My closest confidante from our university days. The desperate woman I had personally rescued from bankruptcy when her boutique PR agency imploded. The woman I ushered into Vance Capital as the Director of Communications because she had sat weeping at my kitchen island, swearing she only needed one person in this ruthless city to believe in her. I had granted her unrestricted access to my private office, my calendar, my elite clients, my sanctuary of a home, and, fatally, every emotional vulnerability I should have ruthlessly guarded.
Over the past three years, she had systematically borrowed fragments of my life before attempting to swallow it whole.
Downstairs, a radio crackled. A guard’s voice murmured something indistinguishable. Mrs. Higgins flinched, clutching her apron. “They whispered that if you became ‘agitated’ and tried to breach the stairs, they are authorized to summon a private psychiatric transport team.”
