Chapter 9 - The Guest Lodge
I didn't head back to the main ballroom. I pocketed the burner phone, grabbed my car keys from the console in my study, and took the private access road down through the oak groves toward the estate's guest lodge where Amaya and Marcus had been relocated earlier that evening.
The lodge was dark except for a single yellow lamp burning in the front parlor. Marcus met me at the screen door before I could even kill the engine of the sedan, his face grim in the headlights.
"Is she safe?" I asked, cutting the ignition.
"She's sleeping, Mr. Vance," Marcus said, keeping his voice low as he stepped out onto the porch. "Though she was restless for a while. Kept asking if the lady in the gold dress was still inside the big house."
"She's there," I said, stepping past him into the warm, quiet parlor.
Amaya was curled up on the sofa beneath a thick wool blanket, her small stuffed lamb clutched tightly against her chest. Her breathing was slow and even, untouched by the corporate warfare tearing the rest of the estate apart. I knelt beside the couch for a long moment, watching the faint rise and fall of her shoulder, feeling the terrible weight of what was coming. She had seen through the facade before anyone else, acting as an early warning system I had almost ignored.
Marcus followed me back toward the door, speaking in a low murmur. "Dante called while you were on your way down. He traced that incoming text prefix from the burner phone. It routes directly to a public payphone outside the all-night diner off Route 9. The wedding planner, a woman named Sarah Miller, has been trying to break her contract with Genevieve for a week."
"Why didn't she come to us?" I asked, pulling my jacket tighter against the night chill.
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"Because Genevieve has her brother's medical debt locked down in a private trust," Marcus said. "She's been using it as leverage to force Miller to falsify the witness registry for the marriage license."
I looked back down at Amaya one last time, then stood up and turned to Marcus. "Keep the doors bolted. Don't let anyone in—not security, not estate staff—until I call you from a secure line."
