Claire Holt Young Novels & Stories

The lake trip had become reality. The house transformed immediately. Conversation filled every room. Laughter echoed down hallways. Apparently teenage girls could generate enough energy to power several small cities. Interesting. Very interesting. Claire arrived carrying photographs of rocks. Actual printed photographs. Organized alphabetically. Naturally. Emma arrived carrying a telescope. Naturally. Sophie arrived carrying snacks and insisting she was only there because everyone else was incapable of planning effectively. Also naturally. Mrs. Holt adored all three of them within approximately fourteen minutes.

I watch as she opens the envelope I recognize and takes out the contents. "Two drivers' licenses. One belonging to Horatio Riolli and one to Claire Carlisle-Bent." I pick them up, glance at Claire's. That was Valentina's mother's name. She can't be more than seventeen, eighteen here. She's smiling but there's a drawn look to her, a shadow in her eyes. Horatio, I recognize, even though he's much younger here. According to the licenses, they're both from Houston, Texas. Not New England where he'd always said he was from.

"But can you do me a favor? Will you listen to it, Hilary?" I nodded eagerly. "Of course." "Wait a moment." Claire stood up and stormed out of the kitchen and after a few seconds, she came back with a picture frame in her hand. Once she seated, she handed out the picture frame to me and I looked at it in curiosity. It was a picture of her young self and next to her was a man which I presumed, Khloe's father. They were sitting on a familiar place, yeah it was so familiar to me because they were in Khloe's tree house. What really surprised me was the little chubby girl on the man's lap.

"Hello, Mr. Holt. Why are you here so early in the day?" Holt nodded in greeting before saying coldly, "Wake her up and help her prepare all the documents. We'll be leaving in five minutes." Clara hurried to do as he said. She opened Amy's bedroom door and said, "Wake up, Ms. Quilton. Mr. Holt is here." However, no one responded to her. Clara called again, "Ms. Quilton, did you hear me?" She walked to the bed and lifted the blanket. Then, she screamed in surprise.

She's as young as my son and her hair was blue as ice. She smiles sheepishly at me. "Dad, I want you to meet Claire. Claire, this is my father. Hugo Saintclare." Ben gestured us to each other. "Hi. It's a pleasure to meet you young lady." I say, offering a handshake. She accepts and kept her smile on her face. I knew why my son liked her, she is indeed a beautiful young teenage girl and I can tell that she is nice. "Im very honored to meet you Mr. Saintclare. My mom and all of my aunts are huge huge fans of yours." She tells me.

"You asked me to contact Claire’s relatives. She has none, except for an aunt who has dementia and lives alone. By my sources, I found out that Claire lived her entire life in New York, but when she was 18, she moved to the UK. There is no clear reason for her move to the UK, except that people say she wanted to travel the world. However, I found it suspicious, considering Claire’s history." "I contacted my sources at Oxford and found out that Claire was indeed enrolled there in the same course as your mom. And Politician Scuderi, who studied law, happened to take a minor in Fiona and Claire’s department," Adeline said. "Claire was either expelled or resigned. We’re not sure which, but then

"Ella is my daughter. Whatever Claire put in your head it was all lies. Since you know the Young family then you must know what truly happened back then." [Of course, I know. After all, I am the one who helped you and Claire bring down the Young family. How else could Claire purchase a deadly poison in the black market when she is only a little secretary at that time? How could the Young family who has a deep history crumble down in instant with Claire's little tricks?]

Everything was small, coded, private. I clicked through anyway. A society column named The Lattice had a short post about Holt’s philanthropy donations here, investments there but not the party. Someone in the comments speculated it might be a black-and-gold gala at his penthouse. Someone else said it would be by invitation only, “if you’re not on the list, don’t even try.” The words felt like a slap and a dare at once. Then I tried event planners for Adrian Holt, and there it was—Allegra Events. A top-tier planning company that handled only private clients. I clicked through their site, scanned every line, and found the name I was looking for: Clara Monroe — Senior Coordinator.

Claire was the only prisoner here. We reached her cell, and I came to a stop. I unconsciously squeezed Holly’s hand. Claire sat on the simple cot in the corner, clad in a red prisoner jumpsuit. She looked far different than the woman I once knew. Gone were the long auburn curls I remembered. Her hair was shorter, styled in a sleek blonde bob barely reaching her shoulders. Her striking blue eyes, still sharp as ever, held an edge of defiance, but something else was beneath it. Calculation. A mask she had perfected.

Laura was tapped on the shoulder by someone who said, "Laura, it looks like you're going to be popular, your assistant is Claire." "Who's Claire? Who is she?" Laura asked confused. "You don't even know Claire? She is Mr. Bradford's ex-wife who was supposed to have died 5 years ago. But they probably made a mistake and thought your assistant was her." Laura replied with a half-hearted laugh, "That's right, they're probably wrong, it's ridiculous. At that moment, Jason and Paul entered the surveillance room and checked to see where this woman named Chloe was. He remained very confident that it was Claire.