Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO DIDN’T LOOK SURPRISED
My mother reached for Sophie.
I stepped back.
“Don’t.”
“Roman, you’re making a scene.”
I looked around the ballroom.
Three hundred witnesses.
Phones held low against jackets. Open mouths. People pretending not to listen while leaning closer.
“Good.”
My security director, Marcus Bell, reached my side.
He had worked for me for eleven years. Former detective. Bad knee. Two daughters he called every night.
“Get us a private room,” I told him. “Call an ambulance and the police.”
My mother’s expression hardened.
“There is no need for police.”
Marcus looked at Sophie.
Then at Evelyn.
“Yes,” he said. “There is.”
We moved into a small sitting room off the ballroom. Sophie clung to my collar so tightly I had to bend with her when I sat.
A woman in navy followed us.
“I’m Dr. Morgan. Pediatrician.”
I recognized her from the hospital board.
She crouched several feet away.
“Hi, Sophie. Can I look at your feet?”
Sophie shook her head.
“That’s okay. I can wait.”
Nobody grabbed her. Nobody told her to behave.
That seemed to confuse her more than anything.
Marcus closed the door.
“Cameras show she came through the service entrance,” he said. “An older woman brought her to the corridor. Then left.”
“Find her.”
“We’re working on it.”
Sophie pulled back enough to look at me.
“Miss June said stay where it’s bright.”
“Who’s Miss June?”
“She brings Mama books.”
My mother opened the door without knocking.
“Everyone outside is asking questions.”
“Answer them.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Have you considered that this could be staged?”
I looked down at the child in my arms.
The small crescent-shaped birthmark beneath her left ear.
I used to kiss it when I came home.
“No.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
“Sophie, sweetheart. Come to Grandma.”
My daughter stopped breathing.
Not for long.
Just long enough for me to feel her whole body lock against mine.
Dr. Morgan stood.
“Mrs. D’Angelo, please leave.”
“This is my family.”
“And she is my patient.”
Marcus opened the door wider.
My mother looked at him as if he had forgotten who paid for the building.
Then she looked at me.
“You have no idea what your wife was involved in.”
I stood with Sophie in my arms.
“Then you should have no problem explaining it to the police.”
Something flashed across her face.
Fear.
She covered it quickly, but I had already seen it.
After she left, Sophie touched my shirt.
“Mama said don’t let Grandma take the pocket.”
“What pocket, baby?”
She showed me the flannel.
One edge had been folded and stitched shut.
Inside was a small brass key.
A paper tag hung from it.
May you like
On the tag, in my wife’s handwriting, were three words.
TRUST NO FAMILY.
