Chapter 2 - The Announcement Had Been Rehearsed
Camille did not make it to her car before one of the older banquet attendants caught up with her in the side corridor behind the ballroom.
“Miss Camille.”
She turned sharply, ready for one more insult, one more lie, one more attempt to make her feel like the unstable one.
Instead, the woman held out a thick white towel and a garment bag.
“Take these,” she said. “You’ll freeze before you hit the parking lot.”
It took a second for Camille to recognize her.
Mrs. Donahue had worked private events at the Holloway estate for years. She had once brought Camille a sewing kit when a hem came loose at a charity luncheon. Tonight her lined face looked grim rather than sympathetic.
“Thank you,” Camille said, more quietly than she expected.
Mrs. Donahue glanced back toward the ballroom doors, lowered her voice, and added, “I thought you should have this too.”
She held out a folded sheet of paper.
Camille took it.
It was damp at one corner, probably from the woman’s hand, and printed on thick event stationery.
Stage cue sheet.
8:55 — host acknowledgment.
9:00 — donor recognition.
9:08 — spotlight shift to east pool deck.
9:10 — guest repositioning.
9:12 — announcement:
Tonight, Elliot has gotten engaged to Brooke.
Camille’s wet fingers tightened on the page.
Below it, another line had been handwritten in blue pen:
Hold music if special guest becomes emotional.
She looked up sharply.
Mrs. Donahue’s mouth tightened.
“I saw it on the host stand after the sound system went down.”
Camille’s pulse slowed in that dangerous way it did when anger became colder than pain.
“This was planned to the minute.”
Mrs. Donahue nodded once.
“I think it was rehearsed too. The host did a quiet run-through while the ballroom was still empty.”
“Who was here?”
“I saw Miss Brooke. Mr. Elliot. The host. And one of the sound men.”
Camille folded the sheet very carefully.
A push into the pool might still be dismissed as a jealous fight.
A public announcement might still be spun as a messy romantic scandal.
A written stage cue stripped away the last illusion of spontaneity.
Brooke and Elliot had not merely betrayed her.
They had staged her.
Mrs. Donahue looked at the soaked clutch still hanging from Camille’s wrist.
“You may want to check your purse.”
Camille frowned.
“Why?”
The woman hesitated.
“I heard Miss Brooke tell somebody, just before guests were seated, that if you were going to ‘make a scene,’ at least you’d be too wet to protect anything you brought with you.”
Camille’s breath stopped for a second.
She moved aside, set the towel over her shoulders, and opened the clutch with suddenly unsteady hands.
Lipstick.
Phone.
Compact.
Mini wallet.
Folded note.
The slim plastic case that should have contained the flash drive.
Cracked.
Empty.
Her heart thudded hard once.
Then she checked her phone again.
A message waited unread because she had ignored everything on the drive from the estate.
Vivian Cole, Forensic Accountant
8:41 PM
Received the files. Call me when safe.
Camille closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the corridor seemed sharper.
The push.
The pool.
The announcement.
The trap was bigger than humiliation.
Brooke believed the evidence had been destroyed in the water.
Elliot believed the same thing.
Neither of them knew the files had already been sent almost thirty minutes before the party began.
That was why Camille’s final warning had unsettled Brooke.
It had not been a dramatic line thrown out in wounded rage.
It had been precise.
Enjoy your last happy days.
Not because Camille planned some theatrical revenge.
Because before stepping into the ballroom, she had already delivered a copy of the financial records that Elliot and Brooke had spent two months trying to keep hidden.
Mrs. Donahue studied her face.
“Is there something you need from inside?”
Camille thought about the ring rolling toward Elliot’s shoe.
The wet gown clinging to her legs.
The host lifting the microphone.
The handwritten instruction about what to do if she became emotional.
“Yes,” she said softly. “But not tonight.”
She slid the cue sheet into the dry garment bag pocket.
Then she looked back toward the ballroom doors.
Through the glass panel she could see blurred movement, clustered guests, the glitter of chandeliers over damage and gossip.
Somewhere in there, Elliot and Brooke were probably still trying to recover the script of the evening.
Trying to decide what she knew.
Trying to figure out why she had not begged, screamed, or demanded an explanation.
Camille tightened the towel around her shoulders.
Let them wonder.
For tonight, she wanted them frightened.
But as she walked toward the parking lot, another question rose beneath the first.
May you like
If Elliot and Brooke had built an entire engagement party around destroying one flash drive—
what, exactly, had been on it that made them so desperate?
