The dark polished mahogany of the corridor felt less like a luxury finish and more like the side of a casket.

Thirty-six hours later.

The private aviation terminal at Miami International Airport was quiet at six o'clock on a humid Thursday morning. Low grey clouds hung over the tarmac, reflecting the amber glare of the runway floodlights.

Inside the private lounge, Flynn Sterling sat in a leather armchair, wearing an expensive black suit with a crisp white shirt. A neat white bandage was taped over his right cheekbone, covering the deep cut where I had smashed the crystal glass into his face.

Beside him sat Aidan and Fiona, both wearing dark, mourning-appropriate attire. Fiona had a black lace scarf wrapped around her neck, her eyes rimmed with artfully applied red makeup to simulate thirty-six hours of continuous weeping.

Across the low glass coffee table sat Detective Marcus Reyes of the Miami-Dade Maritime Homicide Division, along with two representatives from the United States Coast Guard.

"We searched a forty-square-mile grid around the Mona Passage, Mr. Sterling," Detective Reyes said softly, closing his leather notebook. "Given the sea state at midnight during the storm, the survival window in those waters without a flotation device was less than ninety minutes."

Flynn covered his face with his hands, letting out a heavy, shuddering sigh that sounded remarkably like a man consumed by unbearable grief.

"I should have gone out with her," Flynn groaned, his voice muffled behind his fingers. "She said she was feeling sick... she wanted fresh air... I told her to wait, but the swell hit us, and when I came out to the aft deck... she was just gone."

"It was an accident, Detective," Fiona interjected smoothly, laying a gentle hand on her son's shoulder. "Cassandra was taking strong prescription medication for her severe vertigo. We begged her not to go near the rail in that weather."

"We understand, Mrs. Sterling," Reyes said, nodding sympathetically. "The official Coast Guard report will list the incident as an accidental fall overboard due to severe weather conditions and rider impairment. We’ll issue the initial declaration of missing-presumed-drowned within the hour so you can notify her family."

"Her parents..." Flynn wept, lifting his head, his eyes red and dry. "Her poor father... he’s in Switzerland right now. I don't know how I'm going to tell him his only daughter is gone."

"You don't have to tell him, Flynn," a voice said from the doorway.

The room went entirely, deathly still.

The temperature in the lounge seemed to plummet twenty degrees in a single second.

Flynn froze. His hands slowly lowered from his face.

Standing in the double glass doorway of the lounge, framed by two armed officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was my father, Edward Vance.

He looked sixty-five years old, broad-shouldered, wearing his customary dark charcoal three-piece suit. His silver hair was neatly combed, his face carved out of granite, his blue eyes cold enough to freeze the room where he stood.

Behind him stepped a woman.

She wore a dark tailored suit, her hair pulled back into a tight, professional knot. Her right thumb was wrapped in a neat medical bandage, and a subtle faint line of blue bruises showed along her jawline.

Me.

Fiona let out a high-pitched, strangled shriek, dropping her coffee cup onto the marble floor. The porcelain shattered into a dozen pieces, dark liquid spreading across the white tile.

Aidan leaped to his feet, his chair flying backward, his face turning the color of milk. "WHAT THE—"

Flynn didn't move. He sat frozen in the leather armchair, his jaw slack, his eyes wide with a terrifying, paralyzing shock, as if he were looking at an apparition that had climbed straight out of the depths of hell.