Chapter 1
“A three-year-old... You broke all the rules. Now, I have none.”
Tove’s face changed.
Not because of the threat.
Because I still held my mother’s handbag.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Mireya was breathing more evenly now, curled against Margaret while one of my bodyguards called our physician. I watched my daughter’s chest rise and fall twice before I allowed myself to look anywhere else.
Then I looked at Tove.
Her eyes were on the bag.
Interesting.
Chase groaned beneath shattered ceramic and wet soil.
I ignored him.
“You were leaving with this.”
Tove wiped blood from the corner of her mouth where the trolley had caught her.
“I grabbed the wrong bag.”
“No.”
My voice stayed low.
“You crossed the room for it.”
Margaret looked down.
Confused.
Then she clutched Mireya closer.
“What’s in my bag?”
Tove answered too quickly.
“Nothing.”
That word made every man in the conservatory still.
I opened the handbag.
Wallet.
Glasses.
Medication.
A handkerchief.
Mireya’s spare inhaler.
Then beneath Margaret’s checkbook, a small white envelope.
No writing outside.
I looked at my mother.
“Yours?”
She shook her head.
“I’ve never seen it.”
Tove whispered:
“Cullen.”
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
My daughter.
Mireya.
Standing beside one of the conservatory doors three weeks earlier.
Taken from a distance.
On the back, one sentence:
SECOND EPISODE SHOULD HAPPEN DURING THE FAMILY DINNER.
My body went cold.
Not handwriting I recognized.
Margaret stared.
“What does that mean?”
Tove backed toward the overturned trolley.
Chase stopped groaning.
That mattered.
I looked at him.
Then her.
My daughter’s breathing difficulty tonight had not simply happened near two people who thought she was pretending.
Someone had expected an episode.
Someone had planned around it.
I lifted the photograph.
“Explain.”
Tove shook her head.
“I can’t.”
Wrong answer.
Not won’t.
Can’t.
Fear.
I stepped closer.
“Who told you Mireya would have another breathing attack?”
Tove looked at Chase.
May you like
There.
The answer moved before either of them spoke.
