Chapter 2

James's face darkened at once. But Richard lifted a hand and stopped him. "Give her the files."

Half an hour later, I settled in the Grants' guest room. Yesterday, the housekeeper said his room had only been hastily tidied for my temporary stay, but after one night it was obvious the place had been converted from a guest study.

There were still marks from removed bookshelves in the corner, and even the spare slippers in the closet were men's.

I locked the door first, then set my phone on the desk. The recording screen was still on, the timer at forty-seven minutes.

From the moment Victoria pushed the confession statement toward me, to Richard promising compensation, to James estimating my sentence for me, it was all in there.

I backed up the file to the cloud, sent it to an email account only I knew about, and only then opened the accident materials James had sent over through his assistant.

The first file was the preliminary traffic police report from the scene. At 11:27 p.m. the night before last, at Riverside Junction, a black Maybach struck Mary Taylor while she was riding her e-bike home. The driver paused briefly, then drove away.

The second file was a set of photos of trace evidence inside the car. On the seventh photo, my fingers stopped. In the corner was a broken silver anklet with a blue star charm hanging from it.

I'd seen it yesterday at the family dinner, swinging from Sophie's ankle while a group of socialites praised it as a one-of-a-kind gift James had brought back from Valleron.

I kept flipping. The ninth photo was a close-up of the steering wheel.

There was a smear of dark red cat-eye nail polish on the leather trim, the kind that changed in the light, like the repaired crack I'd noticed on Sophie's right ring fingernail last night.

I photographed both images, compared them to the leaked video, and got a match.

That still wasn't enough. I kept reading until I got to the victim family's contact information, and my eyes paused there. Alex Taylor.

I saved the number in my phone, then searched him online first: twenty-six, owner of an auto repair shop, Mary Taylor's son.

After the accident, he'd posted three updates looking for witnesses. Two were buried, and the only one left was full of comments telling him not to mess with the Grant family.

The top comment said one thing: [A truck behind them caught the whole thing on video. Don't let them buy the original footage.]

I stared at it for a few seconds, then called him directly. It rang until it was almost about to hang up on its own.

"Who is this?" The man's voice was rough, like he hadn't slept in days.

"Emily Grant." I said.

There was silence on the other end for two seconds, then a cold laugh. "So the Grant family finally found someone else to talk to me?

"What now? You want my mom to admit she jaywalked, or you want me to take the money and shut up?"

"Neither." I kept my tone flat. "I'm calling to tell you the Grant family is getting ready to send someone else to confess in the real driver's place."

He said nothing. "If you hang up now, the person standing at the apology event this afternoon will be me." I said.

"Then why are you calling me?" He asked.

"Because I don't want to go to prison for someone else either."

I heard the small click of a lighter on the other end, like he'd finally lit a cigarette. "Why should I believe you?"

I sent him the two photos beside me. "First photo, the broken anklet on the passenger-side floor mat. Second, the cat-eye nail polish on the steering wheel.

"If you really have the original video, then you already know whether the person behind the wheel was the Grant family's other daughter."

Thirty seconds later, he texted back: [Hospital entrance. Thirty minutes.]

By the time I reached Central City Hospital, Mary had finished her second wound-cleaning procedure.

The room smelled of disinfectant. Her face was terribly pale, her right leg was braced, and gauze was wrapped around her temple. She was asleep, and the veins on the back of her hand stood out sharply.

Alex stood by the window, dark circles under his eyes so heavy they looked painted on. He sized me up from head to toe, and the guard in his gaze didn't ease one bit.

"You're Emily Grant?" He asked.

"Yeah." I said.

"The Grant family's real daughter?"

"They took me back yesterday."

He tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Hell of a time to get recognized."

That line had enough bite to cut, and I didn't dodge it. "Yeah. Great timing." I played him a piece of my recording, only the key thirty seconds.

Victoria's voice came through the speaker clear as day. "You got back to the Grant family. Nobody knows who you are. Even if you do a few years and come out, you'll still be a Grant heiress."

The mockery on Alex's face slowly faded until all that was left was cold hardness. "What do you want to do?"

"Haven't you been looking for the original footage?" I asked.

He pulled a tiny black memory card out of his bag and held it tight in his palm. "I found it. The driver of the refrigerated truck behind them is a friend of my dad's.

"He was scared of offending the Grant family and didn't dare give it to me. I got it from him last night."

I nodded. "Come with me to the apology event this afternoon."

"And you're not afraid I'll hand you over too on the spot?" He asked.

"If you wanted to, you would've done it already. You wouldn't have waited until now." I said.

Alex stared at me for a few seconds, then suddenly asked, "What are you studying?"

"Law." I replied.

"That explains it." He set the memory card on the table. "You don't look like the type to take the fall for somebody."

I picked up the memory card. "Before the apology event, don't show this video to anyone else."

"What about you?" He asked.

"I'm going to borrow the stage the Grant family built and put on a different show." I said.