Chapter 5 - The Masquerade Ball of Lies
Three days later, the memorial service for "Claire Bennett" was held at a prestigious chapel in downtown Bellevue. It was a lavish, deeply hypocritical affair funded entirely by what little liquid cash Ethan had managed to scrape together from personal credit card advances.
I watched from the tinted backseat of a hired town car parked across the street, wearing a wide-brimmed black mourning hat and heavy sunglasses that completely obscured my face.
Inside the chapel, the organ played a mournful dirge. Through long-range telescopic lenses, I observed the front row. Ethan sat center stage, dressed in an impeccably tailored Giorgio Armani black suit, his face buried dramatically in a black silk handkerchief. Seated right beside him, draped in expensive designer mourning attire, was Megan, playing the role of the grieving, supportive best friend to absolute perfection.
Local business associates, socialites, and distant acquaintances stepped up one by one to offer their condolences, patting Ethan on the back and murmuring comforting platitudes about tragic accidents and cruel fates.
"Look at them," muttered Mrs. Ruth, who was seated quietly beside me in the back of the town car. She had insisted on accompanying me, revealing herself not merely as a random hitchhiker, but as a retired federal investigator who had been tracking Ethan's shady financial background for months, waiting for the right moment to intersect with my life.
"They're basking in the spotlight," I replied softly, my gaze fixed on Ethan as he dabbed his dry eyes before cameras from local financial news blogs.
"A man who builds his house on a foundation of sand will always invite the tide," Mrs. Ruth observed, folding her hands neatly over her cane. "Are you ready to pull the rug out completely?"
"Not yet," I said, a chilling calm washing over me. "Tonight is their charity gala debut. Ethan scheduled it weeks ago to announce his grand acquisition of a major municipal real estate portfolio—funded, of course, by the anticipation of my insurance payout. Let’s let him walk onto that stage first."
That evening, the grand ballroom of the Bellevue Grand Hotel glittered with crystal chandeliers, champagne fountains, and elite socialites draped in diamonds and designer gowns. It was the premier charity gala of the season, an event where corporate titans and high-society elites gathered to flaunt their wealth and influence.
Ethan and Megan arrived fashionably late, making a grand, theatrical entrance down the sweeping marble staircase. Ethan wore a pristine tuxedo, flashing charismatic smiles to the flashing cameras, while Megan clung to his arm like a trophy wife, soaking in the envious whispers of the crowd.
They thought they had won. They thought the ghost of Claire Bennett had been permanently erased from the ledger of the living.
They were catastrophically wrong.
I stood in the shadows of the VIP balcony on the mezzanine level, clad in a breathtaking, floor-length crimson silk evening gown that commanded the room without uttering a single word. Over my eyes, I wore an intricate, Venetian lace masquerade mask encrusted with black diamonds.
As Ethan stepped up to the mahogany podium on the main stage to deliver his keynote speech about the bright, prosperous future of Bennett Technologies, the massive overhead LED projector flickered to life behind him.
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Instead of the corporate promotional slides he had meticulously prepared, the giant screen abruptly lit up with crisp, high-definition security footage and clear audio waveforms.
The entire ballroom went dead silent.
