Chapter 3

3: 3

I woke up in a sealed VIP lounge.

A TV was playing the latest footage from the ballroom.

On the screen, the false Elise leaned against Raymond, her face drained of color.

The anchor said I had been on long-term psychiatric medication and had suffered a sudden delusional episode at the gala, that I'd been rushed to the hospital.

Then came the word from inside Kyros Capital.

My vice president had joined with three board members to announce my suspension, claiming my mental state had been unstable for the past six months, that I'd brought up ghosts and spirits in major decisions more than once.

The smears began to flood the internet.

"Vanessa Ashford has long envied her best friend and repeatedly tried to sabotage the Farleys' marriage."

"A source reveals: Vanessa Ashford harbored a pathological need to control Elise Cooley."

I watched the screen, and instead of panicking, I went calm.

For Raymond to seize the narrative this fast, to flip Kyros Capital's leadership, he had to have planned it long ago.

Whatever happened to Elise, it didn't start today.

I closed my eyes and called back the trace I'd caught when I touched the false Elise.

I drew out the gold thread, bit my fingertip, and smeared the blood along it.

"Thread-Suspended Primordial Diagnosis, fix the pulse and seek the way."

"Blood as the guide, soul as the witness. Go."

The Primordial Gold Thread lifted into the air, circled the room for a moment, then snapped taut, pointing toward the western suburbs of New York.

The Farley hillside villa.

Elise was there.

I set out for the villa at once.

The whole way, the Primordial Gold Thread grew colder.

By the time I reached it, white frost had crusted across the thread's surface.

I followed its pull to the back garden.

The thread hung suspended over the koi pond, its tip aimed straight down into the water.

I broke open the pump control box and threw the drain gate.

The water dropped fast.

In under twenty minutes, warning lights flared outside the villa.

Raymond came storming into the back garden with the false Elise, the police, and a wall of bodyguards.

He saw the koi pond draining and his face went dark.

"Vanessa, you broke into a private home and you're deliberately destroying private property. You really think money puts you above the law?"

"There's a body at the bottom of that pond."

I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes on the falling water.

"You killed Elise Cooley."

An officer stepped in front of me.

"Ms. Ashford, Mrs. Farley is standing right here, perfectly fine. Stop the destruction immediately and cooperate with the investigation."

"You can restrain me, but the pump stays on."

I held out both hands.

"If there's nothing at the bottom, I'll take full legal responsibility."

The detective captain looked at me, then at the pond that was nearly empty, and in the end he didn't call it off.

Soon a chained rosewood chest surfaced from the sludge.

Every face changed at once.

The chest was hauled onto the bank.

They cut the chains and the lid rose slowly.

No bones inside.

Only a wedding gown soaked in black blood.

My heart dropped.

The false Elise suddenly threw herself at the chest, clutched the gown, and broke down sobbing.

"Vanessa, why did you have to dig my wound open again?"

Through her tears she told the police this was the gown she'd worn when she lost the baby.

She couldn't bear to burn it, and she couldn't bear to see it every day, so she'd sealed it in the chest and sunk it in the pond, a grave for her child.

The way the officers looked at me shifted.

I stared at the blood on the gown.

This wasn't ordinary miscarriage blood.

It carried the grievance of a dead infant, enough to mislead the Primordial Gold Thread.

They knew I'd come.

They even knew I'd go to the koi pond first.

As Raymond turned away, I bit through the tip of my tongue and spat a mouthful of Life-Essence Blood onto the Primordial Gold Thread.

"Primordial Truth-Seeking, break the false and return to one!"

The thread flared a dark red, then wrenched around, aiming straight at the villa's basement.

Raymond's step hitched.

That single instant of stiffness was all the answer I needed.

I ran for the basement, cold air rushing up to meet me.

A statue of the war god stood enshrined in the basement.

The cement floor beneath the shrine reeked of killing force.

I grabbed the fire axe from the corner and brought it down against the ground.

The police and bodyguards came right behind me.

"Stop her!"

For the first time, Raymond lost his composure.

I swung a dozen times, again and again.

The cement layer caved in with a crash, and beneath it lay a woman's white bones wrapped in yellow cloth.

Seven Soul-Anchoring Nails were driven into the top of the skull.

Everyone sucked in a cold breath.

But Raymond recovered fast.

"I didn't know! This villa was bought secondhand, I had no idea there was a body underground!"

The police sealed off the scene at once.

I stared at the left side of the skeleton's ribcage.

There was no old injury there.

This wasn't Elise.

Two hours later, the DNA came back. The dead woman was Kate Finch, a peripheral woman who had gone missing a year and a half ago.

The bloody gown was the first layer of deception.

The substitute body was the second.

Raymond had worked it out long before. He would make me point to the wrong thing over and over, until my madness was beyond dispute.