Nobody was watching then.
Everybody was watching now.
A delicate snap sounded near her neck.
Lenora felt the chain break.
The silver pendant her grandmother had placed around her neck when she was a child slid across the marble, spinning once beneath the chandelier light before coming to rest near the foot of an elderly security guard. The tiny piece of silver looked almost meaningless on that enormous floor. Just an old pendant. Just another poor woman’s keepsake.
But Mr. Wilson saw it.
He had been stationed near the east archway all evening, a seventy-year-old man with gray hair, a straight back, and eyes that missed very little. Most guests ignored him. They passed him their empty glasses, asked him where the restrooms were, called him “security” instead of learning his name. But he knew that mansion better than any person in the room. He knew which staircase creaked on humid days, which portraits had been moved after Diana Harrison died, which windows caught sunrise in the winter. He knew the old family crest engraved into railings, silverware, gate locks, and private documents.
