Chapter 2
I searched every restroom, but Lily was nowhere to be found.
“Were you so busy looking at my phone that you stopped watching her?” my husband asked with a frown.
I didn’t answer. I rushed to the front desk and asked the manager to check the exits.
Then my phone rang.
“Your daughter, Lily, is with me,” Claire said.
Outside the hotel entrance, Lily was sitting on a bench while Claire tied her shoelaces.
I pulled my daughter into my arms.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Claire—the woman I had always believed was my best friend.
“I came to drop off an anniversary gift.” Claire held up a champagne bag. “I happened to see Lily in the parking lot.”
“Where’s the envelope?” I ignored the bag and stared directly at her.
“What envelope?” Claire shook her head in feigned confusion.
Lily opened her mouth, but Claire placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke first. “She’s terrified. You should wait until you get home to question her.”
The manager hurried outside and handed us a white envelope. “One of our cleaners found this under your table.”
I reached for it, but my husband took it first and slipped it inside his coat.
“False alarm.” His smile looked painfully forced.
Claire handed me the gift bag. When our hands touched, she suddenly tightened her grip and whispered in my ear, “Open it when you get home.”
On the drive back, my husband repeatedly asked Lily whether she had opened the envelope. She only said she didn’t know.
“They’re just insurance documents,” I said. “What are you afraid she might have seen?”
He fell silent. After a moment, he shrugged. “I was afraid she might lose them.”
Once we got home, he locked the documents in his study and went upstairs to shower.
Only after the water started running did Lily pull on my sleeve and whisper, “Mom, I lied.”
She took an old phone from the pocket of her dress.
“Aunt Claire told me to take the envelope outside. She said it was a surprise for you and that Dad couldn’t know.”
I took the phone from Lily. Her messages with Claire were still there.
After forwarding the conversation to myself, I asked, “How did the envelope get back to the restaurant?”
Lily said Claire had given it to a waiter and asked him to put it back.
I crouched in front of my daughter and made her look at me.
“From now on, if anyone asks you to meet them without telling me, you tell me first. Even if it’s your father or your godmother. Understand?”
“Are you mad at me?” Lily asked softly.
I stroked her hair and gentled my voice. “No. And none of what happened tonight was your fault.”
Only then did she release the fistful of skirt she had been clutching.
I remembered what she had said about the envelope.
“You said Aunt Claire opened it?”
Lily nodded. “She switched one of the papers. I was afraid she might ruin your present, so I secretly took a picture.”
The photograph showed Daniel’s name listed as the beneficiary.
Beneath it was another line:
Witness: Evelyn Reed.
The document had been signed today.
Evelyn was my sister.
I enlarged the image and recognized the long trailing stroke she always left at the end of her signature.
But my sister had been dead for three years.
Upstairs, the shower stopped running.
Suddenly, a light glowed from inside the champagne bag.
I pushed aside the tissue paper and pulled out an old black cell phone.
A message filled the screen:
You have twenty-four hours.
Find out who was really buried in your sister Evelyn’s coffin three years ago.