Chapter 2 - The Doors That Opened Themselves.
The sound of six electronic locks releasing together was louder than the applause had been when Ava entered the room.
Victor Price immediately stopped watching Nolan on the floor and looked toward the security panel beside the staircase.
That frightened Ava more than her boyfriend's fall.
Now his face had gone gray.
"Who unlocked the house?"
Nobody answered.
The patio doors slid apart by themselves.
James reached for his daughter without taking his eyes off the room.
"Stay behind me."
Nolan scrambled upright, wiped frosting from his eyes, and stared at the doors.
"Dad?"
Victor ignored him.
A security alarm began pulsing from somewhere deep inside the mansion.
It was not the usual burglar tone.
A calm electronic voice repeated a phrase Ava had never heard before.
"Archive access compromised."
"Archive access compromised."
Celeste's champagne glass slipped from her hand.
It hit the carpet instead of the marble and did not break.
James noticed anyway.
"What archive?"
Victor pointed at him.
"You have caused enough trouble in my home."
James did not move.
"Your son confessed to striking my daughter."
"And you assaulted him in front of witnesses."
"Call the police."
Victor's mouth tightened.
The answer came too slowly.
"We will handle this privately."
James almost smiled.
"That is exactly what men like you say when public records become dangerous."
Ava looked toward the open doors.
A woman stood beyond the glass in the dark garden.
At first Ava thought she was another guest because the woman wore a long charcoal coat and carried a leather document case.
Then the woman stepped into the light.
Ava's lungs stopped working.
She knew the face from a framed photograph that had lived on her childhood dresser until James finally packed it away when she was sixteen.
The photograph showed a younger woman laughing on a beach, dark hair blowing across her eyes, one arm wrapped around a seven-year-old Ava.
Ava had kissed that photograph every night for two years after the funeral.
The woman in the doorway was older now.
Her hair carried silver at the temples.
There were faint scars near her jaw that had not been in the photograph.
But her eyes were the same.
Ava heard herself whisper before she understood the word.
"Mom?"
James turned so quickly that the medals on his uniform clicked against each other.
His composure broke for the first time that evening.
"Elena."
The woman looked directly at him.
"Hello, James."
Ava's knees weakened.
Nolan backed into the cake table.
Victor Price took one step toward the newcomer.
"You should not be here."
Elena Mercer looked at him with fourteen years of hatred held under perfect control.
"Neither should my daughter."
Celeste moved toward the hallway.
Elena raised the leather case.
"Don't bother destroying the files."
Victor froze.
"What files?"
Elena's expression did not change.
"The ones proving you buried a living woman."
The room erupted in whispers.
Ava stared at the mother she had mourned since childhood and felt something inside her reality tear cleanly in half.
James moved one careful step toward Elena.
"Where have you been?"
Elena's eyes filled but did not spill over.
"Close enough to know what they were doing to Ava."
Nolan suddenly lunged toward the security panel.
Elena shouted one word.
May you like
"James!"
The lights went out.
