Chapter 1
Damien ended the party in less than ten minutes.
No speech.
No explanation.
His security chief quietly told guests their cars were being brought around.
The musicians stopped.
Caterers covered untouched food.
Family members who had arrived expecting another four hours of drinking and negotiation suddenly found themselves walking toward the front doors.
Celestine remained beside the ruined dessert table.
Champagne dripped from her hair.
“You cannot throw me out of my own family’s home.”
Damien looked at her.
“That sentence is becoming interesting.”
Her expression tightened.
He turned away.
His mother mattered first.
Agnes was sitting in a side room with the family lawyer, Arthur Keane.
A faint bruise was already developing along her forearm where she had struck the chair.
Damien crouched in front of her.
“Did she hurt you anywhere else?”
Agnes looked embarrassed.
“No.”
“Mom.”
“I said no.”
Arthur cleared his throat.
“She should still be examined.”
Agnes glared at him.
“You’re a lawyer.”
“I’m sixty-two. I know when an eighty-year-old woman should see a doctor.”
“I’m seventy-nine.”
“Then I’ve insulted you terribly.”
Despite everything, Agnes almost smiled.
Damien did not.
He looked at the old ring in her hand.
His father had worn a similar one.
This one was older.
Dark gold.
The crest nearly worn smooth.
“Where did you get that?”
Agnes looked at Arthur.
The lawyer answered.
“It has always been hers.”
Damien frowned.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“That’s because your mother stopped wearing it after your father died.”
Agnes stared down at the ring.
“I didn’t want questions.”
Damien looked toward the document Arthur had carried from the ballroom.
“What questions?”
Arthur did not answer until Agnes nodded.
Then he placed the paper on the table.
It was an original deed.
Forty-one years old.
The property description matched the Rourke mansion and most of the surrounding acreage.
Damien read the owner’s name.
Once.
Then again.
Agnes Eleanor Rourke.
Not his father.
Not the Rourke holding company.
Agnes.
Damien looked up.
“This house is yours?”
Agnes gave him a tired expression.
“It has always been mine.”
“Why do I not know that?”
“That is a longer conversation.”
“Then start.”
Before she could, a housekeeper appeared in the doorway.
Her face was pale.
“Mr. Rourke?”
“What?”
“Mrs. Celestine’s room is empty.”
Damien stood.
“She left?”
“No, sir.”
The woman hesitated.
“Her clothes are still there.”
“Then what’s empty?”
“The safe.”
Damien looked at Arthur.
The lawyer immediately closed his briefcase.
Something had disappeared from Celestine’s room within minutes of the old deed appearing.
May you like
And suddenly the party no longer looked like the beginning of the problem.
It looked like the moment somebody realized time had run out.
