Chapter 3 - The Missing Diamond Brooch
The following day passed in a strained, suffocating silence. Natalie returned to work because rent was due and groceries were non-negotiable, but the atmosphere in the mansion had curdled. Grant avoided the common areas, spending twelve hours straight in his home office. Evelyn and Owen moved through the kitchen like ghosts, their faces set in hard, disapproving lines.
Claire, however, was exceptionally cheerful. She spent the morning rearranging flowers in the main hallway, humming softly to herself. She knew she had won round one. Natalie was broken down, and the staff had been put in their place.
Around two in the afternoon, a sharp, frantic cry rang out from the master suite upstairs.
It wasn’t one of the twins. It was Claire.
Within seconds, Claire came clattering down the stairs, her face flushed with authentic or brilliantly simulated panic. She burst into the ground-floor study where Grant was on a video call with international investors.
“Grant! You need to stop the meeting. Right now!”
Grant muted his microphone, frowning deeply. “Claire, I’m in the middle of a acquisition review.”
“My diamond brooch is gone!” Claire cried, her voice trembling as she clutched the lapel of her blouse. “The vintage platinum and diamond brooch my grandmother gave me before she passed away. It was sitting on my vanity tray in the master bedroom. It’s worth over eighty thousand dollars!”
The investors on the screen blinked in confusion, but Grant had already stood up, his laptop camera tilting toward the ceiling. “Are you certain? Did you check your jewelry case?”
“I checked everywhere!” Claire sobbed, turning to face Evelyn, who had just rushed in from the pantry at the sound of the commotion. “Evelyn, has anyone been in our suite today besides the regular cleaning staff?”
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. “Only Natalie. She cleaned the master suite this morning while you were at your spa appointment, Miss Claire.”
Claire turned back to Grant, her expression a mix of betrayal and devastation. “No. No, Natalie wouldn’t. She’s poor, yes, but—oh God, Grant. Her little girl was here on Tuesday when the bowl was broken. And yesterday, Natalie was asking me about insurance payouts and how valuable the antiques in this house are. I didn’t think anything of it at the time!”
Natalie, who had been mopping the distant end of the long gallery hallway, froze when she heard her name spoken with such venom. She dropped the mop handle and hurried toward the study, arriving just as Grant stepped out into the doorway.
“Natalie,” Grant said, his voice flat, emotionless, and terrifyingly cold. “Did you go into Claire’s jewelry tray?”
“What?” Natalie gasped, the color draining entirely from her face. “No! I cleaned the bedroom, yes, like I do every Wednesday, but I never touched her jewelry! I would never steal anything!”
“Then how do you explain your financial situation?” Claire chimed in, stepping out behind Grant with her arms crossed. “Evelyn mentioned last week that you were three weeks behind on your electricity bill. An eighty-thousand-dollar brooch pawned in New York could solve all your problems overnight, couldn’t it?”
“You are a vicious liar!” Natalie shouted, the despair finally turning into blinding rage. “You broke that bowl yourself, and now you’re trying to pin a theft on me because you want me gone!”
“That is enough!” Grant’s roar shook the framed photographs on the wall. He looked at Natalie, his eyes dark with a pain that had nothing to do with money and everything to do with trust. He wanted to believe her. He desperately wanted to look past the circumstantial web Claire had woven. But the evidence, in his stressed and exhausted mind, pointed in only one direction.
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“Evelyn,” Grant said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Call the police.”
And that was how they ended up standing in the marble foyer twenty minutes later, the cold October rain beating against the glass, with two police officers, a crying mother, a terrified three-year-old girl, and a triumphant billionaire’s fiancée.
