Mara. "I didn't know which guest would receive which silver mask."
Mara took out her phone.
"Then procurement will show that."
Adrian's face hardened.
"Go ahead."
He sounded too ready.
Mara didn't call procurement.
She called the print house named on her invitation.
A sleepy man answered after four rings.
"Galloway Maison emergency line."
"This is Mara Voss. I need the commission name on batch GM-1017-04."
A pause.
Keyboard clicks.
"I'm not authorized to disclose client identities."
Mara looked at Adrian.
"The client is dead. Margaret Mercer."
Another pause.
"No, ma'am."
Mara's grip tightened.
"Who commissioned it?"
"I can tell you it was billed to Mercer Holdings executive events."
"Authorized by whom?"
The man hesitated.
"Mr. Adrian Mercer."
Celeste closed her eyes.
Adrian lifted both hands. "Margaret asked me to arrange it."
"In January."
"Yes."
"Before she died."
"Yes."
"Before I knew any of this."
"Also yes."
Mara stepped closer. "So you knew I was coming."
"I knew Margaret wanted you invited."
"You knew what I would wear."
"No."
"You controlled the invitation instructions."
"My events team did."
"You approved the masks."
"A vendor deck."
"And anonymous messages told Celeste exactly where to find me."
Adrian's voice dropped. "You're building a conspiracy from event planning."
"I'm building it from a forged signature."
His eyes hardened.
Mara felt the shift and knew she had finally hit something.
Victor stepped in. "Everyone needs to stop. This is no longer a document discrepancy."
"It never was," Nora said.
Celeste leaned against the table.
Her gold mask sat forgotten beside her clutch.
"I thought she was his mistress," she said.
Mara looked at her.
Celeste swallowed. "The messages made it sound like you were the person Adrian had been hiding. Someone Margaret trusted more than me. Someone he planned to put above me."
"So you wanted me angry."
"I wanted you exposed."
"You wanted a scene."
Celeste's eyes dropped.
"Yes."
Mara looked at Adrian.
A scene.
Public humiliation.
Security intervention.
Adrian stepping forward in front of the whole room.
Him revealing Mara's connection to the trust.
Everyone watching him rescue her.
The shape of it changed.
"What if the scene was the point?"
Victor frowned. "Meaning?"
"Someone tells Celeste I'm a threat. Someone makes sure she recognizes my clothes and mask. She goes after me publicly. Adrian steps in publicly."
Celeste's eyes widened.
Mara continued.
"Now I'm humiliated, confused, surrounded by strangers, and the first person who gives me answers is Adrian."
Adrian shook his head. "That's absurd."
"Is it?"
"You think I arranged for my fiancée to attack you in front of donors?"
"I think whoever did this needed us to distrust each other."
Celeste's face tightened.
"And it worked."
Mara stared at the gold dress, the gray dress, the packet between them.
Two women made into opposing evidence.
A phone rang.
Nora's.
Everyone looked at her.
She frowned. "No one has this number."
The screen showed UNKNOWN.
Mara said, "Answer it."
Nora did.
"Hello?"
Nothing.
Her expression changed.
"Rachel?"
Mara's heart stopped.
"What did you say?"
Nora held up one hand.
A sound came through the speaker.
Breathing.
Fast.
Then a woman's recorded voice, distorted by static:
M-SEVENTEEN ISN'T THE BACKUP. THREE-SEVENTEEN.
Nora went pale.
"That's Rachel's voice."
Mara grabbed the phone. "Where did that come from?"
The line stayed open.
Nora whispered, "He knows where she hid the backup."
A heavy impact crashed through the speaker.
Nora flinched.
The call should have ended.
It didn't.
A man's breathing replaced the recording.
Then Adrian's voice came through the phone.
Not from across the room.
From the line.
"Mara," it said. "Midnight is getting very close."
Mara looked up.
Adrian was standing ten feet away.
His own phone was still in his hand.
May you like
And his face had gone white.
