Chương 1
“No! Mommy said never lose it!”
Ivy’s frightened cry struck the room at the same instant the silver box struck the hardwood floor. Lauren had pulled it from the child’s hands too quickly, more irritated than cruel, and the little antique case slipped through her fingers. Its engraved lid snapped open with a sharp metallic crack. Something bright spun out, flashing in the late-afternoon sunlight, while Skye made a small, shocked sound and vanished behind Dominic Vale’s leg.
The pendant rolled in a widening circle across the dusty floorboards.
For one second, no one moved.
The chain whispered against the wood. The engraved letter caught the light as it slowed.
C.
Dominic’s breathing stopped before the pendant did.
He had seen it against Claire Whitmore’s throat on the night she told him she was pregnant. She had been standing barefoot in his kitchen, eating cold strawberries from the carton because the smell of cooked food made her sick. She had laughed when he asked whether the C stood for Claire or courage.
“Depends on the day,” she had said.
The pendant came to rest beside a folded piece of paper that had fallen from the box.
Ethan Whitmore’s practiced smile disappeared.
Margaret Whitmore went so pale that, for an instant, her cream coat appeared darker than her face.
Dominic looked at her. He did not ask what the pendant was. He did not ask why three-year-old twins in torn yellow dresses had been hiding in Claire’s abandoned lake house with scratched legs, dirty feet, and a keepsake Claire had worn every day of the five years he had known her.
He already understood that the answer would not fit inside any ordinary grief.
He lowered himself slowly. Ivy still clutched at the box, her fingers opening and closing around empty air. When Dominic reached for the pendant, she caught his sleeve.
“Mommy’s,” she whispered.
His tattoos moved beneath his skin as his hand trembled. He picked up the pendant, then the note. The paper had been folded so many times that the creases were beginning to tear. He opened it carefully.
Take the girls to their mafia father before Margaret finds them.
The handwriting was Claire’s.
The room seemed to tilt toward the lake.
Behind Dominic, Skye pressed both hands against the back of his thigh. Ivy stood beside him, chin lifted, trying not to cry because she had apparently decided that crying would give Lauren another chance to take something.
Dominic read the sentence again.
Then he raised his eyes to Margaret.
“You knew who they were.”
He spoke quietly. That was what frightened Ethan. Dominic had built his reputation on quietness. He never needed to shout. Men who shouted were usually asking the room for power. Dominic entered with his already around him.
Margaret gripped the back of a sheet-covered chair. Her pearl earring shook against her neck. She took one small step backward and stopped.
Lauren looked from the note to the twins. “What does it say?”
No one answered her.
“I didn’t throw the box,” she said. “It slipped.”
Ivy’s face tightened. “You took it.”
“I was trying to see what was inside.”
“It was mine.”
Lauren opened her mouth, then closed it. Her gaze dropped to Ivy’s bare feet. There was dried blood along one heel.
Dominic folded the note and put it inside his jacket. He curled the pendant into his palm.
“Where is Claire?”
Margaret’s fingers remained locked around the chair. “Dominic—”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer came too quickly.
Skye’s grip tightened against his trousers. Ivy stared at Margaret with the fixed, watchful expression of a child who had learned that adults could change the meaning of a room without changing their voices.
Dominic looked down at her. “When did you see your mother last?”
Ivy’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.
Skye whispered from behind him, “Upstairs.”
Every adult in the room turned toward the staircase.
The lake house had been closed for nearly seven years. Margaret had said so during the drive from Chicago. She had complained about taxes, mildew, roof damage, and the cost of maintaining a property no one used. Ethan had come to meet a real estate broker the following morning. Lauren had insisted on seeing the place before dinner. Dominic had come only because Ethan had called him two hours earlier and said there were children inside who kept repeating Claire’s name.
Until that call, Dominic had believed Claire had been dead for three years.
He crossed the living room with the twins behind him. Dust rose beneath his shoes. The covered furniture made the place look occupied by pale, crouching figures. Claire’s framed photograph sat on the side table without dust on the glass.
That detail stopped him.
Someone had wiped it recently.
Margaret saw him notice.
“Dominic,” she said, “the girls shouldn’t go upstairs.”
He turned.
The restraint in his face had altered into something harder, but his voice stayed level. “Then you should tell me why.”
Margaret swallowed.
Ethan moved beside her. “We need to call the police.”
“You called me before you called them.”
“I didn’t know what this was.”
“You knew enough to recognize the pendant.”
Ethan’s eyes flickered toward the staircase. “Claire wore it.”
“You said you hadn’t spoken to her since the night she disappeared.”
“I hadn’t.”
“Then why are you afraid of what’s upstairs?”
Lauren stepped between them, not quite choosing a side. “Stop. There are two children standing here.”
Dominic looked down.
Ivy had placed herself half a step in front of Skye, though both remained behind him. Their dresses had once matched. Ivy’s hem was torn at the left side, and Skye had a dark stain near one pocket. Their hair had been tied back with strips of the same faded blue ribbon. Someone had tried to make them neat recently and failed.
Dominic crouched again.
“What’s upstairs, Ivy?”
She glanced at Margaret.
May you like
That was answer enough to change the air.
Dominic shifted so his body blocked the child’s view of the older woman. “Look at me.”
