Chapter 3 - Priscilla’s $240,000 Tea Party Meltdown
Three days later, Zoey begged me to take her to the Queen’s Tea Room at the Biltmore Hotel—she’d seen a TikTok of little girls in princess dresses drinking pink lemonade and eating finger sandwiches, and she’d decided it was the only thing she wanted in the entire world. She wore her pale pink star dress again, the one she’d picked for the gala, paired with plastic Cinderella slippers that clicked loudly on the marble floors, and carried a tiny purse shaped like a strawberry. I dressed in a simple white linen dress, no jewelry, practical flats—deliberately underdressed, just like I had at the gala, because I wanted to see if Priscilla Pembroke would make the same mistake twice.
I should’ve known she’d be there. The tea room was Priscilla’s natural habitat: filled with Miami socialites in $10,000 couture, tiny yapping dogs in designer carriers, and enough diamond jewelry to fund a small country. We were seated at a corner table, Zoey cooing over a plate of rose-shaped macarons, when Priscilla swept in with three of her closest friends—all women who’d appeared in the Miami Herald’s society pages more times than I could count. She spotted us immediately, her red lipstick stretching into a cruel, thin smile, and sauntered over to our table like she owned the place.
“Well, well,” she purred, loud enough for the entire room to turn and stare. “If it isn’t the catering staff and her tiny plus-one. Did you get lost again, darling? The employee break room is down the hall, not in the middle of the tea room.” Her friends tittered, one of them fake-gasping and saying, “Priscilla, be nice! She probably saved up for months to bring her daughter here for a special treat. How… sweet.”
Zoey stopped mid-macaron, her lower lip trembling. She looked up at me, that same haunted question in her eyes from the gala—did we do something wrong?—but before I could answer, she turned to Priscilla, her voice small but steady. “My mommy’s not catering. She’s the boss of the hospital company. And you were mean to us at the party. That’s not very princess-like.”
The room went quiet. Priscilla’s face turned purple with rage. “How dare you speak to me like that, you little—”
“Priscilla,” I cut in, pulling a single printed receipt out of my purse and sliding it across the table between us. It was a charge from the Hermès store on Worth Avenue, dated two weeks after Sofia Marquez died: $241,892.79, paid for with a Vanguard Medical Systems corporate card, listed in the system as “executive client gifts.” I’d pulled it from Lila’s USB drive the night before, along with 47 other receipts totaling $9.8 million in personal spending: $120k for a custom Birkin, $50k for a weekend at a Malibu wellness retreat, $300 for a doggy psychic session for Priscilla’s Pomeranian, Mr. Wiggles.
“These aren’t client gifts,” I said, my voice loud enough for every table within 20 feet to hear. “This is the money you stole from the rural hospital budget that paid for Sofia Marquez’s cystic fibrosis meds. She died waiting for those meds, Priscilla. While you were buying diamond-encrusted dog collars.”
Priscilla’s friends went pale, inching their chairs back like they were scared being near her would rub off. “That’s a lie,” Priscilla spat, grabbing the receipt and crumpling it up. “That’s a forgery! You’re just a bitter little heiress who’s mad I didn’t kiss your daddy’s ring—”
“Forgery?” I pulled out my phone, tapping the screen to project a 10-second clip from Lila’s USB onto the tea room’s wall (I’d bribed the manager $500 to hook up a portable projector 10 minutes before we arrived). It was Priscilla, filmed on a security camera in the Hermès store, laughing as she handed the cashier the Vanguard card, saying, “Put it on the company tab, honey. The hicks in the Everglades won’t miss the money—they don’t even vote.”
The room erupted in gasps and whispers. A woman at the next table pulled out her phone, recording, while another muttered, “I always knew she was a snake.” Priscilla stared at the projection, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, then turned back to me, screaming so loud her voice cracked: “You’ll pay for this! Roderick will ruin you! You and your little brat—”
Zoey stood up on her chair, her Cinderella slipper slipping off one foot, and yelled back, “Don’t call my mommy names! And don’t call me a brat! You’re the brat! You steal medicine from sick kids to buy purses!” The entire tea room burst into applause—even the waiters were clapping. Priscilla stood there for a second, red-faced, humiliated, then grabbed her purse and stormed out, her friends scrambling after her, leaving their half-eaten scones behind.
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Zoey sat back down, grinning, and took a huge bite of macaron. “I told you Sparkles would help,” she said, patting the unicorn tucked in her strawberry purse. I laughed, pulling her into a hug, but my smile faded when my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Javier Mendez, my forensic auditor—Javier was Cuban-American, born and raised in Miami, a dad of two boys who loved baseball and Cuban sandwiches, and the only person I trusted to untangle Roderick’s messy finances. His text was short, sharp, and made my blood run cold: Audit office broken into. Phoenix file missing. They left a half-burned ledger in the trash. Get here now.
I paid the bill, scooping Zoey up into my arms, and rushed out to the car. Priscilla’s meltdown had been satisfying, but it was just a distraction. Roderick wasn’t gonna let a few receipts take him down. He was already playing dirty—breaking into offices, burning evidence, threatening anyone who got in his way. And if he was willing to break into a secure office in broad daylight, there was no telling what he’d do next to keep that $78 million buried. I buckled Zoey into her car seat, kissing her forehead, and told the driver to step on it. The game had just gotten a whole lot more dangerous.
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