Chapter 137

Claire POV

A few days later I settled into my office with my head of security, a short stout woman with eyes that took in every single detail around her.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Nell,” I said as we sat down in my small comfortable conference area.

Nell nodded, her face serious. Her face, I’d learned, was always serious.

“Of course, your Highness.”

She pulled out a folder and opened it on the table, spreading out a series of pictures and diagrams.

“These images are from the event. Some are pictures taken by different attendees while it was happening.

She tapped a diagram, where straight lines were drawn in different colors over a map of the room.

“This is a recreation of the bullets that were fired, their trajectories. As you can see, the shooter was up in the loft above the balconies.”

I studied the pages for a moment, a frown growing on my face.

Then I sat back and stared at her.

“You see it, don’t you?” Nell asked, a pleased look on her face.

“Yes. Every single bullet was fired into a wall or the floor or a piece of furniture.

“Every bullet except one.”

Nell nodded. “You were right to want an investigation. There is something odd about this attack.”

Odd was right.

Over a dozen shots fired, and not one other person shot.

There were some injuries, of course, but they happened in the chairs and confusion of a large mass of people all trying to get out of the arena at once.

Sprained wrists and ankles. Someone fell down and got a concussion. Someone else had a few bruised ribs.

Only one shot seemed to be aimed at an actual person.

At Nathan.

I thought back to the moments before the shooting started.

We’d been standing right by the steps leading up to the stage. Had I seen or heard something out there in the crowd that could be useful?

I tried to remember, but all I could see was Catherine sneering at me.

While also stealing glances at the stage.

“Catherine wasn’t just watching Nathan,” I realized, murmuring to myself. “She seemed to be waiting for something…”

I looked up at Nell as the full shock of what I was remembering hit me.

“My god, could Catherine have been waiting for the shooting to start?

“Did she know what was going to happen??”

Nathan POV

Within days I came to regret my decision to invite Catherine into my home.

And to regret how dismissive I was of Claire’s concerns.

The first day passed without much incident, since Catherine spent most of it in bed in the guest room I had made up for her.

She did ask me to spend more time with her than I wanted to spend, since I had work to catch up on, but I felt I owed her that much.

By the next day, she was up and walking slowly around the house, with help from a nursing assistant.

When I got home from work I sensed a certain tension in the air, and asked the butler what it was about.

He hesitated, then admitted that the Duchess had been very demanding of the servants.

“They feel as if she’s trying to take charge, sir,” he told me. “Behaving more like a boss than a guest.”

Tired from a long day at the office, I shrugged off the servants’ concerns.

“She is Royal, after all,” I said to the butler. “Catherine is just used to being able to command people. I’ll have a word with her.”

And I fully intended to. After our experience with Sabrina, I wasn’t going to tolerate any kind of behavior like that from a guest.

But when I went up to Catherine’s room, she looked so pale and tired, and she smiled so brightly when she saw me, that I just didn’t have the heart to bring it up.

Tomorrow, I promised myself.

But the next day, I came home to utter chaos.

“Sir…” the butler said when he met me at the door. “The Duchess, she’s been…quite demanding.

“But she’s insisting these are changes you told her to make.”

“What changes?” I asked suspiciously, realizing just how much activity there was in the house.

“What’s going on up there?”

Servants were going this way and that way, carrying furniture or plants, clearly doing a massive rearranging project.

Most of them were either going up the stairs or coming down.

“Sir, the Duchess…

“She says she’s moving in.”

“What??”

I handed him my briefcase, about to march up the stairs and sort out whatever was going on immediately.

But a servant approached, a young man with a shy look on his face and something in his hand.

“Sir,” he said, seeming unsure if he should be addressing me or the butler. “I-I’m so sorry to interrupt. But you see, I’ve found something that seems, well, odd…”

“What is it?” the butler asked gently.

Face turning red, the young man stammered that he’d been in the guest room, cleaning and dusting.

“It was an accident, I swear, but I knocked over this bottle. And it just smelled so strange, sir.

“I thought you’d need to see it.”

He held out his hand, and I saw that he was holding a perfume bottle.

And I recognized the smell as soon as he held it out toward me.

Taking the bottle, I opened it and inhaled slowly, carefully, closing my eyes to tune into my keen sense of smell.

Then my eyes opened again in shock.

“This perfume…it’s been enhanced somehow.”

I took another sniff, nodding, my expression growing more and more grim.

“Now I know why she smelled so much like Claire. I’m betting if we tested this perfume, itwould contain Claire’s DNA.

“Because it’s obviously been enhanced with her pheromones.”

The servant gasped, and even the butler looked a little ill.

The use of pheromones was highly unethical, and even illegal in some packs.

It was also very, very close to witchcraft.

My hand closed around the bottle.

“Where is the Duchess now?” I demanded.

“Upstairs,” the butler answered. “Should I -?”

But I was already marching out of the room and up the stairs.

After checking Catherine’s guest room and finding it empty, I decided to follow the flow of servants.

And realized they were coming and going from my own bedroom.

What was she up to??

I hurried down the hall, just to stand staring in shock when I got to my doorway.

My entire bedroom had been changed.

The furniture was rearranged, and the few things of Claire’s still here were nowhere to be seen.

And the secret family pictures… They were gone.

Where there had been portraits of me and Claire and Andy, there were now just blank squares on the wall.

A rage began to build in my chest as I looked at what she’d done.

And the suspicion that Claire had been right began to rise.

What if Catherine really had been up to something all along?

And then my eyes found Catherine as she stood bending over the bed.

Slipping something under my pillow.

“Catherine,” I said sharply, clearly startling her.

She straightened in surprise, trying to hide her hands behind her back as she turned to me.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” I demanded.