Chapter 2 - The Bracelet
Grant shut down the gala within three minutes.
Guests were escorted out.
Phones were collected for temporary evidence preservation.
Nolan remained on the floor because Avery would not let him stand.
"Don't go."
"I won't."
Grant crouched several feet away.
"Avery, who pushed Mommy?"
Avery covered her ears.
Nolan shook his head.
"Not now."
Grant's jaw tightened.
"That is my daughter."
"Then be her father before you become her investigator."
The sentence landed harder than Nolan intended.
Grant looked furious.
Then ashamed.
He sat down too.
No one had ever seen Grant Vale sit on a ballroom floor in a tuxedo.
Avery noticed.
Her breathing slowed.
Nolan pointed at the bracelet.
"Can I ask one easy question?"
Avery nodded.
"Was that your mom's?"
"Yes."
"Did you find it tonight?"
"No."
"When?"
Avery looked toward the staircase.
"After Mommy fell."
Grant's face tightened.
His wife, Catherine Vale, had died eleven months earlier after falling from the second-floor library balcony at their country estate.
The death had been ruled accidental.
Catherine had been alone.
At least that was what everyone believed.
Grant whispered.
"Where was the bracelet?"
"Under the lion."
Nolan frowned.
"What lion?"
Avery pointed toward a bronze lion statue near the staircase.
Security searched the base.
They found a narrow cavity.
Inside was a child's drawing.
A woman on a balcony.
A small girl below.
A tall man behind the woman.
And another child beside Avery.
That child had yellow hair.
Like Lily.
Nolan stared.
His daughter was ten.
She had never been inside the Vale estate.
Or so he believed.
Then Avery whispered.
"Lily told me not to tell."
Nolan's blood went cold.
"When did you meet Lily?"
"At the old house."
"What old house?"
"The one with the red door."
Nolan knew only one place Lily called the old house.
Her late mother's apartment.
He looked at Grant.
Grant looked back.
Two fathers.
Two daughters.
One dead woman.
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And a secret that connected families that should never have met.
