The Warlord Returns novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Bracelet

Margaret's bracelet turns up in Jo's apron, the guard shows the camera footage of who put it there, and Wyatt fires Jo anyway.

I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.

Carrie's brother.

She had told me about him a hundred times.

A colonel, somewhere hot and far away, who sent postcards with no return address.

I had never seen his face.

"Not here," Jack said, as if he'd heard every question in my head.

"Smile at me like I just told you the bar is out of ice."

I smiled.

It felt like something breaking.

"Back to work, miss," he said, loud enough for the people nearby.

I picked up my tray and went.

I made it through twenty minutes of champagne and clinking glasses without dropping anything.

Then the music stopped, and Margaret's voice cut across the ballroom.

"My bracelet!"

She was holding up her bare wrist.

"My grandmother's diamond bracelet. It was on me an hour ago."

The room went quiet.

Wyatt appeared at her side at once, one hand at her elbow.

"Mother, are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I took it off in the service corridor to wash my hands."

Her eyes moved across the room and settled on me.

"Only the staff were in there."

My stomach dropped.

"Check them," Margaret said. "Every apron."

The banquet manager looked like he wanted to melt into the carpet.

"Mrs. Ellsworth, I'm sure that isn't necessary."

"Do it."

Eleven of us stood in a line by the kitchen doors.

The manager patted down the first apron, then the second.

He reached mine.

His hand came out of my pocket with a sparkle of diamonds trailing from his fingers.

I stared.

"That isn't mine," I said.

"Of course it isn't," said Margaret.

She sounded almost gentle.

"I have never seen it before. I didn't put that there."

"Then who did?"

I looked at her.

I knew exactly who.

She had caught my arm in the service corridor ten minutes before, hissing about my manners, and her hand had gone across my apron.

I had thought she was just angry.

"You did," I said.

A few guests gasped.

Margaret put her hand to her pearls.

"Wyatt, did you hear that?"

"Mrs. Ellsworth is a guest of this hotel," the manager said weakly. "Miss Pinkett, please."

"I'll call the police," Margaret said. "Theft of a family heirloom. Seventy thousand dollars."

I could feel every face in the room.

My mother's dialysis cost more than I made in a month, and I couldn't lose this job, and she knew it.

Then someone behind me spoke.

"Before anyone calls anyone."

Jack walked up with a tablet in one hand.

"There's a camera in the service corridor," he said. "I'd like to look at it first, ma'am. It's standard when theft is reported."

"This is ridiculous," Margaret said.

"Then it will take thirty seconds."

He tapped the screen and turned it so the nearest guests could see.

The hallway, from above.

Margaret's silver head, clear as day.

She took my arm.

She leaned close to my ear.

And with her other hand she slipped a flash of diamonds into the pocket of my apron, smooth as a card dealer.

"Oh," said somebody in the crowd.

Somebody else laughed, short and shocked.

Margaret's face went white and then red.

"That footage is doctored."

"It's the building's system, ma'am," Jack said. "The time stamp is on it."

Wyatt stepped in smoothly.

"Let's all stay calm. Mother has had a long night. Obviously there's been a misunderstanding."

He turned to me with that warm, sorry smile.

"Jo, I'm so sorry. I'm sure you didn't mean to cause a scene."

I stared at him.

"I caused a scene?"

"But after the tension tonight, I think it's best if you go home. Don't come in tomorrow. I'll have HR call you."

It took me a second to understand.

He was firing me.

In front of a hundred and fifty donors, with the proof of his mother's lie in plain sight.

And no one in the room was going to say a word.

Because it was Wyatt, and he was smiling.

Jack put a hand lightly between my shoulder blades.

"I'll walk her out," he said.

"Of course," said Wyatt. "Thank you, Mr.?"

"Mercer."

"Mr. Mercer."

Wyatt's eyes lingered on his face, only a moment, and then moved on.

Jack steered me through the kitchen, past the dish pit, out to the loading dock where the night air hit my face.

I leaned against the brick and breathed.

He let me.

When I could speak, I said, "I need that job."

"I know."

"You don't know anything."

"I know your mother's chair at Ellsworth Dialysis is three days a week," Jack said. "I know the account that pays for it."

I went very still.

He looked down at me in the yellow dock light.

"And I know Wyatt Ellsworth wired you forty thousand dollars two days after my sister died."

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