Read Online No Accident by Emily Blake - Free Book Online Page A

fantastic, wealthy prep school. Why would she give that up to live with a B-list actress in Tinseltown?

Chapter Seventeen
    Alison had a blister on her heel. The new ballet flats her grandmother had bought her weren’t built for this kind of hike. It had been a long walk from Stafford—a walk she had not planned on taking.
    Where was he? Alison fumed. Her father had not shown up like he’d said he would. And Alison was not sure who she was angrier with —him for breaking a promise, or herself for trusting him. She should have realized that the only person in her family she could trust was herself.
    Reaching the house at last, Alison hesitated on the stone walk. The driveway was filled withconstruction vehicles. Behind the house, construction workers were already busily rebuilding the pool house. A larger one this time, with a mosaic tile bottom and a more elaborate hot tub. Alison wondered if her grandmother was expanding it for her benefit —she knew how much Alison liked to spend time there. But since Alison was through being manipulated, she did not linger on the thought. Instead she opened the enormous front door noiselessly, slipped off her ballet flats, and stood in the grand foyer, listening.
    She heard her grandmother’s voice coming from the library. Grandmother Diamond was on the phone. Most of the help was done for the day, and Francesca was in the kitchen. Perfect. Her bad luck was about to turn into the opportunity Alison had been waiting for. With her shoes in her hand, she tiptoed up the central staircase and down the hall to her grandmother’s bedroom.
    The master suite was enormous. Though Tamara’s husband was long deceased—he died before Kelly and Alison were born—Tamara still stayed in the tremendous bedroom with itstwo adjoining sitting rooms, two adjoining bathrooms, and dual walk-in closets. Alison wondered if the empty other half ever reminded Grandmother Diamond how alone she was in the huge house, or if she even cared.
    With her heart hammering in her chest, Alison breathed slowly through her mouth. She needed to stay focused. Sleuthing in the Diamond estate was not easy. Grandmother Diamond was home more often than not, and Alison knew that the housekeepers, groundskeepers, cook, and driver were all eyes and ears for her. If she didn’t know how much her grandmother disliked technology, she might have suspected hidden cameras and microphones. Luckily for her, that was not the Diamond style.
    Alison drifted toward the sitting room with its chaise lounge and antique vanity and the walk-in closet beyond it. That’s where she would hide anything that was important—deep in the closet. Alison stopped. She was not her grandmother. She surveyed the room again. Opposite the king-sized bed was an enormous Monet painting, a blurry oil of water lilies at Giverny. Alison knew her grandmotherwas proud of it. She’d had her entire room redone with frescoed plaster and French silks in matching shades of pastel pink, blue, and green after she had acquired it. Which is why it struck Alison as odd that the painting was not lying flat against the wall.
    Silently Alison reached out and touched the frame. The painting swung easily away from the wall on hidden hinges. And behind it was the open door of a walk-in vault! Sucking in her breath, Alison felt her pulse race faster. She could not believe her luck! Her grandmother must have left the safe open to take her call in the library (she refused to keep a phone in her bedroom), not realizing Alison would come home so soon.
    If Alison’s hunch was correct and Grandmother Diamond had not burned all of her important documents in the fire, this was where they would be. Even though she had heard her grandmother tell Aunt Christine that whatever document Christine was worked up about had been torched in the pool house blaze, Alison suspected Her Highness was toocalculating—and too smart—to have destroyed