Chapter 1 - THE FALL
The first thing Evelyn Hart felt was her own hair tearing against her scalp.
The second was the hard edge of the balcony railing striking her ribs as Sloane
Vale dragged her toward open air.
Three floors below, wedding flowers floated in glass bowls around a blue
swimming pool. A string quartet played somewhere inside the mansion, unaware
that a bride was fighting for her life above the celebration.
“You're not taking my brother!” Sloane screamed. Her emerald dress twisted
around her legs, and her silver earrings flashed in the sunset. She pulled
harder, forcing Evelyn sideways across the marble.
Evelyn grabbed a metal support with her left hand. Her veil snagged on a
decorative hook, pulling against her head, and the lace at her shoulder ripped
with a sharp, sickening sound.
“Sloane, stop. Please.” Evelyn could barely get the words through her throat.
She had imagined a thousand disagreements with Adrian's younger sister, but
never hatred bright enough to erase another person's humanity.
Sloane's gaze flicked toward the courtyard, where white roses covered the
reception tables. Something crossed her face then, not uncertainty but
calculation, as if she were measuring the distance to the water.
“You should have given me what I asked for,” she hissed. She released Evelyn's
hair just long enough to plant both hands against her shoulder and drive a
brutal kick into her torso.
The world tipped. Evelyn's fingertips slipped off the rail, her veil snapped
loose, and sunlight exploded across her eyes. She had time for one terrible
thought: Lily must never believe I abandoned her.
Then she struck the pool. Water closed over her like a slammed door, the impact
knocking every breath out of her lungs. White fabric billowed around her legs
and pulled her toward darkness.
At the edge of the courtyard, Adrian Vale heard the crash before he understood
it. He turned from the wedding coordinator and saw a veil drifting across the
water where his bride should never have been.
For an instant, the entire courtyard seemed frozen. Then Adrian was running,
knocking aside a chair, his polished shoes striking stone as guests cried out
behind him. He did not look up at the balcony.
He jumped. Cold water swallowed his tuxedo, and the weight of his formal shoes
dragged at his ankles. He forced his eyes open and found a pale hand moving
weakly beneath the surface.
Evelyn could not tell which way was up. Her gown had twisted around one knee,
and her chest burned when she tried to inhale. Then an arm reached beneath her
shoulders and lifted her face into air.
“I've got you,” Adrian said, though his own voice shook. “Evelyn, look at me.
Stay with me.” She coughed, held his lapel, and stared at him as if trying to
remember where she was.
He guided her toward the wide entry steps, careful to keep her head supported.
Each movement brought a new stab of pain through her ribs, but Adrian heard her
breathing and clung to that fragile proof of life.
People crowded the edge of the pool. Someone called emergency services. Adrian
warned them not to pull Evelyn by her arms, then helped her onto the nearest
step while keeping her as still as he could.
“Don't move your neck,” he whispered. “Help is coming.” His hands trembled
against her wet veil, and he hated that he could offer only instructions when
she was shivering so violently beneath him.
A soft engine sounded beyond the courtyard. Adrian barely noticed it, but
Evelyn's eyes moved past his shoulder toward the mansion's open front gate. A
long black sedan was easing out of the driveway.
The rear window slid down a few inches. Through the tinted opening, Evelyn saw
a small hand, a pink friendship bracelet, and one flash of a familiar yellow
sleeve before somebody pulled the child backward.
Her world contracted to that bracelet. She had tied it around Lily's wrist
three nights earlier, promising that the two embroidered stars would always
remind her daughter of home, even when they were apart.
Evelyn caught Adrian's collar. She tried to speak, but water and terror scraped
her throat. Adrian bent closer, expecting her to say that she was in pain or
unable to breathe.
“My daughter,” she whispered. Her eyes never left the gate. “Lily's in that
car.” Adrian looked toward the sedan just as its taillights crossed the
threshold and turned onto the road.
There was no confusion in his expression. He knew Lily, knew the way she hid
her smile behind a stuffed fox, knew she had asked whether he would still be
her father after the wedding.
“Lily?” he repeated, horrified. She was supposed to be spending the afternoon
safely with Rose Brennan, Evelyn's oldest friend, far from the noise and
strangers of the reception.
Adrian raised his voice toward the nearest guest. “Tell dispatch there's a
child in a black sedan leaving the north gate. Six years old. Yellow dress. Her
name is Lily Hart.”
He recited the direction of travel and the gate's address from memory, then
turned back to Evelyn. The car was gone. His wedding had become a crime scene,
and he could not chase it without abandoning her.
“Go,” Evelyn rasped. She tried to push herself upright, but pain broke across
her face. Adrian kept her steady and shook his head. He knew the cost of
leaving an injured person after a fall that high.
“Police are going after her,” he said. “I won't lose you here.” It was the
hardest sentence he had ever spoken, because every second away from Lily felt
like a betrayal too.
Above them, on the third-floor balcony, Sloane stood with both palms against
the glass. From below she looked almost like another wedding guest watching a
catastrophe, except for the torn strip of lace caught beside her hand.
Her face had drained of color. She had wanted Evelyn frightened and silenced.
She had wanted her brother's wedding ruined. What she had actually done was
something no apology could repair.
When she heard the distant siren, Sloane stepped backward and touched the empty
place on her wrist where her thin silver bracelet should have been. It had
snapped during the struggle and fallen somewhere near the railing.
Adrian followed Evelyn's stare upward. He saw his sister retreat through the
balcony doors, emerald fabric disappearing into the mansion. For one second he
understood everything, and that understanding was colder than the water.
“She pushed you,” he said quietly. Evelyn closed her eyes once. The movement
was enough. Adrian's jaw hardened, but he kept his hand gentle against her
shoulder while the first paramedics entered the courtyard.
The medical team took charge, supporting her head and preparing to move her
with spinal precautions. Adrian stepped back only when they needed space, water
dripping from his sleeves onto the white wedding petals.
A police officer approached and asked what had happened. Adrian pointed toward
the third floor, then toward the gate. “My sister pushed my wife into the pool.
And someone just drove away with our little girl.”
He heard himself say our without hesitation. The word had belonged to him long
before a judge, a ceremony, or a signature could make their family official.
Evelyn opened her eyes at the sound.
A medic fastened an oxygen mask over her mouth. She caught Adrian's fingers for
one brief moment as they lifted her onto the stretcher, and he saw that she was
trying to tell him one more thing.
He leaned close. Beneath the mask, her lips formed two words he could scarcely
hear: “Blue ledger.” Before he could ask what she meant, her eyes closed and
the ambulance doors began to shut.
Across the courtyard, the quartet's abandoned music sheets lifted in a sudden
wind. The wedding cake remained untouched, and the flowers still glowed gold in
the sunset, indifferent to everything that had been stolen.
Adrian climbed into the ambulance beside his bride. Somewhere beyond the
May you like
mansion gates, Lily was moving farther from home. He would find her, but first
he had to discover who had taken her—and why.
