Chapter 4 - The Guest List
Lorraine backed up two steps, her designer heels skidding dangerously on the wet champagne before she caught herself against the pedestal of the ice sculpture. Her chest heaved, her painted lips trembling with a mixture of terror and immediate, venomous rage.
“Security!” she shrieked, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings and cutting straight through the string quartet’s rendition of Vivaldi coming from the ballroom. “Security, get in here! We have a vagrant in the house! Frank! Where the hell are you?!”
“Frank is currently surrendering his gate credentials to the Darien Police Department, Mrs. Monroe,” Marcus Vance said, stepping forward from behind me, his voice carrying the calm, terrifying weight of absolute legal destruction.
Lorraine blinked, her eyes darting frantically from Marcus’s crisp, immaculate suit to the two uniformed police officers flanking him, and finally to Walter Harrington, who was standing quietly in the doorway, his cane resting firmly on the marble floor.
When Lorraine saw Walter, a sound escaped her throat that sounded like a wounded animal being crushed under a tire.
“Dr… Dr. Harrington,” she stammered, her hands fluttering up toward her throat, trying instinctively to cover the three-strand diamond necklace resting against her collarbone. “You… you’re supposed to be in Zurich. Derek said… Derek told us your clinic network was under federal receivership!”
“Derek told you what was convenient to keep you compliant in his grand larceny, Lorraine,” Walter said, his voice quiet, vibrating with an ancient, bone-deep fury. “My clinics have never been more solvent. And you are standing in my great-grandson’s home, dripping cheap champagne onto his floor.”
Before Lorraine could form another word, the heavy double doors leading to the main ballroom swung wide open.
“Mother, what on earth is that screeching?” Derek’s voice preceded him, smooth, resonant, filled with the careless arrogance of a man who believed he had finally won the world. “Richard and Julianne are trying to greet the Lieutenant Governor, and you sound like a fishwife in the—!”
Derek stopped dead in his tracks.
He was wearing a custom-tailored Tom Ford tuxedo in midnight blue, the silk lapels catching the chandelier light. His hair was slicked back with expensive pomade, his skin tanned from a recent trip to the Caribbean he had claimed was an unpaid concrete inspection in Syracuse. On his left wrist was the Audemars Piguet watch he had reported stolen from our trailer eighteen months ago to collect the twelve-thousand-dollar insurance check.
Standing beside him was Julianne Sterling.
She was stunning in a high-fashion, minimalist ivory silk gown, her blonde hair swept into an effortless French twist. She held a glass of vintage rosé, her arm looped possessively through Derek’s. She looked like a woman who had never known a single cold night in her entire life, radiating the casual confidence that only three generations of untouchable wealth can provide.
“Derek, darling?” Julianne asked, her brow furrowing slightly in mild confusion as she looked at the puddle of champagne and the broken glass. “Who are these people? Is there a problem with the event staff?”
Derek didn't hear her.
His eyes were locked on mine.
For two seconds, the mask of the charming, high-society titan remained frozen on his face, but underneath it, I saw the exact moment his soul collapsed into pure, unadulterated panic. His pupils dilated until his eyes looked black. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, his skin turning an ashen, sickly gray beneath his salon tan.
“Allison?” he choked out, the name barely more than a puff of air.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I didn't lunge at him.
I took three slow, deliberate steps forward, stopping five feet from where he stood beside his new bride-to-be. The contrast was obscene. I stood in my threadbare coat, my hands cracked from lye soap, smelling of damp wool and cold rain, while he stood in five thousand dollars of wool and silk, smelling of sandalwood cologne and vintage French grapes.
“You look nice, Derek,” I said, my voice carrying clearly into the ballroom where the music had suddenly ground to an awkward, discordant halt. “Much better than you did on our video call last night. The air conditioner in the workers' apartment seems to be working wonderfully.”
A murmur broke out from the ballroom entrance. Guests—dozens of them, dressed in black tie and couture gowns—began filtering toward the foyer, drawn by the commotion. Among them was an older man with silver hair and an aristocratic nose, carrying himself with the unmistakable authority of old New England power.
Richard Sterling.
“Derek?” Richard asked, his voice deep and demanding, cutting through the rising whispers of the crowd. “What is the meaning of this? Who is this woman, and why are the police standing in your foyer?”
Derek’s survival instincts—the desperate, slimy cunning of a cornered con man—kicked in. He took a fast step in front of Julianne, his hands coming up in a placating gesture, his face twisting into an expression of profound, theatrical sadness.
“Richard, Julianne… I am so terribly sorry you have to witness this,” Derek said, his voice trembling with manufactured grief, pitching it perfectly so every guest in the foyer could hear him. “This is Allison. The… the tragic woman I told you about. The mother of my son.”
Julianne’s eyes widened, her hand flying to her mouth. “The… the one from the psychiatric facility?”
“Yes,” Derek said, shaking his head with heavy, patronizing sorrow. “She’s been unmedicated for weeks. She became obsessed with following my life, convinced that my success belongs to her. She must have tracked me here from Albany.”
He turned toward the Darien police officers, his tone shifting instantly to one of crisp, protective authority. “Officers, thank God you’re here. This woman is trespassing on private property during a private family event. She is mentally unstable and poses a danger to my fiancée and my guests. I want her removed from the premises immediately and taken to Stamford Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.”
Lorraine, seeing her son’s gambit, immediately seized on the lie with hysterical fervor. “Yes! She broke in! She threatened me! She smashed my glass! Look at her, she’s completely deranged! Get her out of my son’s house before she hurts someone!”
The crowd gasped. Several women took steps back into the ballroom, murmuring in shocked pity for poor Derek Monroe, who was handling this horrific, unhinged intruder with such noble, masculine restraint.
Julianne looked at me with an expression of mingled horror and condescending pity. “You poor thing,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Derek has provided everything for you, and you come here to ruin his life? Have you no shame?”
I stood completely still.
I looked Derek dead in his eyes, and for the first time in two years, I didn't see the man I had loved. I didn't see the father of my child. I saw a hollow, parasitic shell of a human being who had traded his son’s warmth for an invitation to parties where he would never truly belong.
I reached into the pocket of my coat.
Derek flinched, taking a half-step back as if expecting a weapon.
Instead, I pulled out a small, battered silver USB drive and my cracked smartphone.
May you like
“You’re right, Julianne,” I said, turning my gaze directly to the blonde heiress. “Derek has provided so much. Let me show you exactly what he provided.”
***
