Chapter 1 - The Little Girl in the Pink DressThe woman opened her hands.
Twenty feet above the marble floor, a little girl in a pale-pink dress slipped from her grasp.
For one impossible heartbeat, the child seemed to hang beneath the golden chandeliers, her tiny arms reaching toward the woman who had just released her.
Then gravity took her.
A scream tore through the wedding reception.
Someone dropped a champagne glass.
And Daniel Hale saw his daughter falling.
“LUCY!”
His voice cracked through the ballroom.
Daniel was forty years old, broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair and light stubble. His fitted black suit jacket was open over a white shirt, and moments earlier, he had been standing near the cream-colored sofa beneath the upper balcony.
Now his body moved before his mind could accept what his eyes had seen.
He shoved past a gold dining chair.
A woman stumbled backward as he sprinted across the polished white marble.
Above him, twenty-one-month-old Lucy Hale tumbled through the open atrium.
Her blonde hair flew around her tear-streaked face. Her layered pink tulle dress fluttered wildly. One tiny white shoe twisted sideways as she reached into empty air.
Daniel saw the chandelier overhead.
He saw the floor beneath her.
And he understood, with a terror that would haunt him for years, that he might already be too late.
He lunged.
Lucy struck his outstretched arms.
The force drove the air from his lungs.
He wrapped one arm behind her head, pulled her against his chest, and twisted his body away from the marble.
His heel slid.
He stumbled backward into the glass-topped table beside the cream sofa.
The glass exploded.
A sharp crack echoed through the ballroom as Daniel crashed against the table, then collapsed onto the floor.
For a moment, he heard nothing.
Not the music.
Not the guests.
Not the terrible ringing in his ears.
He only felt the small, trembling body pressed against him.
Lucy began to cry.
Daniel dragged in a breath.
“Oh, sweetheart. Oh, God. Lucy.”
He looked down.
Her blue eyes were open. Her tiny fingers clutched his shirt. She was sobbing so hard that her whole body shook.
He touched her hair, her cheeks, her shoulders, afraid to move her unnecessarily.
“Daddy’s here. I’ve got you.”
His right wrist burned with blinding pain. Something warm ran beneath his jacket.
He barely noticed.
“Call 911!” someone shouted.
“Don't move him!”
“Get a doctor!”
Daniel lifted his head.
High above the chaos, a woman stood near the white doorway opening onto the second-floor balcony.
She was slender and elegant, in her late thirties, with long, straight dark brown hair and a fitted, sleeveless, deep teal-green evening gown.
Her hand gripped the doorframe.
Her eyes were wide.
Her lips parted, but no sound emerged.
Vivienne Cross.
Lucy’s maternal aunt.
The woman Daniel had trusted to watch his daughter.
The woman he had just seen open her hands.
Daniel stared straight at her.
“You threw her.”
The words came out almost silently.
Then he shouted.
“YOU THREW MY DAUGHTER!”
Faces turned toward the balcony.
Vivienne stepped backward.
For a fraction of a second, her expression changed. The shock vanished, replaced by something cold and calculating.
Then she pressed a hand over her mouth.
“Oh, my God!” she screamed. “She fell!”
Daniel tightened his hold on Lucy.
“No.”
Vivienne began shaking her head.
“She slipped! I tried to catch her!”
“No!”
The force of his shout made Lucy cry harder.
Daniel instantly lowered his voice.
“I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry.”
He pressed his cheek against her hair.
Two wedding guests rushed forward, followed by a woman who identified herself as an emergency-room nurse. She crouched beside Daniel and carefully checked Lucy's breathing and responsiveness without pulling her from his arms.
“She's awake,” the nurse said. “Help is coming.”
Daniel watched the balcony.
Vivienne was gone.
A man wearing a dark suit and an Aster House event-management badge appeared at the edge of the gathering crowd.
Marcus Vale.
The reception venue's operations director.
He glanced toward the broken glass, then toward the upper balcony.
“Everyone needs to stay calm,” he announced. “We're dealing with a terrible accident.”
Daniel looked at him sharply.
“It's not an accident.”
Marcus hesitated.
“Sir, we shouldn't make assumptions.”
“I saw her.”
Daniel's voice trembled.
“She held my daughter over the railing. Then she let go.”
Marcus's expression tightened.
“I understand you're upset.”
“You don't understand anything.”
The distant wail of sirens reached the ballroom.
Lucy lifted her face.
“Da-da.”
Daniel's eyes filled.
“I'm right here.”
Her little hand reached toward his neck, and he bent closer despite the pain in his ribs.
A paramedic entered moments later, guiding the crowd backward.
As the medical team prepared to examine Lucy, Daniel looked up one last time.
The white balcony railing gleamed beneath the chandeliers.
Something pink fluttered against its golden handrail.
A narrow piece of satin ribbon.
It appeared to be caught between the glass panel and the metal fitting.
Daniel recognized it immediately.
Lucy had worn that ribbon around her waist.
When he dressed her that morning, she had laughed and twisted away while he tried to tie the bow.
Now part of it was hanging twenty feet above him.
And someone was already moving toward the balcony.
Marcus Vale.
Daniel forced himself to speak through the pain.
“Officer,” he said to the first police responder approaching the scene. “Don't let that man touch the railing.”
The officer followed his gaze.
“Why?”
Daniel looked down at his daughter.
May you like
“Because that's where she was when her aunt tried to kill her.”
And above them, Marcus reached for the service-door handle.
Related Stories
