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An explosion ripped through the sky.

Another.

The crowd of party guests looked up as one, riveted by the colourful drama unfolding above them. Mouths held open and eyes wide, they took in the impressive sight of a surprise fireworks display as it screeched and flashed red sparks, filling the humid night with a sunset of smoke. Glasses were raised, and a round of cheers momentarily drowned out the crashing sounds of the fireworks as the guests toasted their extravagant host.

It was midnight at the Cavanagh house on Sydney Harbour, and the party was just starting to get into full swing. Though it was several weeks after the real Chinese New Year, 350 glamorous A-listers, socialites and VIPs had gathered at this place on the shore, dressed in the theme of the night. The women wore updated versions of the traditional Chinese cheongsam neck-to-knee dress, many reworked into abbreviated minis, or slit to the waist to better flaunt the women’s
tanned assets. One infamous men’s magazine model had arrived with her ‘dress’ created using body paint on her generous curves. The men wore silk brocade or kung-fu-style suits, and still others arrived shirtless, Bruce Lee-style, to reveal their dedicated personal trainers’ work. Waiters wore high-necked black ensembles, balancing trays of drinks or circulating with bottles of Moët to top up champagne glasses. A steady flow of Asian canapés tempted guests, though few of the carefully dressed women dared touch them for fear of smearing their silk outfits with a stray spring roll or dribble of hoi sin sauce.

The Darling Point residence where the esteemed guests had gathered was impressive by even the most privileged standards. It boasted fifteen bedrooms, luxurious living areas—the largest of which had been cleared of furniture for the night and currently housed a DJ and his sound equipment—a sprawling kitchen of marble and stainless steel, a home theatrette and a gym, maid’s quarters and a tennis court. Tonight, torches and red lanterns lit the manicured pathways at the back of the house, coaxing guests down to the outdoor pool area, where they sipped cocktails and admired an unobstructed view of the continuing fireworks. With panoramic views over Sydney Harbour, palatial gardens, and its own private waterfront and small pier, the Cavanagh property was one of the most costly slices of land in the country, owned by one of Australia’s richest families.

And didn’t the guests know it.

The most coveted hairdressers from the upmarket suburb of Double Bay had been booked out for days beforehand, grooming ageing socialites and hot young It girls for the exclusive event. The parade of gleaming Maseratis, Rolls-Royce limos, Ferraris and Porsches that appeared at the front door had been waxed and polished, some having been surreptitiously rented by guests in anticipation of their brief but important first impression on the valet outside. Unable to pass the security guards to gain entry to the private grounds, paparazzi huddled at the kerb to snap what they could of the rich and the famous as they arrived. For weeks, gossip writers had filled their Sunday columns with speculation over who would make the guest list and who would not. And the chosen crowd did not disappoint: visiting movie stars, heiresses, Olympians and a handful of minor royals mingled with the movers and shakers of big business and politics. Anyone who was anyone was there, and those who had not been invited knew too well that they would be overlooked on the invite lists of the Sydney social scene for the rest of the year.

Makedde Vanderwall was not concerned about invite lists or the social circuit.

Nor was she vying for the opportunity to shake hands with Australia’s A-list, or flirt with one of the country’s most eligible bachelors.

The budding private investigator had other ideas.

She had chosen her moment of arrival carefully. It was after eleven and most of the guests were already inside; security were getting bored in their duties. As she neared the house, she noticed the still-hopeful paparazzi leaning against the stone outer walls of the property, not permitted to enter the party. They smoked cigarettes and chatted like soldiers on a break before the next battle. This was probably quite a different crew to the photographers who had rushed her on the steps of the Supreme Court during the Stiletto Murder trial, Mak reminded herself. These were full-time celebrity snappers, here for the movie stars, heiresses and royalty. Even if some of the photographers were the same, she thought it unlikely that anyone from the courthouse steps would recognise her here, in these circumstances, as that scared witness.

Mak took a deep breath.

You can do it. This will be easy.

Her driver turned the car into the driveway, the photographers now watching with great interest as the polished Lamborghini Murcielago slunk past, low to the ground, gleaming in the light of the streetlamps. A couple of quick flashes went off at Mak in the passenger seat, startling her. The mood changed quite suddenly. A handful of men threw their cigarettes to the ground and ran up the drive towards the entrance, hauling their cameras up to
their faces. Security moved forwards and kept the growing throng of overtired photographers back on the other side of the car so that Mak could get out near the steps.

This is it.

Mak had decided that this charade was her best hope of getting inside. If she blew it, she had scant hope of scaling those stone walls or getting past security.

Come on.

Brenda Bale’s alarmingly thin slave, Julio—a wealthy luxury car dealer with a fetishist’s nocturnal life who looked to Mak like Riff Raff from
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
—was dressed in a smart black rented uniform and driver’s cap. He stopped his car and came around to Mak’s side while she sat with her hands in her lap, heart pounding. The door clicked, unlocking. Julio pulled it open and Mak swung one foot out onto the drive, then the other. The photographers slunk around the sides of the car, shoving against one another to jostle for position and pushing the boundaries of the security guards, who held them back firmly with open palms.

‘Hey. Stay back. Stay back!’ someone said.

Mak exited Julio’s luxury vehicle and stood; like a star shower, the night was illuminated by flashes. Photos were taken in such rapid succession that Mak found it dizzying, the flashes nearly blinding in the dark. Yellow blobs floated
before her eyes when she closed them. She stepped forwards as casually as she could and flipped her hair back, letting it fall again over her shoulders and one side of her face, both intentionally glamorous and cleverly obscuring her identity. She sauntered towards the front door alone, head up with an air of importance, putting on the act of her life.

Owww.

Her bruises throbbed. Thankfully the party was black tie, and she’d worn a long dress with a slit up the right side. She had to concentrate on walking elegantly. Her body didn’t like the movement, the high heels. She would take them off as soon as she could.

Mak could see two security guards swathed in black flanking the entrance.

Please don’t stop me…please don’t stop me…

The security guards watched her approach, coolly. One of them had a clipboard with what was obviously the guest list on it—the list that she was most certainly
not
on. Mak didn’t want to have to give them a name. Stopping to give them a name—any name—would be social death. She had to be able to sail right through, too important to pause for security and their petty lists. That was the only way to do this. Unwittingly playing into her hands, the photographers continued to snap excitedly, and she used them. Mak turned and gave them a quick wave, egging them on and pausing for a
few seconds to give a cheeky smile over one shoulder, a pose she’d seen starlets do on the Oscars red carpet. The photographers snapped away, and before they were done getting their shot she’d sauntered straight into the doorway past security, still minxing like a supermodel.

And she kept going.

Behind her she overheard Brenda’s friend Julio say loudly enough for the security to hear, ‘Where shall I park Ms Schiffer’s car?’

Mak coughed.
Schiffer?
She was no Claudia Schiffer! She restrained herself from looking back to see the fuss outside. Now that she was past security they did not have her face for comparison. Who knows—they might even believe that she was indeed Claudia. The photographers, though, would not be so easily fooled, especially when they reviewed the images on their digital camera screens. Still, Julio’s request would be enough to keep security occupied while she slipped away into the crowd at the party.

She was in.

Simon checked his watch. It was time.

It was nearly two hours after the last of the main guests had arrived, and it was the moment for the grand arrival of the birthday boy himself.

Simon prompted the DJ to put on the theme to the James Bond film
Live and Let Die
, played so loud that no one could miss it. The crowd, enchanted by the fireworks, stopped what they were doing and turned towards the harbour, anticipating whatever was about to happen. As the bursts of fireworks halted above, a spotlight from the shore fixed itself on an old Chinese junk approaching just beyond the pier. A grinning Damien Cavanagh stood on the deck, bathed in the spotlight. He wore a blue silk smoking jacket emblazoned with gold dragons, and held a cigar between his lips. Reminiscent of a self-conscious young Hugh Hefner, or a wannabe Bond, he was surrounded by a bevy of scantily clad Chinese beauties who helped him down the ladder on the side of the small vessel to board the jet ski that came to fetch him. A round of cheers rose up
from his mates in the waiting crowd, as others clapped politely.

Damien would be delighted with his entrance, Simon knew. Though many would find this flashy arrival unbearably gauche, the truth was, they would never say so. And one man who wouldn’t be commenting was Damien’s father, Jack Cavanagh. He and Bev had greeted a number of the guests and made a low-key departure shortly before eleven, to be driven to their sprawling Palm Beach abode, leaving Damien for the remainder of the weekend to enjoy his extravagant thirtieth birthday party with the younger crowd. Nor was Damien’s boring fiancée around to ruin things. Carolyn had spent Friday night out with Damien at a swanky restaurant, and had afterwards flown to Paris to shop, with Simon’s encouragement—‘
It will just be a boring party. Corporate types sucking up to Jack
…’ The last thing Simon wanted was either Carolyn or Jack hanging around complicating things after everything that had gone on.

Now that Damien had arrived, the party would really get into full swing. The chosen guests, fuelled by rounds of free-flowing Moët and vodka Red Bull cocktails, cheered their young host’s birthday as if it was the most important night of their life.

And, for some, it would be.

Wow.

Mak had rarely seen a private home of this size.

Walking through the Cavanagh home with a glass of champagne in her hand, moving past the smattering of guests not already outside watching the spectacle on the shore, Mak found the size of the sprawling urban residence almost obscene. How many people actually lived here, in these fifteen bedrooms? Maybe three, including the son? Within every room could be found another space decorated flawlessly with expensive furnishings and art. If one measured success purely in material wealth, Mak imagined that the owner of this home must be deeply unhappy by now, as there could be little left to purchase.

She made her way into a living room where empty cocktail glasses sat on a sleek coffee table. A handbag sat on a settee; a jacket was thrown over a chair. Their owners were pressed up against the balcony railing, their backs to her, oblivious to her presence. Mak moved through
the room and spotted a doorway at the back that had been deliberately and uninvitingly closed to the partygoers. She tried the handle—it wasn’t locked. She took advantage of the distraction of the celebrations outside to go quietly through it into the hallway beyond, shutting it behind her carefully, even though the noise outside meant that she was unlikely to be heard.

Mak put her glass down for a moment and slipped her stilettos off. She bent over painfully and picked up her shoes, holding them in one hand, the straps slipping through her fingers. She grabbed her cool champagne glass again—a prop to help her blend in if she was seen.

Mak took a small sip and stretched her sore legs, circling her stiff ankles.

Ahhhh. That’s better.

Okay. To the bedrooms.

This side of the house was quiet and dark. It seemed that everyone, including the Cavanagh family, was outside watching the fireworks. But there was a possibility that security would patrol these areas of the house, particularly if she was right in her suspicions and the Cavanaghs were worried about covering their tracks.

Please, God, let me be right about this, or I don’t know if I’ll ever live it down.

The long, dark hallway was lit only with a couple of large glowing candelabras. She admired statues and paintings in gilded frames as she made her way past them barefoot. The paintings were
impressive: original Jeffrey Smarts and Arthur Boyds, but no Brett Whiteley that she could see. Yet. She reached a staircase that extended both upwards and down, and decided to start at the top, where she felt the bedrooms were most likely to be.

She began her ascent.

Only three stairs up, Mak heard a noise from above and froze in place. It sounded like a door closing, and footsteps. A guest using a toilet back here? A family member? Was it Jack Cavanagh himself? Or one of his security crew?

Damn.

Whoever it was, Mak couldn’t afford to be seen. She retreated back down the stairs, weighed her options and decided to continue down to the ground floor to wait. Fortunately the stairway carpet made for a near-silent descent. Quickly and quietly she descended the stairs, legs burning again, until she stood at the bottom of the staircase, holding the banister and listening…

Makedde had hoped to find an ‘at home’ piece in some stylish magazine in the library archives that might have helped her to find her way around the Cavanagh house; or even a photo spread that pictured the Cavanagh family with the Whiteley itself in the background—but there had been nothing. Despite the notorious beauty and size of the place, and the press surrounding the Cavanaghs’ major business deals, the family seemed to be very private. They did
not invite the press into their homes. Mak was left to roam the impressive residence with little information to go on except the grainy, disturbing images of a mysteriously sent video.

Footsteps.

The slam of a door.

Mak gripped the railing in the dark and hoped that whoever was upstairs would not come her way.