Chapter 1 - The Girl Under the Stairs
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I noticed Lily because she was the only person in my house who wasn't pretending to enjoy herself.
It was 10:17 on Christmas Eve. Snow had started falling over Long Island just after dusk, whitening the hedges beyond the ballroom windows. Inside, two hundred guests drank champagne beneath six thousand white lights. A string quartet played near the fireplace. My engagement party was proceeding exactly as planned.
My fiancée, Isabella, stood beside the Christmas tree in champagne silk, speaking with my mother. Perfect for the life everyone expected me to have. But that night, I wasn't thinking about business or Isabella. I was thinking about Sophia Carter, the woman who vanished four years ago.
Then I looked toward the marble staircase. A little girl was sitting underneath it. Cream cardigan. Red tights. Scuffed black shoes.
I walked over and crouched in front of her.
“What's your name?” I asked gently.
“Lily.”
“Where's your mother, Lily?”
She tightened her arms around a photograph pressed against her chest. “I'm waiting for her.”
“Can I see that?”
Lily hesitated before turning it toward me. For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe. The woman smiling from that photograph was Sophia. The woman I'd spent four years trying to forget.
I looked at Lily again. Dark hair. Those familiar eyes.
“Where did you get this?”
May you like
Lily pointed toward the service corridor. “My mommy.”
Before I could ask another question, I heard footsteps behind me. My mother. She stopped when she saw the photograph in my hand, and for the first time in my life, Victoria Moretti’s mask slipped.
