Chapter 1 - Behind the Painting
Lily’s wrists hurt.
The rope had been wrapped around them so many times that she could no longer tell where one knot ended and another began.
She sat inside the narrow compartment behind the mansion wall, knees pulled against her pale-pink dress, trying not to cry loudly.
“Mommy... please find me.”
Outside, music from the reception drifted faintly through the mansion.
Glasses clinked.
Shoes crossed marble.
Nobody knew a four-year-old girl was trapped inches away.
Then footsteps slowed.
Anna, one of the household maids, was carrying champagne along the hallway when she heard the sound.
A tiny sob.
She stopped beside the enormous gold-framed portrait of Nathaniel Ashford, the family patriarch who had built the mansion nearly sixty years earlier.
Another cry.
Anna set the tray down.
Touched the frame.
Pulled.
The portrait swung outward.
Darkness opened behind it.
“Oh my God... Lily!”
The child raised her bound hands.
Anna crouched immediately.
“Who tied you up?”
Lily looked past her.
Terror replaced relief.
Anna turned.
Eleanor Ashford stood directly behind her.
Emerald gown.
Diamond necklace.
Perfect posture.
“What did you do to her?”
Eleanor did not answer.
Lily pulled her bound wrists to her chest.
“She wasn’t hiding me.”
Anna stared.
“What?”
Lily whispered:
“She was hiding me from him.”
For the first time, Eleanor lost composure.
She looked toward the far end of the hallway.
Footsteps.
Male.
Slow.
Heavy.
Coming closer.
“Close the painting. Now.”
Anna did not move.
“Who’s coming?”
Eleanor stepped toward her.
“Anna.”
The approaching shadow stretched across the polished floor.
Lily recoiled deeper into the compartment.
Then Anna noticed something else.
Lily was not looking toward the man’s shadow.
She was staring at his shoes.
Black dress shoes.
One polished toe appeared at the far edge of the corridor.
Lily began shaking violently.
Anna understood.
The child recognized him.
Eleanor reached for the portrait.
Anna caught the frame.
“No.”
“If he sees her, you may not get another chance to open this.”
That sentence stopped Anna.
Not because it sounded threatening.
Because Eleanor sounded afraid.
The man’s voice came from off-screen.
“Eleanor?”
Lily whimpered.
Anna looked at Eleanor.
“Who is that?”
Eleanor answered under her breath.
“My son.”
Anna’s face changed.
Lily’s father was supposed to be away in Boston.
May you like
If the approaching man was Eleanor’s son—
then Lily’s father had just come home without telling anyone.
