Glass Lane

Chapter 1: Mel

Gold light flooded the hall. Tall pillars, smooth and white, lined the space and basked in the glow of lamps carefully placed around their bases. A flood of voices swelled in the space, dotted with rounded tables, their surfaces drenched in white linens. Everywhere, the black and white clad dots of the museum's donors moved and mingled among one another. Many held sparkling glasses of champagne in their gloved or bejeweled hands.

The crackle of a microphone broke over the crowd, as a bright voice chirped through sharp and clear.

"Thank you so much, everyone. Myself and the team here at the museum want to thank you for being a part of this special night. That's why we wanted to take this moment to remind you all just how much we appreciate the work that you do to keep this museum alive."

The guests milled back and forth, settling into their seats. The auction was over, it was time to get to the main event of the evening. Each of the guests glittered with the wealth and opulence of the city's elite.

Mel Halloway watched the crowd with a mixture of envy and wonder.

"I think the woman at table twenty-three is wearing jewelry worth more than my student loans," she mumbled to Joe, the photographer standing beside her.

The paper had sent both of them to cover the event. It was one of the biggest nights in Manworth City's high society. Anyone important to the city was there on show. Scattered across the white-clad tables were the Manworth's titans of business, who had come down from their towers of steel and glass to grace mortals like Mel with their presence. Sitting beside them were the socialites, celebrities, and old-money names that kept the rest of the city ticking over behind its thinly veiled glamor.

Mel could tag most of them by name.

Marlow Hathorn. Peter Richards. The Dowager Duchess of Rothsmore, who had become somewhat of a social spectacle, while living in luxurious exile far away from her war-torn country.

Of course, the biggest of them all was the Cross family.

The founders of Manworth City, the Cross family lived in one of the biggest and most expensive penthouse spreads in the High Side - the most exclusive district in town. Their names were everywhere, on everything. Streets were named after them. They sat on the boards of banks, businesses, and charities like the National Institute of Art History, which was the biggest museum in town.

Mel could just make out the Cross family table at the front of the room, close to the stage.

Notoriously insular, they had the whole space to themselves. Mel took a note of each of them, scribbling notes in her notepad and wondering what secrets they whispered across the candle-laden centerpieces.

Hampton Cross, the head of the family and heir to the Cross fortune, sat with his back to the audience and his face to the stage. The patriarch of the family was an infamous businessman with an eye for flipping struggling properties. Carrying on the legacy of his forefathers, he had overseen the building of high-side and a thousand other properties in Manworth City's other districts.

Beside Hampton sat his sparkling beauty of a wife, the old-school heiress Barbara Crompton. A half dozen other Cross family members sat around them, including their eldest daughter Charlie.

Mel was surprised to see Charlie Cross there. The eldest of Hampton's brood, the disgraced socialite had been all over the headlines for a drunk driving incident in the weeks before the gala. 

"Do you think I could get an interview with them?" Mel whispered to Joe. "Maybe Charlie would talk. She likes to give interviews, I hear, if you ask her about what designer she's wearing"