Chapter 1 - THE GIRL AT THE BALL
“Charles. Look at her eyes.”
The little girl was halfway to the service door when Victoria Hale said it.
A security guard had one hand around her arm. In the other, the child clutched a bread roll she had taken from a banquet table. Her bare feet skidded over the marble floor as she tried to keep up with him.
“I didn’t take anything else,” she cried. “I swear.”
Three hundred guests watched. Nobody stood.
A moment earlier, Victoria had been onstage thanking them for raising money for hungry children. Now one was being dragged out of her ballroom.
“Bruno,” Victoria said. “Let her go.”
The guard stopped. He looked toward Charles Hale, seated at the front table.
Victoria saw the glance.
“Bruno. Now.”
The girl twisted toward her. Red hair fell across her face. Victoria stepped closer and pushed it aside.
One eye was blue. The other was green.
The microphone slipped from Victoria’s hand and struck the floor. Its thud rolled through the ballroom speakers.
Charles stood so fast his chair tipped backward.
“Victoria,” he said quietly. “Come back here.”
She barely heard him. Her daughter had eyes like that. One blue, one green. For years, strangers had asked if Rosalind wore a colored contact lens.
Victoria knelt in front of the child. “What’s your name?”
The girl pressed the bread against her chest. “Rosie.”
Victoria’s breath caught.
Eight years ago, she had buried a small white casket with Rosalind’s name on it.
“What did you say?”
“Rosie.” The child looked from Victoria to Charles, then down at the broken plate near her feet. “Am I in trouble?”
“No,” Victoria whispered. “You’re not in trouble.”
Charles came around the table. His face had gone gray.
“Victoria, take your hand off her.”
Bruno moved between them.
That surprised everyone, including Victoria. Charles paid Bruno’s salary.
“Sir,” Bruno said, “I need you to stay back.”
For one sharp second, the ballroom fell silent enough to hear the child breathing.
Victoria took Rosie upstairs to a private suite. Bruno followed and locked the door behind them. Rosie went straight to the bed, lifted a pillow, and hid the bread beneath it.
Victoria’s chest tightened. Whatever this child had been through, she expected someone to take food away.
“Who gave you your name?” Victoria asked.
“My mama.”
“Where is she?”
Rosie’s fingers curled into the hem of her dress. “She died.”
Victoria sat down slowly. “I’m sorry.”
“She told me if I ever got scared, I should find the lady with the silver birds.” Rosie pointed to the tiny bird-shaped pin on Victoria’s gown. “That’s you.”
Victoria touched the pin. Rosalind had made it from foil and wire when she was five. A jeweler had copied it in silver after her disappearance.
“How did your mama know about this?”
Rosie opened her mouth, then looked at Bruno.
Bruno’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, and every bit of color left his face.
“What is it?” Victoria asked.
“The man who brought her here,” he said. “He’s in the lobby.”
Rosie slid off the bed and crawled under it.
May you like
Through the suite door came three heavy knocks.
Then a man’s voice called, “Mr. Hale sent me for the child.”
