The Decoy

The Sunday roast is an exercise in tactical endurance.

I stand at the mahogany console table in Eleanor’s grand foyer, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. I can hear the familiar sounds of the Vance dynasty gathering in the dining room—the clink of heavy silver, Marcus’s booming laugh, the high, melodic pitch of Eleanor’s voice as she directs the serving staff.

Marcus’s leather briefcase sits exactly where I knew it would be. It’s a battered, expensive thing, exhaling the scent of old parchment and law offices.

I reach into the pocket of my cardigan, my fingers closing around the cold, pebbled plastic of the portable cloner. My palms are slick. If the front door opens, I’m caught. If Eleanor walks out of the dining room for a fresh bottle of wine, I’m destroyed.

I slide the briefcase zipper an inch. Just an inch.

There it is. The silver lanyard. The black security token hangs from the end like a parasitic lung, the hardware key to the Caleb Containment ledger.

I press the cloner against the side of the briefcase, aligning the internal coil with where the token rests. I click the power button. A faint, high-pitched whine emanates from the device.

*One. Two. Three.*

"Clara? Is that you?"

Eleanor’s voice is sharp, vibrating through the hallway. I jump, the cloner slipping from my hand and landing with a muffled thud on the Persian rug.

I scramble to kick the device under the console table, my face flushing hot. Eleanor appears in the archway, her eyes narrowed, scanning the foyer with the practiced suspicion of a woman who has spent forty years guarding a vault.

"I... I thought I left my shawl out here," I stammer, smoothing my hair. I force a sheepish, provincial smile. "I’m so clumsy. I think I knocked Marcus's bag."

Eleanor doesn't smile back. She walks toward me, her heels clicking like a countdown. She stops inches from the console table, her gaze dropping to the briefcase, then lifting to my face.

"The roast is getting cold, Clara. We don't wait for dawdlers."

"Of course. Sorry."

I follow her back into the dining room, my skin crawling. I sit opposite Marcus, who is already mid-anecdote about a judge he recently 'persuaded.'

The meal is a blur of red wine and white lies. I wait for the moment Marcus gets up to use the restroom, a ten-minute window I can exploit. I excuse myself to 'check on the kids' in the garden, but I loop back through the service hallway.

The foyer is empty. I retrieve the cloner from beneath the table. The small LED light is pulsing green.

*Success.*

I slide the cloner into my pocket and slip back toward the garden doors, my breath coming in shallow hitches. I pass the large, gilt-framed mirror in the hallway, catching a glimpse of my own reflection—the dutiful wife, the invisible manager.

I pause, checking my cardigan pocket to ensure the device is hidden.

As she slipped the clone into her pocket, she locked eyes with David in the mirror.