Chapter 2 - THE GROOM’S BLOODSTAIN
The gunshot stopped every voice inside Sterling Ridge Estate.
Guests dropped beneath tables. Women in evening gowns screamed. Crystal glasses shattered on the floor as tactical officers rushed toward the service corridor.
I tried to sit up on the stretcher.
“Julian!”
A paramedic pressed one hand against my shoulder.
“Mrs. Sterling, you need to stay still.”
“That was my husband.”
“We don’t know who fired.”
Another contraction tightened through me.
The paramedic looked at his partner.
“Five minutes apart.”
“I’m only thirty-four weeks.”
“We know. We’re taking you to St. Catherine’s. Their neonatal team is ready.”
As they carried me through the ballroom, I saw the wedding collapse into chaos.
Seraphina’s elaborate cake had been knocked sideways, one sugar flower crushed beneath an officer’s boot. Guests who had spent the evening praising the Sterling family now stood against the walls with their hands visible.
Eleanor shouted at Special Agent Diana Cruz.
“You have no authority to destroy my daughter’s wedding!”
Diana held up the warrant.
“This estate is connected to money laundering, public-contract fraud, witness intimidation, and the concealment of evidence in an active homicide investigation.”
The word homicide silenced Eleanor.
It silenced me too.
I had known about the financial crimes.
No one had told me there was a suspected murder.
“What homicide?” I called.
Diana turned toward me, but before she could answer, two officers emerged from the service hallway carrying a man between them.
It was not Julian.
It was Seraphina’s new husband, Preston Vale.
Blood covered the front of his white shirt.
Seraphina screamed and ran toward him.
“Preston!”
The officers lowered him to the floor while another medical team rushed forward.
“Gunshot wound to the shoulder,” someone shouted.
Preston’s eyes found mine.
He pointed weakly toward the corridor.
“Julian took it.”
“What?” Diana asked.
“The drive,” Preston gasped. “He took the drive from the wine cellar.”
Diana’s face hardened.
“What was on it?”
Preston looked toward Seraphina.
She stopped crying.
Something passed between them.
Fear.
“Ask my wife,” he whispered.
Seraphina stepped backward.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
Preston gave a broken laugh.
“You told me it was insurance.”
“Stop talking.”
“You said if your mother ever tried to control us, we would use it.”
Seraphina’s face lost all color.
Diana ordered officers to secure her.
Eleanor lunged forward.
“You will not touch my daughter!”
The agents restrained her.
My stretcher moved again, but I grabbed Diana’s sleeve.
“Tell me about the homicide.”
Her expression softened.
“This is not the place.”
“I’m being taken into premature labor because suspects locked me in a restroom. I think I’ve earned the truth.”
Diana glanced toward the paramedics.
“There is evidence that Sterling Ridge Estate was used to hide the death of a state investigator seven years ago.”
My breath caught.
“Who?”
“Daniel Rourke.”
I knew the name.
Every forensic auditor in our division knew it.
Rourke had disappeared while investigating public development grants linked to several luxury properties. His abandoned vehicle was found near a reservoir, and the official assumption had been suicide.
I looked toward Eleanor.
She was no longer shouting.
She was staring directly at me.
“You were investigating Daniel’s case?” I asked.
“Your financial work reopened it,” Diana said. “Several accounts you traced were active during the week he vanished.”
The ambulance doors opened.
Before I was loaded inside, I saw officers running across the vineyard grounds toward the western ridge.
Julian had escaped into more than four hundred acres of vines, storage buildings, and forest.
He knew every road.
Every gate.
Every hidden cellar.
I knew something else.
The black drive in his hand had not come from the wine cellar by accident.
Julian had gone there immediately after the raid began.
He had known exactly what he needed to retrieve.
Diana stepped into the ambulance for a final moment.
“Listen to me. Do not call Julian if he contacts you.”
“He’s my husband.”
“He is also a fugitive carrying evidence in a murder investigation.”
The words struck harder than the contractions.
“What if he comes to the hospital?”
“We’ll protect you.”
“He knows the baby may come tonight.”
Diana held my gaze.
“Audrey, someone has already tried to destroy files at the estate. Preston claims Julian shot him while taking the drive.”
I looked back through the open doors.
Preston lay beneath bright medical lights as Seraphina watched him with an expression that was not concern.
It was fury.
The ambulance doors closed.
We began moving.
Halfway to the hospital, my secure phone rang.
Only Diana knew the number.
Yet Julian’s voice came through when I answered.
“Audrey, don’t believe them.”
“Did you shoot Preston?”
“He tried to stop me.”
“You took evidence.”
“I took something that can save us.”
“There is no us if you signed those transfers.”
He went silent.
My eyes filled.
“You knew I was investigating your family.”
“I knew you were asking questions.”
“You lied to me every day.”
“My mother forced me.”
“You left me locked in a restroom during premature labor.”
“I was coming back.”
“No, Julian. You were running away.”
His breathing became uneven.
“The drive proves I’m not the worst person in this family.”
“That is not innocence.”
“Audrey, listen. Daniel Rourke was alive after everyone believed he died.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“What?”
“He was kept beneath the old bottling house.”
“For how long?”
“Eleven days.”
The ambulance seemed suddenly too small.
“Who kept him there?”
Julian whispered three words.
“My mother did.”
Then a second voice sounded behind him.
A woman’s voice.
“Give me the phone, darling.”
Eleanor.
I had just watched agents restrain her at the estate.
Yet somehow she was speaking from wherever Julian had fled.
The line went dead.
Seconds later, Diana called.
“Audrey, Eleanor escaped during the confusion.”
I stared at the dark screen.
“How?”
“Someone inside law enforcement released her.”
The paramedic beside me checked the monitor and swore.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The baby’s heart rate is dropping.”
Another contraction struck.
This time, the pain did not fade.
The paramedic radioed the hospital.
“Prepare emergency surgery.”
As the ambulance accelerated, I placed one hand over my stomach.
My husband was a fugitive.
My mother-in-law was connected to a vanished investigator.
May you like
Someone inside law enforcement was helping them.
And my unborn daughter was running out of time.
