Chapter 1 - THE GIRL BEHIND THE GLASS
The tray hit the marble before Clara understood that Lana had struck it.
Crystal shattered around her shoes. Red wine splashed the white lace cuff of her uniform and spread across the hem of Lana’s crimson gown. Conversations stopped beneath the chandeliers, leaving the string quartet playing into a silence that made everything worse.
“Look what you’ve done,” Lana said.
Clara stared at her.
She had felt the blow beneath the tray. She had seen the movement. Yet Lana stood perfectly still, one hand at her throat, already looking like the injured party.
“Miss Vance, you—”
“Mrs. Gable.”
The head housekeeper appeared between two guests.
“What happened?”
“She dropped the tray,” Lana said. “And now she’s trying to blame me.”
Clara looked around the little circle of evening gowns and dinner jackets. A woman with emerald earrings studied her drink. A man stepped carefully away from the broken glass.
Nobody met her eyes.
Beyond the French doors, the terrace had disappeared beneath blowing snow. Wind pushed against the glass with a low, steady pressure.
“My earring,” Lana continued. “The diamond Tony gave me. I dropped it outside.”
Clara looked at the single bright stud still in Lana’s left ear.
“I can ask the groundskeeper.”
“You can look yourself.”
“I’ll need a coat.”
Lana moved closer. Her perfume was sweet enough to turn Clara’s stomach.
“You’ll need to remember who pays your wages.”
That did it.
Not the tone. Not the threat hidden beneath it.
The wages.
Clara thought of the transfers she sent to Chicago every Friday. Her father’s frightened voice. Fifty thousand dollars that never seemed to shrink, no matter how much money she sent.
Three months at the Moretti estate had taught her that an objection could become insubordination simply because someone wealthier repeated it.
“Please,” she said. “It’s dangerous out there.”
Mrs. Gable’s expression hardened.
“Then be quick.”
She opened the terrace door.
Wind swept snow across the marble. Several guests laughed and stepped back, lifting their clothes away from the wet.
Clara remained where she was.
Lana bent close enough that only she could hear.
“Find it, or I tell Tony you stole it.”
Clara had never spoken to Tony Moretti for more than a minute. She knew his reputation, though. Everyone in the house made sure the staff knew it.
Mrs. Gable took her elbow.
“Go.”
Clara stepped outside in black flats and a cotton uniform.
The cold seized her breath.
She turned immediately.
“I need—”
The door closed.
A small metal click followed.
Clara pulled the handle.
Nothing.
Through the glass, Lana watched her for a moment. Then she turned toward a waiter and lifted one finger for another drink.
Clara knocked.
Mrs. Gable drew the velvet curtains.
The ballroom vanished.
For several seconds, Clara stood staring at the dark fabric on the other side.
Then she crouched.
Find the earring.
That was still a problem she understood.
She pushed her fingers through snow near the threshold, searching along the edge of the stone. Wind drove ice beneath her collar. Her shoes filled almost at once.
She found a dead leaf.
A piece of evergreen.
Nothing else.
When she tried the handle again, her fingers slipped.
She knocked harder.
Music reached her faintly through the glass.
Clara called for Mrs. Gable. Then Lana. Then anyone.
The wind took the names.
She moved toward the kitchen entrance, one hand along the wall, but a drift blocked the narrow passage and she could no longer feel where her shoes ended.
She turned back.
The railing offered something solid to hold.
She reached it, sank against the stone, and tried to lift her hand again.
Upstairs, Tony Moretti stepped to his study window.
At first, he thought the shape below was a cushion blown from the terrace furniture.
May you like
Then one pale hand slid from a black sleeve.
And the shape stopped moving.
