Chapter 282
The entire back garden and the small study were complete blind spots for the security cameras.
The manor had been designed around Grandpa Sterling’s preferences. He despised feeling surveilled in his private spaces, meaning there were zero cameras in his personal quarters, the study, or the garden.
That eccentric demand now meant it was completely impossible to pull any footage for proof.
Every single clue pointed in one specific direction, yet each thread inexplicably snapped right at the most crucial juncture.
It was as if someone had deliberately laid out a trail of puzzle pieces, only to maliciously snatch away the center piece.
Unable to find a single trace of evidence, Sienna had no choice but to turn back.
Just as she rounded a thick cluster of shrubs, a panicked figure abruptly came into view.
It was Greta, Celeste’s personal maid.
She was clutching a sealed trash bag, her face pale with anxiety as she practically sprinted toward the manor’s back gate.
It looked like she was desperate to dispose of whatever was in her hand.
Suddenly, Greta’s phone began to ring.
The shrill sound made her jump out of her skin. She spun around, scanning her surroundings with wide, paranoid eyes.
Sienna reacted instantly, sliding behind the thick trunk of a sweetbriar tree, holding her breath until she was completely camouflaged in the shadows.
Oblivious to the eyes watching her, the maid crouched low and answered the phone. Her voice was trembling but intensely respectful.
“Ms. Carlyle p>
Sienna couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end of the line.
But she watched the maid’s face drain of all color as the girl frantically checked her surroundings once more.
Greta rushed over to a dense patch of overgrown bushes, shoved the black trash bag deep inside, and carefully pulled the branches over it to hide the evidence.
After making sure she hadn’t been spotted, she smoothed out her uniform, forced her expression into neutrality, and hurried back toward the main house.
Sienna didn’t move a muscle, staying pinned against the tree until the maid was long gone and the garden was dead silent.
Only then did she step out from the shadows.
She walked briskly to the bushes, pushed the branches aside, and pulled out the black trash bag.
The moment Sienna untied the knot, a deeply familiar scent hit her.
It wasn’t the stench of rotting food: It was a metallic, coppery odor shë had dealt with a thousand times before in the ER one she could recognize in her sleep.
Blood.
Peering inside, Sienna caught sight of a recognizable piece of fabric near the bottom of the bag.
She pulled it out. It was a heavily stained handkerchief.
The cloth was covered in dark, crusted patches that looked exactly like dried blood.
It was the exact same handkerchief Celeste had ordered the maid to use to clean up Grandpa Sterling’s blood after his fall.
The stains had completely coagulated, taking on a dull, grayish-red hue with stiff, blackened edges.
After years in medicine, Sienna possessed an almost instinctual sensitivity to the properties of blood.
The color was completely wrong. The texture was wrong.
When human blood coagulates, it turns a deep crimson, and as it oxidizes, it shifts to a brownish tint.
Over time, it looks almost like coffee grounds.
But this p>
Sienna brought the handkerchief closer and inhaled carefully. A sharp, rancid stench flooded her sinuses.
It lacked the faint, slightly sweet metallic undertone of human blood entirely.
Her stomach dropped as her professional instincts screamed at her.
This wasn’t human blood at all!
The mess Celeste had been so desperate to wipe up and hide wasn’t Grandpa’s blood?
The knot of dread in her chest tightened into a suffocating grip.
Sienna forced herself to take a deep breath, spending a few seconds forcing her racing heart to calm down.
Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a clean tissue.
With surgical precision, she scraped a tiny flake of the coagulated blood off the handkerchief, folded it safely into the tissue, and tucked it into an inner pocket of her bag.
She retied the trash bag, shoved it back into the bushes exactly as she’d found it and slipped out of the back garden like a ghost
The second she stepped into the main hall, a suffocating tension hung in the air.