She Slapped Her Stepmother Before the Whole Ballroom

CHAPTER 1 - The Slap Before Midnight

"How dare you accuse me!"

Beatrice Vale stood over Elena, her trembling finger almost touching the young woman's face.

Guests surrounded them inside the Vale mansion's ballroom. Most had already heard Beatrice's accusation.

A priceless emerald brooch had disappeared from the handbag of Margaret Sloan, the family's sixty-eight-year-old attorney.

Beatrice claimed a servant found its velvet case beneath Elena's chair.

"You have hated me since I married your father," Beatrice declared. "Now you are trying to blame me for your crime."

Elena's eyes burned.

"Stop lying. I saw everything."

She slapped Beatrice.

The ballroom gasped as Beatrice fell onto the marble floor.

Elena immediately regretted losing control, but she did not retreat. For ten years, Beatrice had called her unstable, jealous, and unworthy of the Vale name.

Tonight, that pattern would end.

Elena removed her phone.

"Now everyone gets to see the truth."

The ballroom screen flickered.

Black-and-white surveillance footage showed Beatrice approaching Margaret's handbag. She checked that no one was watching, removed the emerald brooch, and concealed it inside her own purse.

Beatrice's face went pale.

"No. Turn it off!"

The recording continued.

Five minutes later, Beatrice entered the coatroom carrying Elena's red clutch. She slipped the empty jewelry case inside it, then left the clutch beneath Elena's chair.

Guests began backing away from her.

Elena looked down at her stepmother.

"You wanted a scene. Now you have one."

Beatrice attempted to stand.

"This proves nothing. The brooch belongs to the Vale family."

"No," Margaret said, stepping forward. "It belonged to Elena's grandmother, and you knew exactly why I brought it tonight."

Elena had believed it was merely a family heirloom.

Margaret opened the brooch's hidden compartment. It was empty.

"The key is gone," she said.

"What key?" Elena asked.

Margaret looked toward Beatrice.

"The key to the safe-deposit box containing your father's original will."

Beatrice's frightened expression supplied the answer before she spoke.

Thomas Vale's will had left Beatrice control of the company and given Elena almost nothing.

But if another will existed, everything could change.

Beatrice had not stolen the brooch for its emerald. She had stolen it to keep a dead man's final wishes buried.