A Wealthy Matriarch Collapsed After One Sip of Tea—Then a Little Girl Pointed at the Last Person Anyone Suspected

Chapter 06 - The Engagement Party That Continued

The recording should have ended Camille’s plan. Instead, her lawyers argued that the video had been edited. The man beside her was identified as Owen Vale, an Ashford security consultant who had left the country the morning after Eleanor collapsed.

Camille refused to leave Whitmore Hall.

“I live here,” she said. “We are engaged, and no court has charged me with anything.”

Then she announced that the engagement party would proceed as scheduled.

Lucas thought it was madness until Samuel explained the strategy. More than half the Whitmore board would attend. Camille intended to appear calm, devoted, and publicly united with Lucas. If he refused, she would present him as unstable. If he attended, photographs would suggest he had forgiven her.

Lucas agreed to go.

The ballroom filled with politicians, investors, and society reporters. Camille wore a silver gown instead of gold and greeted guests as though Eleanor were recovering from an ordinary illness. A large portrait of Lucas and Camille stood above the stage.

Lucas arrived alone.

When Camille reached for his arm, he stepped aside.

“This is not a celebration,” he told the crowd. “It is an opportunity to correct a lie.”

He played the nursery recording on the ballroom screen.

Guests watched Camille hide Rosa’s badge. They heard her speak about Eleanor being gone. The room erupted in whispers.

Camille did not panic.

She turned toward the audience with tears in her eyes. “The video is fake. Lucas’s housekeeper and her daughter have manipulated him during a family tragedy.”

Then every screen went black.

The estate’s power failed.

In the darkness, someone grabbed Lucas from behind. He fought free and heard glass shatter near the terrace. Emergency lights came on thirty seconds later.

Camille was gone.

So was the sealed evidence drive containing the original recording.

Upstairs, Sophie’s drawing had been removed from Lucas’s desk. The hospital called at the same moment: a woman posing as Eleanor’s private nurse had attempted to enter the intensive care unit.

Security stopped her, but she carried a syringe filled with the same heart medication found in Eleanor’s tea.

The woman refused to speak.

Hannah recognized her from Ashford Capital’s employee records.

Lucas finally understood that Camille’s plan had not ended when the first attempt failed. It had simply become more desperate.

He called Rosa.

“Take Sophie somewhere safe,” he said.

There was silence on the line.

Then Rosa whispered, “Lucas, Sophie is not with me.”