Chapter 42: The Birthmark

Elena didn't look back. She didn't look at Dr. Thorne, huddled in the bed, whispering about birds and fires. She didn't look at the nurse, still pinned behind the steel cart. She ran.

She burst out of the room just as Vane’s security detail turned the corner. Two men, large, uniformed, moving with the heavy grace of hired muscle. They saw her instantly.

"Mrs. Hawthorne!" one shouted.

She spun around, sprinting toward the service elevator. The key card was gone, lost in the scuffle, but the doors were still open, held by the cleaning cart a janitor had abandoned.

She threw herself inside and mashed the *Lobby* button.

The doors slid shut just as a hand slammed against the metal.

She slumped against the wall, her chest heaving. *A bird.* Thorne had said a bird.

She closed her eyes, visualizing Julian’s body. She knew it better than her own. The freckles on his shoulders. The scar on his knee from a skiing accident. The pale skin of his hip.

There was a mark.

She had kissed it a thousand times. A small, reddish splotch just below his hip bone. She had always thought it looked like a heart. Or a cloud.

But a bird?

The elevator dinged. Lobby.

She stepped out, composing her face into the mask of the grieving, dignified wife. The Gala was still in full swing, the music a distant, muffled thrum. But the security presence had doubled. Vane wasn't taking chances.

She needed to get to Julian. She needed to see the mark. Not with love, but with forensic detachment.

She moved through the crowd, dodging familiar faces who tried to stop her with condolences. *So sorry about Beatrice. Such a tragedy.*

She found Julian near the bar. He was standing with the Mayor, looking pale and unsteady. He held a glass of scotch he wasn't drinking.

"Julian," she said, taking his arm. Her grip was tight. "We need to leave."

"I can't," he whispered. "Vane is watching. If we leave early, he'll know we're running."

"He already knows," she hissed. "I just saw Thorne."

Julian stiffened. "You talked to him?"

"I talked to him. And he told me something."

She pulled him toward the exit. Not the main doors, but the side entrance near the kitchens.

"What did he tell you?" Julian asked as they stepped into the cold night air.

"He told me about your father."

Julian stopped. He looked at her, his eyes searching hers for the lie he expected. "My father is Silas Vane. You said so yourself."

"No," Elena said. "Vane is the architect. But he's not the father."

"Then who is?"

"An artist," Elena said. "A man who died in a fire."

She dragged him toward the valet stand. But the valet wasn't there. Instead, a black SUV was idling at the curb. The window rolled down.

It was Beatrice.

She looked terrible, her face gray with pain, her arm in a sling made from a silk scarf. But she was behind the wheel.

"Get in," she said.

Elena shoved Julian into the back seat and climbed in beside him. Beatrice gunned the engine, peeling out of the lot before the security guards at the door could react.

"Where are we going?" Julian asked, looking between the two women.

"Home," Elena said.

"To the manor?" Beatrice asked, glancing in the rearview mirror. "That's suicide."

"Not the manor," Elena said. "We need to go to the guest cottage. To Mrs. Gable."

"Why?"

"Because she knows about the fire," Elena said. "And she knows about the artist."

She turned to Julian.

"Take off your shirt," she said.

Julian stared at her. "What?"

"Take off your shirt. And your pants."

"Elena, have you lost your mind?"

"Just do it!" she screamed.

Julian fumbled with his buttons. He stripped off his tuxedo jacket, his shirt. He unbuckled his belt.

Elena turned on the overhead light.

"Turn around," she commanded.

He turned.

She pulled down the waistband of his boxers.

There, on his left hip, was the mark.

She had seen it every day for twenty years. But she had never really looked at it.

She traced the outline with her finger. The red pigment against the pale skin.

The curve of a wing. The sharp point of a beak.

It wasn't a heart. It wasn't a cloud.

It was a bird. A red bird in flight.

"What is it?" Julian asked, shivering in the cold car.

"It's a brand," Elena whispered. "It's the proof."

She looked at Beatrice in the front seat.

"Drive faster," she said. "We need to find out who the artist was. Because if Vane killed him to get Julian..."

"Then he'll kill Julian to keep the secret," Beatrice finished.

She slammed her foot on the gas. The SUV surged forward into the dark.

But in the distance, behind them, a single pair of headlights appeared.

Vane wasn't done. And he wasn't alone.