The dining room remained frozen in a tableau of shock. The spilled wine dripped off the table onto the rug. Drip. Drip.

Helen had her head in her hands, sobbing. "My baby... look at her arm..."

Brady slammed his fist onto the table. The silverware jumped.

"She's lying!" he yelled. "She has to be! She did it to herself to manipulate us! She's a psycho!"

"Brady," Jethro warned, but his voice lacked conviction.

"No, Dad! Think about it! Who comes back and flashes scars like that? She wants money. She wants pity."

Kaleigh reached out and touched Brady's arm. "Brady is right, Mom. People with... unstable minds... they self-harm. It's a cry for help."

Ambrose had been standing by the sideboard, silent. He stepped into the light.

"That wasn't self-harm," he said. His voice was cold steel.

Brady whipped around. "Whose side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of facts," Ambrose said. He walked over to the table. "I served in the military, Brady. I know what self-inflicted wounds look like. The angle is wrong. The depth is wrong."

He looked at the empty chair where Clarisa had sat.

"Those burns on the back of her arm? You can't reach that angle with a cigarette in your own hand unless you're a contortionist. Someone else did that to her."

The room went deadly quiet again. Ambrose's words carried the weight of authority. He didn't lie about violence.

Brady slumped back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "Fuck."

Kaleigh's eyes darted between Ambrose and her parents. She saw the shift. The doubt.

She stood up, wiping her tears. "Then we need to get her help. Real help. I know a doctor... Dr. Evans. He's a psychiatrist. He can evaluate her."

"Yes," Helen said, grasping at the straw. "A doctor. We'll get the best doctor."

Kaleigh hid a smile. Dr. Evans was on her payroll.

Back in the Lotus Lodge, Clarisa sat on the floor in the dark.

She hadn't turned on the lights. She was applying an antiseptic cream she had stolen from the bathroom cabinet to her burns.

She knew what had just happened. She had dropped a bomb. Now she had to wait for the fallout.

She took her leather-bound notebook and carefully worked at the inside of the back cover with her thumbnail. A thin panel of reinforced cardboard came loose, revealing a hidden compartment. Tucked inside was not a phone, but something just as vital: a wafer-thin, single-use satellite phone, barely thicker than a credit card. A parting gift from Gilda, the hacker who had ruled the camp's electronics shop.

She powered it on. The screen glowed blue in the darkness.

She typed a text to a number she had memorized.

I'm in. Phase one complete. They are shaken.

She waited. Three seconds later, the reply came.

Copy that. Files are ready to upload. Just say the word. - G

Clarisa smiled. Gilda owed her a life. This was how she was repaying the debt.

Clarisa typed back: Hold. Let them simmer.

She powered down the device and sealed it back inside the notebook's cover.

She lay back on the hard floor. For the first time in three years, she didn't feel like a victim. She felt like a hunter.

The air in the garden was crisp, smelling of wet earth and pine.

Brady paced back and forth on the gravel driveway, kicking stones. He lit a cigarette, his hands shaking slightly.

Ambrose leaned against the hood of his Rolls-Royce, watching him. He had a cigarette of his own, the cherry glowing bright in the night.

Brady stopped pacing. He looked at Ambrose.

"You think I'm a monster, don't you?"

Ambrose exhaled a plume of smoke. "I think you're a man who prefers comfortable lies to uncomfortable truths."

"I thought it was a rehab!" Brady shouted, throwing his hands up. "I signed the papers because the brochure showed horse riding and group therapy!"

"You didn't check," Ambrose said. "You didn't visit. Not once in three years."

Brady flinched. "She was toxic, Ambrose! You remember! The drugs found in her car? The way she embarrassed us at the gala?"

Ambrose looked toward the dark windows of the guest house. "I remember."

He paused.

"But what if we were wrong?" Ambrose asked quietly. "What if the drugs weren't hers?"

Brady stared at him. The ash from his cigarette fell onto his expensive shoe. "Don't start with conspiracies. Kaleigh found the drugs. Kaleigh wouldn't lie."

Ambrose didn't answer. He threw his cigarette onto the wet ground and crushed it with his heel.

He walked around to the trunk of his car. He popped it open.

Inside was a black tactical medical kit. It was military grade.

He pulled it out.

"Here," Ambrose said, holding it out to Brady.

Brady reached for it. "Thanks. I could use an aspirin."

Ambrose pulled it back. "It's not for you."

Brady froze. "Then who...?"

Ambrose whistled. His head of security, a massive man named Jesse, stepped out of the shadows.

"Take this to the guest house," Ambrose ordered. "Give it to the assistant. Tell her it's for the burns. It has lidocaine and silver sulfadiazine."

Brady watched Jesse take the kit and walk away.

"You're playing a dangerous game, Ambrose," Brady warned. "Kaleigh is your fiancée. That is her sister. The sister who tried to steal you."

Ambrose got into the driver's seat of his car. He looked at Brady through the open window.

"I'm not doing this for Clarisa," he lied smoothly. "I just don't want a cripple in the wedding photos. It looks bad."

He started the engine. The V12 roared to life.

Brady stood in the driveway, watching the taillights disappear. He looked at the guest house. He felt a knot of dread in his stomach that no amount of whiskey could dissolve.