Chapter 3 - THE WEDDING PLANNER'S ALIBIBy eight in the morning, my black sedan cut through the fresh snow blanketing the North Shore. The estate loomed ahead, iron gates parting automatically as my license plate registered on the security cameras. Usually, the courtyard was a picture of tranquil wealth. Today, it looked like a staging ground.
I walked through the front doors without knocking. The house was dead silent, save for the rhythmic, mechanical hiss of my mother’s breathing machine upstairs.
In the sunroom, Celeste sat at a mahogany writing desk, her fingers flying across the screen of her tablet, reviewing floral arrangements for a wedding that was never going to happen. She wore a cream cashmere turtleneck, her blonde hair pulled back into a flawless, aristocratic ponytail. As my shadow fell across the desk, she didn’t flinch. She simply paused, locked the tablet screen, and looked up with a practiced, porcelain smile.
"You're back early, Nicholas," she said smoothly, rising from her chair and smoothing down her skirt. "How is the nurse? I do hope she’s recovering. It was terribly clumsy of her, falling like that in the dark. I’ve already called an agency to source a replacement."
I didn't answer. I walked slowly toward her, my boots clicking rhythmically against the hardwood floor. I stopped three feet away, my hands thrust deep into the pockets of my wool coat.
"You missed a spot," I said quietly.
Her smile faltered—just a fraction of a millimeter, a micro-expression that anyone else would have missed. "I beg your pardon?"
"In the conservatory," I said, stepping closer. "The blood on the glass. You spent twenty minutes cleaning the floor with a chemical wipe, but you forgot the baseboard behind the marble planter. A forensic team wouldn't miss it. Of course, we don't need a forensic team, do we, Celeste? We have family history."
The color drained from her face, leaving her skin the chalky white of a winter sky. But her posture remained rigid. She was a Vandermark, after all. They didn't panic; they negotiated.
"You've been talking to that trash," she whispered, her voice dropping the sweet, melodic cadence she used in public. "You let a hired hand poison your mind against the woman sharing your name."
"She has a name, Celeste. It’s Delia. And she didn't poison anything. She just opened a door you’ve spent six years trying to keep bolted shut." I reached inside my coat, pulling out a small, ruggedized black flash drive and dropping it onto the mahogany desk. It clattered against her tablet. "Ewan’s drive. Found it right where he left it—tucked inside the lining of the antique grandfather clock in the study. The clock you insisted on moving into our future home last week."
Celeste stared at the little piece of plastic as if it were a venomous snake.
"My father will destroy you," she hissed, her mask completely shattering now, revealing the desperate, vicious predator underneath. "The syndicate on the West Side, the judges in the superior court, the shipping contracts—we hold half of Chicago, Nicholas! Without the Vandermark name, you're just a glorified thug from the South Side with a dying mother!"
"You always misunderstood who I am, Celeste," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "You thought I was a businessman who traded in docks and debts. You thought marriage was a merger. But you forgot one fundamental rule of my world."
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I leaned in close, my face inches from hers.
"I don't just take names, Celeste. I take everything."
