Chapter 1
I found my daughter halfway inside a wall.
That was how the gala ended for me.
Not with champagne.
Not with donors.
Not with the orchestra waiting in the ballroom.
With Charlotte.
Three years old.
Filthy dress.
Tear-streaked face.
One small hand wrapped around a stuffed rabbit with a torn ear.
Emma Hayes had both arms around her and was trying to pull her through the narrow opening behind my grandfather's portrait.
Isabella had Emma by the hair.
“Put her back.”
My fiancée slammed Emma against the wall.
“Nobody was supposed to find her.”
I stopped walking.
Isabella saw me.
Everything changed.
“William—”
I crossed the gallery.
Tore her hand from Charlotte's arm.
Lifted my daughter against my chest.
Charlotte clung to me so hard her fingernails caught my collar.
“Daddy.”
“I've got you.”
Her entire body was shaking.
I looked at Isabella.
“What did you do?”
She picked up the brass hidden-room key.
Then threw it directly into my chest.
The metal struck my vest.
Before I could speak, she slapped me.
In front of Emma.
In front of the guests beginning to gather at the gallery entrance.
“You can't even control what happens inside your own house.”
I slowly turned my face back toward her.
No one moved.
Charlotte held the damaged rabbit tighter.
Then I saw paper through the torn seam.
Folded pieces.
Many.
Charlotte started crying again.
“Daddy… she kept asking where Mommy's letters were.”
Isabella lunged.
Not at me.
At Bunny.
Marcus grabbed me from behind.
His fist hit my shoulder.
I handed Charlotte to Emma.
“Hold her.”
Marcus swung again.
I slipped outside it.
One punch.
He went backward into the restoration table.
Empty gilt frames crashed down.
Brushes scattered.
Catalog boxes split open.
Isabella grabbed for the rabbit again.
I caught her wrist.
One slap turned her sideways.
One kick sent her into the tapestry rack.
Fabric panels collapsed over her.
Then Bunny finally tore.
Letters spilled across the carpet.
Dozens.
Small.
Handwritten.
I bent down.
Picked one up.
My name.
William.
I recognized the handwriting before I opened it.
Vivian.
Charlotte's mother.
My late wife.
Dead for two years.
I looked at Isabella.
“You locked my daughter inside the wall because you were afraid I'd read these?”
Her face changed.
For the first time, Isabella Sterling looked frightened.
I opened the letter.
The first sentence stopped everything inside me.
William—
If Marcus ever tells you he wasn't at the lake house the night I died, he's lying.
I slowly looked toward my cousin.
Marcus stopped trying to stand.
May you like
And suddenly the letters weren't only about what Isabella had done to Charlotte.
They were about what had happened to Charlotte's mother.
