Chapter 1 - THE SECOND PHOTOGRAPH
Vanessa Cole heard the bucket hit the floor before she saw the water.
She stepped out of her glass office on the executive floor of Cole-Hayes Properties and found her husband gripping an elderly janitor by the wrist.
Thirty seconds earlier, Eleanor Hayes had been quietly cleaning the hallway.
Adrian had come around the corner, seen her—
and stopped dead.
That reaction had lasted one beat.
Then he moved.
He snatched Eleanor’s bucket from the cleaning cart and threw the dirty water straight across her.
It hit Eleanor from shoulder to waist.
Her gray cleaning uniform darkened instantly.
She staggered backward and caught herself against the glass wall outside Vanessa’s office.
Adrian stepped close.
“Get out before my wife sees you.”
Eleanor slowly raised her face.
Sixty-seven.
Gray hair pulled back.
Water dripping from one sleeve.
She did not look surprised that Adrian recognized her.
That bothered Vanessa before anything else did.
Eleanor straightened.
Reached into her soaked uniform pocket.
Pulled out an old silver locket.
Adrian saw it.
His face changed.
“No.”
He lunged.
His hand locked around Eleanor’s wrist.
He tried ripping the locket away.
Eleanor closed her fingers around it.
“Vanessa has waited twenty years for this.”
Adrian pulled harder.
“Give it to me.”
That was when Vanessa reached them.
“What are you doing?!”
She shoved Adrian hard away from the older woman.
He staggered sideways.
His shoulder struck the edge of an executive assistant’s desk.
Vanessa stepped between them.
Adrian recovered.
“Vanessa, go back inside.”
She stared.
“You just threw a bucket of filthy water on an employee.”
“She isn’t supposed to be here.”
Eleanor’s hand loosened.
The silver locket slipped.
CLINK.
It hit the polished floor and flipped open.
Vanessa saw the photograph before she bent down.
A little girl.
About seven.
Dark blond hair.
Missing front tooth.
Holding the hand of a woman in a summer dress.
Vanessa stopped.
Her own hand began shaking.
She picked up the locket.
“No.”
She knew that photograph.
She had not seen it in more than twenty years.
But she remembered the day.
A county fair.
Cotton candy.
Her mother laughing because Vanessa had insisted on riding the same carousel horse four times.
Catherine Hayes.
Vanessa’s mother.
Dead since Vanessa was fourteen.
Vanessa looked up at Eleanor.
“Where did you get this?”
Adrian reached toward her.
“Vanessa.”
She jerked the locket away.
“Don’t touch it.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled but her voice remained steady.
“Turn it over.”
Vanessa looked at the back.
Nothing.
Eleanor reached carefully toward the silver casing.
“There.”
Her fingernail pressed a tiny hidden catch.
A section of metal released.
A second photograph slid into Vanessa’s palm.
Vanessa looked down.
Her mother was in it.
Not the thirty-eight-year-old Catherine Hayes Vanessa remembered.
Older.
Gray beginning at her temples.
Lines around her mouth.
Alive.
Standing beside—
Adrian.
Her husband.
He wore a dark suit.
One hand in his pocket.
The same platinum wedding ring he wore now clearly visible on his left hand.
Vanessa stared.
Then slowly looked up at him.
Adrian had stopped moving.
May you like
Eleanor looked directly at Vanessa.
“That was taken after you married him.”
