physician.
Internal medicine.
His license was revoked three years ago after an investigation involving falsified medical records.”
Victoria turned toward the ballroom doors.
Marcus stepped into her path.
“Please remain here.”
“You cannot detain me.”
“No one is detaining you,” Marcus replied.
“But Mr.
Blake has asked that nobody connected to the incident enter his private property or remove material belonging to him.”
Victoria looked at Nathan.
“You are letting a security guard treat me like a criminal on our wedding day.”
Nathan glanced toward the altar.
“There is no wedding day anymore.”
The words landed harder than he expected.
Victoria’s mother gasped.
Her father finally stood.
“Nathan, be reasonable.
You have no idea what happened.”
Nathan turned toward him.
“You are right.
I do not.
That is why nobody is signing anything until I do.”
Daniel instructed Nathan to have Marcus secure the marriage license and every document delivered to the hotel for the ceremony.
He also asked that the police be contacted, not because a crime had yet been proven, but because unauthorized access to a safe and possible document substitution required a formal record.
Nathan agreed.
Victoria’s expression changed.
“Police?”
It was the first word she had spoken that sounded truly frightened.
Nathan noticed.
So did Emma.
Within twenty minutes, two detectives arrived at the hotel.
The ballroom guests were asked to remain available for questions, though most were eventually allowed to leave after providing contact information.
Nathan stayed near Emma.
Only when the immediate chaos settled did he fully understand what she had done.
“You came here alone?” he asked.
Emma nodded.
“Two buses.”
“Your mother knows where you are?”
Emma looked down.
“No.
She was sleeping.
Her medicine makes her tired.
I left a note.”
Nathan closed his eyes briefly.
Lucy Turner was going to be terrified.
He asked Marcus to send a female member of the security team to Lucy’s apartment immediately, explain that Emma was safe, and arrange transportation to the hotel if Lucy was well enough to travel.
Then Nathan sat beside Emma on a bench outside the ballroom.
“Why did you take the pictures?”
Emma swung her feet nervously above the carpet.
“Mom says I should not touch things in your study.
So I sit by the window and draw.
That day I heard the safe make a beep.”
Nathan’s safe required a code.
Very few people knew it.
“Did you see who opened it?”
“Victoria.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Nathan felt another piece fall into place.
Months earlier, during a weekend at the estate, Victoria had watched him retrieve his passport from the safe.
He remembered shielding the keypad out of habit.
Apparently, not well enough.
“What happened next?”
Emma described it carefully.
Victoria entered the study with Gavin Cross.
Gavin carried the black briefcase.
They spoke quietly, but Emma was behind the partially closed conservatory door and could see into the room.
Victoria opened the safe.
Gavin removed a blue folder.
He placed another blue folder on the desk.
Then he photographed several pages, photographed a row of prescription and supplement bottles Nathan kept in a cabinet, and placed the original folder inside his briefcase.
Emma had taken six photographs with the camera her mother had given her for her birthday.
“Did they see you?” Nathan asked.
“I
