Blood dotted the white marble before Evelyn Hart understood it was hers.

At first she thought it was water.

The bathroom was full of shine, and everything in Roman Callahan’s private rooms reflected something else.

The crystal light reflected in the mirror.

The mirror reflected the marble.

The marble reflected her bare foot, the maid uniform hanging loose at her waist, and the small red drops appearing one by one near the bathtub.

Then the smell reached her.

Copper.

Not soap.

Not bleach.

Blood.

Evelyn went still, one hand braced on the vanity, the other pressed to her mouth before any sound could escape.

The room was too beautiful for what had happened inside it.

White marble ran up the walls in clean, expensive slabs.

Gold fixtures gleamed under soft crystal light.

A rain-streaked window showed only the blurred glow of Chicago below, the Gold Coast looking polished and untouchable from four floors up.

Even the towels looked too perfect to use.

Evelyn had spent enough of her life cleaning other people’s houses to know the difference between wealth and performance.

This room was both.

It had been built to make a person feel small without anyone having to say a word.

She bent and saw the cut on her calf.

It was not deep.

It must have come from the sharp corner of the bathtub while she was scrubbing too fast, trying to make up for the time she had lost on the phone with Caleb.

But the cut bled more than it should have.