CHAPTER FOUR
ALYSSA
The diamond bracelet disappeared forty minutes before Alyssa needed to leave for the foundation luncheon.
She had placed it beside her watch while changing clothes. When she returned from the bathroom, the watch remained on the dressing table. The bracelet did not.
Alyssa checked the floor first.
The bracelet had thirty-one square-cut diamonds set in flexible platinum links. Damian had given it to her after the opening of their first hotel together, before the photographers and licensing deals had reduced her role to elegant woman standing beside the owner.
It was too heavy to roll far.
She moved the velvet jewelry tray, checked beneath the perfume bottles and opened the drawer below. Nothing.
The dressing-room door stood open.
Alyssa remembered closing it.
“Carmen?”
Her voice carried into the bedroom.
No reply.
She walked into the corridor. The private floor appeared empty. Sunlight lay across the pale runner. At the far end, the door to Damian’s study was closed.
Alyssa returned to the bedroom and called Carmen.
“I’m in the florist’s van,” Carmen said. “They delivered the wrong arrangements to the hotel.”
“Has anyone been upstairs?”
“Housekeeping finished at eight. Nobody should be there now.”
“Where is Vanessa?”
A pause followed.
“She came into the main house with Sophie around ten.”
“It’s eleven-forty.”
“I asked Rosa to remain with them in the family room.”
“Can you check where they are?”
“I’ll call her.”
Alyssa ended the call and searched the closet.
The bracelet had been beside her watch. She had fastened the clasp to make sure it still closed after a jeweler repaired one link. Memory supplied a clean sequence: shower, dress, bracelet, phone call from the hotel, bathroom to fix her lipstick.
Vanessa had trained everyone in the house to treat certainty as aggression.
Alyssa checked beneath the dressing table anyway.
Damian entered ten minutes later while knotting his tie.
“Carmen said you lost a bracelet.”
“I didn’t lose it.”
“Which one?”
“The diamonds from the Calder opening.”
He looked at her bare wrist. “When did you last have it?”
“Eleven twenty-five.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you put it?”
“Beside my watch.”
Damian lifted the watch as though the bracelet might be underneath.
Alyssa watched him. “I checked.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m helping you look.”
He opened the drawer.
The bracelet was not there for him either.
Vanessa appeared at the bedroom door in a powder-blue dress.
The color was close to Alyssa’s. Both dresses had short sleeves, fitted waists and skirts ending below the knee. Vanessa’s neckline was higher. The silhouette remained similar enough that a photographer could place them together and call the comparison deliberate.
“I heard you lost jewelry,” Vanessa said.
Damian straightened. “A bracelet.”
“Oh, no. The one from the magazine photographs?”
Alyssa looked at her. “Which photographs?”
“The hotel opening. You wore a black dress.”
“Dark green.”
Vanessa nodded. “I must have remembered it incorrectly.”
She had remembered the bracelet.
Sophie stood behind her in a white dress with blue embroidery.
“We’ll search downstairs,” Vanessa said. “Maybe it fell near the stairs.”
“It was in this room,” Alyssa replied.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“I only ask because stress can play terrible tricks on memory.” Vanessa touched her bruised wrist. “I lost my keys for three hours last month. They were inside my handbag.”
“My bracelet was not in a handbag.”
“Of course.”
Vanessa stepped into the room.
“Stay there,” Alyssa said.
The woman stopped.
Damian’s gaze moved between them. “Alyssa.”
“She has no reason to enter our bedroom.”
“I wanted to help.”
“Search the stairs.”
Vanessa gave a small nod. “I’m sorry.”
Sophie took her mother’s hand. Together they walked away.
Damian waited until they reached the staircase.
“You could have said that without speaking to her like a thief.”
“A diamond bracelet vanished from our bedroom while she was in the house.”
“So was Sophie.”
“You think Sophie took it?”
“No.”
“Then why mention her?”
“I’m saying Vanessa was not the only person nearby.”
“Housekeeping had already left. Carmen confirmed it.”
“Did you check your handbag?”
Alyssa looked at him.
“Vanessa mentioned hers,” Damian said.
“I heard.”
“You may have put it away when the hotel called.”
“I did not.”
“We have to leave in twenty minutes. Let security review the cameras.”
“Fine.”
Damian called the control room.
No camera covered the bedroom or private corridor. One covered the lower landing. Another showed the passage between the family room and west staircase.
Security reported that Vanessa had entered the lower corridor at eleven-fourteen. She returned six minutes later.
Six minutes allowed enough time to climb the stairs, cross the private floor and enter the dressing room.
“What did she say she was doing?” Alyssa asked.
Damian lowered the phone. “Looking for the powder room.”
“The family room has one.”
“She may not have known.”
“After four days in the house?”
“I’ll ask her.”
Alyssa picked up her handbag. “Search it first.”
“What?”
“Since you believe I may have forgotten.”
“I didn’t say I believed that.”
“You asked me to check.”
“Alyssa.”
She opened the bag and placed its contents on the bed. Phone, wallet, lipstick, compact, foundation notes, keys and a packet of mints.
No bracelet.
Damian watched in silence.
“Your turn,” Alyssa said.
He frowned. “My turn to do what?”
“Ask Vanessa to open hers.”
The luncheon took place at the recently completed Vader Marina Hotel, a low white building facing the bay. Alyssa had designed the public rooms around local limestone and walnut, resisting Damian’s original request for gold until he accepted that Miami already contained enough reflective surfaces.
Thirty foundation donors waited in the private dining room.
Alyssa arrived seven minutes late.
Vanessa arrived with Damian.
That had not been the plan.
Damian’s security director had advised against leaving Vanessa and Sophie at the estate during a changeover between teams. A protection officer could have stayed. Damian decided bringing them to a controlled venue was safer.
Nobody asked Alyssa before Sophie was placed in the car.
Vanessa stood beside Damian near the entrance while photographers took pictures of arriving donors. The powder-blue dress appeared almost silver beneath the camera flashes.
A reporter from the Miami Herald approached them.
“Mrs Vader, congratulations on the new education grants.”
“Thank you,” Alyssa said.
The reporter’s attention slid toward Vanessa. “Ms Laurent, are you involved with the foundation?”
“No.” Vanessa smiled apologetically. “Alyssa has been generous enough to let Sophie and me attend.”
“Your daughter is interested in art?”
“She has found drawing helpful during a difficult period.”
The reporter lowered her voice. “There have been rumors concerning your separation.”
Vanessa glanced at Damian. “I cannot discuss an active legal matter.”
“Were you forced to leave your home?”
“I would rather keep the focus on the foundation.”
The refusal guaranteed a follow-up.
“Are you staying with the Vaders?”
Vanessa’s expression tightened. “Only until Damian’s security team finds somewhere Charles cannot reach us.”
Alyssa noticed the use of his first name. So did the reporter.
“Damian has been remarkable,” Vanessa continued. “Alyssa too, of course. It cannot be easy to welcome another woman into your home under these circumstances.”
The reporter looked at Alyssa.
“What circumstances?” Alyssa asked.
Vanessa gave a faint laugh. “I only meant the attention.”
“You described yourself as another woman.”
“I phrased that badly.”
Damian stepped between them with the practiced ease he used to end hostile interviews. “The foundation is announcing four new grants today. The press material contains the figures.”
The reporter accepted the dismissal and moved away.
Alyssa watched her type into her phone before she reached the opposite wall.
“That was unnecessary,” Damian said quietly.
“To whom are you speaking?”
“Both of you.”
Vanessa touched his sleeve. “It was my fault.”
Damian looked down at her hand.
She removed it at once.
“I’ll take Sophie inside,” Vanessa said.
Alyssa waited until she left.
“You brought her to a foundation event and allowed a reporter to question her.”
“I did not invite the reporter.”
“Vanessa knew what answer she was giving.”
“She declined to discuss Charles.”
“She discussed everything around him.”
Damian glanced toward the dining room. “We will handle the press later.”
“You will handle it. The article will describe the hotel as yours and Vanessa as a survivor living under your protection.”
“What would you prefer the article say?”
“That today’s grants will fund art programs for eight hundred children.”
“I agree.”
“Yet we’ve spent the first ten minutes talking about your former fiancée.”
His face tightened. “We are not doing this here.”
“No. We never do it where Vanessa begins it.”
A board member approached before Damian could answer.
Alyssa spent lunch seated between a pediatric surgeon and the owner of a chain of private schools. She presented the grant program, answered questions and accepted praise for Vader Global’s generosity from people who had ignored the foundation until Damian attached his name to its annual gala.
Across the room, Vanessa sat beside Sophie at a smaller table reserved for guests.
Her dress matched the pale blue napkins.
Halfway through dessert, Vanessa rose and approached a freelance journalist who covered Miami society. Their conversation looked casual. Sophie remained at the table coloring a paper menu.
Alyssa excused herself.
By the time she crossed the room, Vanessa had ended the exchange.
“What did she ask?” Alyssa said.
Vanessa blinked. “Who?”
“The journalist.”
“She wanted to know whether I had plans to speak publicly.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That survivors often remain silent because people question every decision they make.”
The wording could have referred to Charles. It also described Vanessa’s position inside the Vader home.