SHADOW OF HERSELF

The room plunged into dead silence.

Daniel’s hand dropped toward his inside jacket pocket, but before his fingers could close around the grip of his concealed firearm, Nathan Vance moved.

In a single, fluid strike, Nathan seized Daniel’s forearm, twisted it upward with bone-snapping force, and slammed Daniel face-first onto the polished mahogany desk. The dull thud echoed through the suite. A snub-nosed revolver clattered across the blotter, spinning until it came to rest against Davies’s trembling hand.

“Don't move,” Nathan growled, driving his knee into Daniel’s spine, pinning him like an insect. “Charlotte-Mecklenburg detectives are already in the lobby, Cross. You’re done.”

Clara didn't scream. She didn't cry.

The frightened, fragile persona she had worn like a second skin vanished instantly. Her posture hardened, her eyes narrowing into cold, predatory slits. Without a word, she spun on her heel and bolted toward the secondary exit that led to the bank’s executive stairwell.

“Clara, stop!” Hope cried.

Hope lunged after her. The pain in her surgical incision flared like liquid fire, threatening to drop her to her knees, but fury propelled her forward. She caught Clara by the collar of the ivory wool jacket just as the imposter reached the heavy fire door.

Both women tumbled into the concrete stairwell, crashing against the metal railing.

Clara whipped around, her manicured nails clawing toward Hope’s throat. “Let go of me, you stupid bitch! You were supposed to die in that sanitarium!”

Hope ducked beneath the strike, grabbing Clara’s wrist and twisting it against the iron balustrade. “You stole my face! You sat in my house! You kissed my husband while planning to erase my life!”

“Your husband came to me!” Clara spat, struggling wildly, her disguise unraveling with every ragged breath. “He hated you! He hated your high-and-mighty family! He wanted your money, and he hired me to take it because you were too boring to keep him interested!”

Hope slammed Clara against the concrete wall, her grip unyielding. “And look where it got you. A cheap counterfeit of a woman you could never be.”

Heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs above them.

“Police! Don't move! Hands where we can see them!”

Uniformed officers poured into the stairwell, service weapons drawn, led by Detective Miller from the fraud division. Within seconds, Clara was wrestled to the floor, her cheek pressed against the cold concrete, metal handcuffs ratcheting tightly around her wrists.

Hope stepped back, breathing heavily, pressing a trembling hand against her burning side.

Nathan appeared at the landing above, looking down with a nod of quiet approval. Behind him, two officers escorted Daniel, his face bruised, his expensive suit torn, his eyes wild with terror.

As Daniel was dragged past Hope, his arrogant facade completely shattered.

“Hope... please,” Daniel begged, his voice cracking into pathetic sobs. “It was Marlene! It was my mother’s idea! She manipulated me! She told me we deserved the money! Hope, I love you, you know I love you!”

Hope looked at the man she had loved for six years.

She felt no sorrow. No longing. Only a profound, suffocating disgust.