Chapter 1
Richard did not look at Mark after the punch.
He did not look at Claudia after the slap.
He looked at Lily.
The little girl had disappeared almost completely inside his overcoat. Only her face and two small hands showed beneath the heavy black wool.
Her lips were pale.
Her fingers were red from cold.
Richard crouched in front of her.
His voice changed.
“What hurts?”
Lily looked down.
“My feet.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
He touched one bare ankle carefully.
Ice-cold.
He lifted her immediately.
“Doctor.”
One word.
Three people moved.
Mark pushed coats off himself and struggled upright.
“Dad, this is ridiculous.”
Richard stopped walking.
The room froze with him.
Mark wiped blood from his lip.
“She was outside for maybe ten minutes.”
Richard turned his head slowly.
“You timed it?”
Mark’s breathing changed.
Claudia looked at him.
Too quickly.
Richard noticed.
Before Mark could answer, Lily pulled at Richard’s lapel.
“My picture.”
Richard’s eyes moved toward the terrace.
The drawing lay half-buried in snow.
Mark stepped toward the door.
“I’ll get it.”
Richard looked at him.
Mark stopped.
Richard handed Lily to the family physician, then walked outside himself.
Snow touched his polished shoes.
He bent down.
The paper was wet along one edge.
Crayon had bled into the snow.
Most of it was the sort of drawing only a three-year-old could understand.
A large square house.
Three stick figures.
A black car.
A yellow circle that might have been the sun.
Richard almost folded it.
Then he noticed Mark’s reaction through the glass.
His son’s face had gone completely still.
Richard looked down again.
Near the corner of the picture, Lily had drawn another figure.
A woman.
Beside her was a red box.
Above the box, in shaky childlike lines, Lily had drawn a symbol Richard recognized immediately.
A black crown.
The Bellacorte family crest.
Richard’s thumb stopped on the paper.
That symbol was not displayed anywhere children normally went.
It appeared only on sealed family cash trunks and restricted archive cases.
Richard walked back inside.
Mark’s shoulders tightened.
Richard held up the drawing.
“Where did she see this?”
Mark’s eyes moved toward Claudia.
Claudia’s breath caught.
Richard saw both reactions.
He looked at Lily.
“Sweetheart.”
She was sitting beneath a blanket now.
“What’s the red box?”
Lily pointed toward the drawing.
“Daddy’s downstairs box.”
The entire room became silent.
Richard looked at Mark.
“There is no downstairs Bellacorte vault in your house.”
Mark swallowed.
Lily added innocently:
“Daddy says Grandpa can’t know.”
May you like
Richard’s expression changed.
Mark had tried to take the drawing because Lily had accidentally drawn the one thing he had been hiding.
