Chapter 1 - The Bunny in Lily’s Arms
Lenora Hale did not ask Lily to leave the Easter table. She reached across the place setting, wrapped one hand around my four-year-old daughter’s arm, and violently pulled her away from the chair.
Lily stumbled over her own cream dress and hit the hardwood floor beside the table. Her stuffed bunny slipped from her hands and landed near a cluster of painted Easter eggs.
“She doesn’t belong here!” Lenora snapped.
I moved before I had time to think. “Don’t touch her.”
I barely made it two steps before Cassandra slammed both hands into my shoulders and shoved me backward. I caught myself against the edge of the dining table, sending a spoon and folded napkin sliding across the polished wood.
Cassandra pointed toward the front door. “Get out!”
She was thirty-five, dressed in gold and black as though Easter dinner were a board reception instead of a family meal. She had spent the previous hour making small comments about Lily’s manners, her adoption, and the fact that my late husband Andrew had “never gotten the chance to have a real child.”
I had ignored the first two.
I should not have.
Cassandra grabbed my arm again.
This time I broke free and slapped her once across the face.
The sound was sharp enough to stop all three adults for half a second.
I hated that I had hit her. I would own that later. But at that moment I was looking past her toward Lily, who was crying on the floor where her grandmother had thrown her.
“We’re leaving,” I said.
I knelt beside Lily, lifted her into my arms, and picked up the stuffed bunny with my free hand. She buried her face against my neck.
While Lenora and Cassandra were still staring at me, I slid my thumb beneath the bunny’s soft fabric and pressed the small emergency button hidden inside its side seam.
No alarm sounded.
No light flashed.
Lenora laughed.
“You’ll come crawling back.”
I said nothing.
With Lily balanced against my hip, I slipped one hand into my handbag and wrapped my fingers around the sealed envelope I had been carrying since that morning.
I did not remove it.
Cassandra noticed the movement.
“What’s in your purse?”
“None of your business.”
Her expression changed slightly.
Before she could reach for me again, movement appeared beyond the tall windows overlooking the estate drive.
Black SUVs.
More than one.
They passed through the gates slowly and came toward the house.
Lenora frowned. “Who invited security?”
I tightened my hold on Lily.
The front door opened downstairs. A few seconds later, professional footsteps crossed the foyer.
Cassandra’s confidence disappeared.
A security officer stopped at the dining-room doorway.
He looked at the three women in front of him and asked only one question.
“Mrs. Hale?”
Lenora lifted her chin immediately. “Yes?”
The officer did not look at her.
His eyes moved directly to me.
“Sarah Hale?”
That was when Lenora realized the security team had not come because she had called them.
May you like
They had come because I had.
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