“Wait until she steps into the vestibule,” Vanessa purred, her fingers tightening around the glass: “I want every camera in the room to see the stain.”
Then, the heavy oak doors at the back of the chapel did not open for the organist.
They were kicked open with an explosive, concussive crash!
*BANG.*
The concussive boom of the heavy oak doors slamming against the chapel wainscoting detonated through the vaulted sanctuary like an artillery round rupturing an enclosed bunker.
Four hundred seated guests—industrial magnates, federal judges, naval flag officers, and Newport high-society dynasties—froze in mid-breath. The string quartet’s violins died into a ragged, dissonant shriek across the strings.
Vanessa Reed jumped three inches off the parquet floor, her manicured hand spasming around the stem of her crystal wine glass, splashing dark Cabernet Sauvignon across her own ice-blue silk bodice in an ugly, jagged stain that looked like arterial blood:
