By the time I step out of the town car, the hill is glittering.
Strings of white lights trace the drive up to the Mercer estate, looping around bare trees and stone pillars. Valets in dark coats jog between cars, doors opening and closing in a steady mechanical rhythm. The air cuts cold against my bare shoulders, carrying the familiar mix that belongs to Harbor Glen alone: salt from the Sound, a curl of woodsmoke from the chimneys, and that faint, sterile tang drifting up from the hospital on the opposite rise.
“Mrs. Mercer.”
The valet’s gloves are soft on the door as he opens it for me. Flashbulbs pop near the formal entrance where donors pose in front of a Mercer Foundation backdrop, the abstract wave crest repeating in a pattern that feels more like branding than benevolence. I smooth my dress—a dark green column that Daniel always said made my eyes look softer—and remind myself that tonight softness is not my job.
Inside, the foyer hums.
Women shed fur wraps and adjust jewelry. Men exchange handshakes that last one beat too long. A photographer calls out, asking a couple to turn a little more toward the light. Somewhere in the house, a quartet rehearses a few bars of something classical, the notes floating down the hallway like a promise of refinement.
I hover on the threshold of the ballroom and watch the room inhale its guests.
The glass wall facing the water reflects the chandeliers back at us, doubling the glow. But the real show is outside. Boats creep into position along the narrow peninsula, decks draped in light. The Light the Harbor parade has always been part spectacle, part census. Everyone in town knows who rides where, who has upgraded to a bigger yacht, whose absence means a quiet scandal.
“Look at that,” a woman near me murmurs to her companion. “The hospital board all on the Crestline. Of course.”
I follow her gaze. One of the largest boats sports a banner with the Mercer wave crest in blue lights, pulsing gently. The hospital’s name glows along the side, the letters reflected on the black water like a second identity.
Love and harm in the same hands, lit up for donations.
Guests press closer to the glass, wineglasses in hand, faces bathed in the flicker from the harbor. I catch snippets of conversation.
“—NICU expansion, can you believe—”
“—donor wall, top row now—”
“—Evelyn’s speech, I hear it’s going to be incredible—”
My palms dampen. Every word reminds me how much goodwill she has banked in this room. How many lives were genuinely saved along with the ones that were rewritten.
“Hannah.”
A hand touches my elbow. Claire, in a sleek black dress with a catering pin at her waist, gives me a quick, professional smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Everything looks beautiful,” I say.
“That’s the idea,” she answers under her breath. Her gaze darts toward the donor tables. “She’s in the green room with the board, running through the program. You’re slotted to be onstage for the closing toast with Daniel.”
“And before that?”
“Video reel, patient stories, then the ‘impact’ segment.” Her mouth tightens. “That’s your window.”
My heart stutters.
“Thank you,” I say.
Her fingers press once against my arm, a brief, risky gesture, then she peels away toward the staff doors, resetting her expression for the event.
I scan the room.
Reporters stand out not because of what they wear, but because of how they look. Eyes always moving, badges glinting on their lapels. One cluster near the back wall laughs too loudly at a donor’s joke, their smiles already calculated for future angle. Another group adjusts cameras near a small platform assigned to the press, a perfect sight line for the stage and the room.
This is the biggest stage we will ever get. Every misstep will be photographed from three angles and filtered through the town’s hierarchy before the night is over.
My phone buzzes in my clutch.
Riley: Here.
I swallow, type back with fingers that don’t quite want to obey.
Me: Where.
It takes a full minute for the dots to appear. I use it to circulate, letting myself be seen, greeting people whose names I know from donor walls and holiday cards.
“Hannah, darling,” a man with a ruddy face booms, kissing the air near my cheek. “You look radiant. Where’s that husband of yours? Hiding in the control booth again?”
I give the practiced laugh the Mercers taught me.
“He’s backstage wrangling tech,” I say. “He’ll be out when the speeches start.”
Another woman touches my arm, compliments my dress, mentions brunch at the club. The word club carries its own gravity here—waitlists and initiation fees, the invisible lines that decide who belongs. I nod, trade pleasantries, feel my pulse climbing.
My phone buzzes again.
Riley: Back right corner. Near service hallway. Can’t miss me. Wrong planet.
I excuse myself from a conversation about hospital naming opportunities and drift toward the back of the room, pretending to be interested in the silent auction items arranged on easels. Photos of babies, families, the foundation’s projects. All those smiling faces with neat captions and no asterisks.
And then I see her.
Riley stands near the shadow of a column, half-hidden behind a high-top table where forgotten champagne flutes gather. She wears a midnight-blue gown that doesn’t quite fit in the way of borrowed clothing, a little loose in the shoulders, a little long at the hem. Her hair is pinned up in a style that fights the natural wave, one tendril already escaping and curling against her neck.
She’s watching everything, jaw tight, one hand locked around the stem of an untouched glass of water.
For a moment, all I can see is the toddler in the old photograph in the Mercer garden, yellow dress bright against green grass. The line between that child and this woman feels like a wound stretched across the years.
I step into her line of sight.
Her eyes meet mine, and I watch her shoulders drop a fraction. Not relaxed—not tonight—but aligned, oriented.
“You clean up,” she says when I reach her, her mouth quirking.
“So do you,” I answer. “You’re breaking the dress code, though. No one here is allowed to look this honest.”
That pulls a real smile from her, brief and sharp.
“This was from my boss’s wife’s cousin or something,” she says, plucking at the fabric. “I promised not to bleed on it.”
“Let’s try to keep that promise,” I say, and we both know I’m not just talking about the hem of her dress.
She glances over my shoulder toward the glass wall.
“I saw the boats on the way up,” she says. “Your mother-in-law knows how to throw a distraction.”
“Half this crowd came here to watch themselves reflected in that glass,” I say. “The other half came for the photos of them doing it.”
Riley’s gaze sweeps the room, landing on clusters of wealth and influence that have shaped Harbor Glen for decades. Hospital board, foundation staff, local politicians, a couple of state-level officials whose names I recognize from the news.
“You sure you want to burn this all down?” she asks quietly.
My throat tightens.
“No,” I say. “I’m sure it was built on somebody else’s ashes.”
Her jaw flexes.
“Fair.”
“Any issues getting past security?” I ask.
“Your housekeeper’s key card worked like a charm,” she says, a flicker of admiration softening her tone. “Staff entrance, then through the service corridor. I ditched the coat and pretended I’d lost my escort. People here are trained not to question a woman in a fancy dress who looks bored.”
I follow her gaze to the donors near the bar, laughing too loudly.
“Journalist?” she adds.
“Daniel’s job,” I say. “He’s the one they expect to see talking to pressed people with notebooks.”
Her eyes narrow.
“Do you trust him?”
I watch Daniel appear across the room then, as if she has summoned him. He’s in a tux that fits him too well, moving through the donors with that easy, practiced charm that always made me feel like I’d stumbled into a movie. He laughs at a joke, touches an elbow, tilts his head in that listening way he has.
I watch his hand shake a little as he reaches for a drink.
“I trust what he’s seen now,” I say. “And I trust that he doesn’t know how to live with himself if he ignores it.”
Riley studies me for a beat, then nods.
“I’ll take that for tonight,” she says.
The emcee’s voice crackles briefly over the speakers in a sound check, a reminder that this room is about to stop being a cocktail party and start being a stage. My heartbeat syncs with the low thump of bass from the speakers as the band warms up in the corner.
“We should spread out,” I say. “No reason to make us easier to point at yet.”
“Copy,” Riley says. “Text me when you see her head toward the stage.”
“You’ll see it,” I answer. “The room will tilt.”
She huffs out a breath that might be a laugh, then melts sideways into the crowd, taking up a new position near the back wall where she can watch both the doors and the stage. For a second, I lose her in the swirl of gowns and tuxes, then I catch the glint of her borrowed earrings and feel steadier.
I weave back toward the center of the room just as a familiar hand lands in the small of my back.
“Hey,” Daniel says softly.
I turn.
Up close, the polish cracks. There are shadows under his eyes, more pronounced than usual, and a tightness in his jaw he’s not quite hiding. He smells like starch and cologne and the faint coffee he chugged before leaving the house.
“You look…” He stops, searching for a word, then gives up and shakes his head. “You’re here.”
“So are you,” I say.
His gaze flicks around us, then down to my hands.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs.
I curl my fingers tighter around my clutch.
“Only on the inside,” I say.
“That doesn’t count,” he answers.
For a moment, we stand in a small pocket of stillness while Harbor Glen’s power base eddies around us. Doctors from the hill hospital, country club friends, the town’s mayor, old-money couples who treat the Mercer crest like a family sigil they’ve married into by association.
“He’s here,” Daniel says, his voice dropping.
My spine straightens.
“Where?” I ask.
He tips his head toward the press platform. A man in his forties stands there, tweed jacket amid the sea of evening wear, credentials on a lanyard, camera bag at his feet. He isn’t jostling for the best view like the others; he’s watching the whole room, taking it in with a reporter’s slow, thoughtful scan.
“That’s him?” I ask.
“Stevens,” Daniel says. “From the paper. I met him at the entrance, introduced him to the PR team as ‘running a feature on the foundation’s impact.’ He smiled like they’d handed him a gift basket.”
“Does he have everything?” I ask. “The files, the photo, the trust, the server logs—”
“Encrypted drive,” Daniel says. “He confirmed he got the link, downloaded everything. He’s waiting for the signal from Riley before he pushes anything live. His editor is on standby.”
Heat spikes behind my eyes.
“You did it,” I say.
“We did it,” he answers quickly. “If this goes sideways, it’s on all of us.”
“That’s not comforting,” I say.
He almost smiles.
“It’s honest,” he says. Then his expression shutters a little. “She’s here.”
I don’t need to ask who.
The energy at the far end of the room shifts, a ripple moving outward from the doors near the grand staircase. Conversation grows louder in one pocket, then hushes in another. People turn.
Evelyn enters with Robert on her arm.
She wears deep emerald, the fabric catching the light in quiet, confident flashes. A diamond brooch in the shape of the Mercer wave crest rests at her shoulder, catching every camera. Her hair is perfect, her smile calibrated to look generous and touched just enough by grief.
Guests surge toward her without being asked, forming a constellation around their star. She touches hands, kisses cheeks, lets herself be photographed in front of the glass with the harbor blazing behind her private reflection. In this light, she looks every inch the woman Harbor Glen believes in: the matriarch who rebuilt a hospital wing in her daughter’s memory, who lights the water every winter so no one forgets the children who didn’t make it home.
Daniel’s hand tightens in the air between us, then drops.
“This is it,” he says.
“Program timing?” I ask.
“Ten minutes,” he says. “Welcome, video, then impact stories. That’s her cue. That’s ours.”
The emcee mounts the stage, shuffling note cards. The band quiets. Staff begin discreetly urging guests to find their seats, using that polite, practiced tone that makes movement feel mandatory.
I catch Riley’s eye across the room. She has found a seat in the back row, angled toward the aisle, hands flat on the tablecloth. Stevens stands near the press platform, phone in his hand, gaze fixed on the stage.
My phone buzzes.
Riley: Last chance to run.
My fingers hover over the screen.
Me: Last chance to hide.
I watch her read it. Her mouth curves, then firms. She pockets her phone and lifts her chin toward the stage in a tiny, wordless ready.
“Hannah,” Daniel says.
I look at him.
“Whatever happens up there,” he says, “I’m with you.”
The promise lands somewhere between us, fragile and heavy. I nod once, because anything more will break something open I can’t afford to spill right now.
The house lights dim, leaving only the stage in full glow and the harbor beyond in a blaze of moving light. Voices quiet, chairs scrape, crystal clinks softly as hands release glasses and turn toward the front.
The emcee smiles into the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, his voice filling the room, “welcome to the Mercer Foundation’s annual Light the Harbor gala.”
My heart slams against my ribs.
The arena has opened.
And somewhere inside this gilded cage, the truth waits at a microphone that is about to be turned on.