Dead Before the Truth Revealed novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Gala Day

Ciara's POV

By six o'clock the ballroom smelled of lilies and hot lights, and I was standing in the service corridor behind it with a clean black dress and a kitchen towel over my arm.

Edmund had gotten me a cook's coat, and I wore it open over the dress so nobody on the line looked at my face twice.

The kitchen door was behind me. The ballroom was behind that.

I could hear four hundred chairs being pulled out.

"They're filling the front tables," Edmund said, appearing at my elbow with a tablet in his hand. "The chairwoman's bringing the whole committee. Twelve board members, two newspaper reporters."

"Constance?"

"Constance," he said, "has been in the green room for twenty minutes with her door shut."

The green room was across the corridor, a narrow room with a mirror and a coat rack, and its door was open a hand's width.

I moved to the wall beside it and held the towel to my chest.

"Cancel it," Constance was saying.

"I can't," said a hotel manager's voice. "The event contract is in the board chair's name. The Foundation staff can't void it without her signature."

"Then find her signature."

"She's in the ballroom, ma'am. Greeting guests."

"Then tell her there's been a gas leak."

"Ma'am, I'm not going to lie to four hundred people."

The door shut on him.

I heard a second voice, very quiet, and it sounded exactly like my own.

"You're frightened," Camille said.

"I am not."

"You've been told what's on the screen. That's why you're here. You're trying to stop it."

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