Chapter 2

At two on Saturday afternoon, more than a dozen of us from the department piled into a rented shuttle bus and headed into Crestview Hills.

We stopped outside the front gate of my house.

Chloe led the way, making a show of entering the code.

“Beep, beep, beep. Incorrect code.”

The electronic lock delivered its cold announcement.

Everyone paused.

Sweat broke out across Chloe’s forehead.

Emma asked in confusion, “Chloe, did you get the code wrong?”

Chloe stammered an explanation.

“M-maybe my fiancé changed it yesterday. Let me try again.”

I glanced at my phone.

Ten minutes earlier, I had used the house’s smart-home app to change the temporary access code to my birthday.

The feature was meant to let the housekeeper come and go. It was proving useful now.

There was no way Chloe could get it open.

She entered the code five times. Every attempt failed.

A shrill alarm blared from the door. “System locked. Please contact property management.”

Nina gave her a suspicious look.

“Chloe, is this house actually yours? How do you not know the code to your own home?”

Chloe stamped her foot in frustration and kicked the lock.

“Stupid thing! The battery must be dead!”

She turned around, desperately trying to save face.

“Wait here. I’ll call my fiancé and have him unlock it remotely!”

She took out her phone and walked aside, putting on a show.

I couldn’t be bothered to watch her act anymore. I stepped forward.

I pressed my right index finger to the fingerprint scanner. I had registered my fingerprints the day I got the keys, and property management had my biometric information on file too.

“Beep. Welcome home, owner.”

The heavy security door swung open.

A deathly silence fell.

Everyone stared at me, wide-eyed.

Chloe stood with her phone raised, her mouth hanging open like a duck being strangled.

Emma pointed at me, stammering.

“S-Sophie… How did you open that?”

I brushed the dust off my hands.

“I bought the door. Of course I can open it.”

I walked into the living room first.

“Come on in. Make yourselves at home.”

Our coworkers exchanged looks before turning toward Chloe.

She snapped out of her daze and charged inside on her heels.

“Sophie! Stop playing tricks!”

“You must have used some hacking app to crack my lock!”

“This is trespassing! I’m calling the police!”

The louder she shouted, the more obvious her guilt became.

I settled onto the couch and crossed my legs.

“Go ahead. Call them.”

“They can check whose name is on the deed while they’re here.”

Chloe went white. She bit her lip hard, but she didn’t dare take out her phone.

Emma and Nina exchanged a look. They seemed to realize something was wrong.

But Chloe wasn’t done performing.

She suddenly rushed to the wine cabinet and yanked it open.

“Don’t listen to her nonsense! This house is mine!”

“To show you all how welcome you are, I’m treating everyone to the finest wine today!”

She took out a bottle in extremely luxurious packaging.

It had already been opened. The cork sat crookedly in the neck, and some of the wine was clearly missing. It was the same bottle she had poured into plastic cups in the video.

“My fiancé had someone buy this at a French auction house. Eighty thousand dollars a bottle!”

My gaze turned cold.

That was a rare, discontinued collector’s Romanée-Conti worth at least six million dollars.

My father had saved it especially for me.