Chapter 4 4

Aurelia held the phone up. The screen was small, but the resolution was 4K.

On the video, Mrs. Higgins walked into the coat closet area. She looked terrified. She was holding the ring in a tissue. She knelt by Aurelia's tote bag, unzipped the side pocket, and dropped the ring in.

Then, Dominique's voice came through the phone's speaker, tinny but unmistakable.

"Hurry up! Leave the zipper open a bit. Make it look sloppy."

The silence in the foyer was heavy, suffocating.

Preston stared at the phone. The color drained from his face. He looked at Dominique. It wasn't a look of love. It was a look of horror.

"It's a deepfake!" Dominique yelled, her voice shrill. "She's good with computers! She faked it!"

"It's a cloud stream, Dominique," Preston said quietly. "You can't deepfake a live cloud log in thirty seconds."

Mrs. Higgins collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. "She said she'd fire me! She said she'd make sure I never worked in this town again!"

Catherine stepped forward, her hands fluttering. "Preston, darling, it was just a prank! A sisterly joke! Dominique is just... she's under so much stress with the wedding..."

Aurelia laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound.

"A prank?" she said. She put her phone away. "It's a felony, Mother. Grand larceny and framing someone? That's prison time."

She looked at Preston. "This is what you're marrying. A liar and a criminal. But hey, the merger looks good on paper, right?"

She knelt down and started throwing her clothes back into the suitcase. She didn't fold them. She just shoved them in. She felt dirty just being in this room.

Preston took a step toward her. "Aurelia... I..."

"Don't," she said without looking up.

"I'll drive you," he said. "Let me get you out of here."

"I don't want your ride," Aurelia said. She zipped the bag shut and stood up.

Dominique saw Preston's attention shifting. She let out a small moan, her hand fluttering to her forehead.

"Oh god," she whispered. "I feel... faint..."

She crumpled toward the floor. It was a graceful fall, practiced.

"Dominique!" Catherine screamed. "Her heart! Someone call 911!"

Preston turned, instinct kicking in, reaching out to catch her.

Aurelia didn't even blink. She walked past her sister's prone form. She paused for half a second, looking down.

"Her color is fine," Aurelia said flatly. "And her eyelids are fluttering. That means she's conscious and fighting the urge to blink. It's a textbook case of factitious disorder. Or, in layman's terms, a poorly executed tantrum."

She walked to the door. The security guards stepped aside this time, looking at their shoes.

Aurelia pushed the heavy doors open. The sky outside was dark, bruised purple and gray. A storm was coming.

She walked out. The air was cold, biting at her exposed skin. She didn't have a car. The bus stop was two miles away down the private drive.

She started walking. The wheels of her suitcase crunched loudly on the gravel.

Behind her, she heard shouting. Then, the roar of an engine.

She didn't turn around. She just kept walking, head down against the wind.

The silver Aston Martin pulled up beside her, moving at a crawl. The window rolled down.

"Get in, Aurelia," Preston said.