Chapter 8 - The Twenty-First Guest
We returned to the ballroom.
Panic had become anger.
Guests shouted at security.
Several people had tried breaking windows.
The glass had not cracked.
This estate had been designed to withstand an armed assault.
Now the same protections had become a cage.
My father stepped onto the stage.
“Listen to me.”
No one did.
He fired a blank security flare into the ceiling.
The sharp crack silenced everyone.
“No one is trapped without air.”
“No one is in immediate physical danger.”
“Police are already outside the perimeter.”
“We have a system compromise.”
A man shouted,
“Then let the police in.”
Jonathan answered,
“We’re trying.”
I scanned the ballroom.
Nineteen suspects.
Hundreds of witnesses.
One unknown infiltrator.
Then I noticed something.
Damian was missing.
“Where is Damian?”
Arthur turned sharply.
Security checked the center group.
Eighteen.
Damian’s place was empty.
My father cursed.
“Find him.”
I looked toward the service corridor.
Then toward the cameras.
One camera blinked twice.
I knew that pattern.
Manual remote control.
I pulled out my phone.
Another message arrived.
SUBJECT 017, YOU HAVE 38 MINUTES.
Nothing else.
I showed my father.
His face drained.
“Who sent that?”
“I thought Rebecca.”
“You don’t anymore?”
“No.”
He took the phone.
Another message appeared.
ASK ARTHUR WHO GUEST 21 IS.
I turned.
“Arthur.”
He saw my face and immediately looked away.
“Who is Guest Twenty-One?”
He froze.
My father stared at him.
Arthur whispered,
“There were only nineteen names.”
“Not what I asked.”
Arthur rubbed both hands over his face.
“When Orpheus began collapsing, twenty-one senior participants created a contingency agreement.”
“Twenty-one.”
“Yes.”
“We have nineteen names.”
“Two were removed from every surviving record.”
“Who?”
“One was Elizabeth.”
My chest tightened.
“And the other?”
Arthur looked toward the stage.
“Victor Halden.”
The name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to my father.
“No.”
Jonathan whispered it.
Arthur nodded.
I looked between them.
“Who is Victor Halden?”
My father spoke slowly.
“Former director of the National Security Bureau.”
“Former?”
“He was declared dead eighteen years ago.”
Arthur laughed once.
“He isn’t dead.”
Jonathan stared at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because he called me three days ago.”
Everything inside me went still.
“What did he want?”
Arthur looked toward me.
“He asked whether Evelyn Vale would attend the gala.”
My father grabbed him by the jacket.
“And you still invited her?”
“I thought he was bluffing.”
Jonathan slammed him against the wall.
“You knew a dead intelligence director was asking about my daughter?”
Arthur struggled.
“He said he wanted the same thing she wanted.”
“What?”
“To expose Orpheus.”
I stepped between them.
“Stop.”
My father released him.
“Where is Halden?”
Arthur shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
I looked around the ballroom.
Then it hit me.
The whispering woman.
Rebecca.
The restored service door.
The locked system.
This entire gala had been prepared long before Damian touched me.
My assault had triggered a plan that someone else had been waiting to exploit.
Suddenly the ballroom speakers crackled.
A man’s voice filled the room.
Older.
Calm.
Almost gentle.
“Good evening, Evelyn.”
My father turned white.
Arthur closed his eyes.
The voice continued.
“You and I have waited a very long time to meet.”
I looked toward the ceiling.
“Victor Halden?”
A quiet laugh.
“Your mother used to ask questions that directly too.”
My heart stopped.
“Catherine?”
“No.”
The voice softened.
“Elizabeth.”
Then he said the words that changed everything again.
May you like
“She wasn’t only your adoptive mother.”
“She was the reason Orpheus existed.”
