“Where is your mother?”
The girl’s fingers tightened around the handle of the rose basket.
“She’s outside.”
Victoria pushed back her chair so quickly it scraped against the floor.
“Take me to her.”
The girl didn’t move.
“She told me not to bring you to her unless you asked about Rosewood.”
Victoria’s heart stopped.
“What did you say?”
“Rosewood.”
The girl reached into her sweater pocket and pulled out a small envelope.
She placed it beside Victoria’s wineglass.
“Mom said you’d know what this means.”
Victoria stared at the envelope.
Her name was written across the front.
VICTORIA ROSEWOOD.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Her hands began to tremble.
She hadn’t seen that handwriting in seventeen years.
It belonged to her older sister, Eleanor.
Eleanor had disappeared the night their father died.
Everyone had assumed she was dead.
Victoria slowly opened the envelope.
Inside was a single photograph.
Two little girls stood in front of the Rosewood estate, their arms wrapped around each other.
Victoria recognized herself immediately.
And beside her—
Eleanor.
But there was something else.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
She isn’t dead.
She never left.
And she knows what happened that night.
Victoria looked at the little girl.
“What’s your name?”
The girl smiled.
“Lily.”
“Lily… what?”
The smile disappeared.
“Rosewood.”
Victoria’s blood ran cold.
Before she could speak, the restaurant doors opened.
A woman stepped inside.
She wore a dark coat and held a black umbrella despite the fact that it wasn’t raining.
Her face was older.
Thinner.
But Victoria knew those eyes.
The wineglass slipped from Victoria’s hand and shattered on the floor.
“Eleanor?”
The woman stopped.
For a long moment, neither sister moved.
Then Eleanor whispered,
“You shouldn’t have taken the ring.”
Victoria stared at her.
“What?”
Eleanor looked toward the gold rose-shaped ring on Victoria’s finger.
“That ring wasn’t your family’s.”
She took one step closer.
“It belonged to your mother.”
Victoria frowned.
“My mother died when I was six.”
“I know.”
Eleanor’s voice cracked.
“That’s what they wanted you to believe.”
Lily quietly stepped behind her mother.
Victoria could barely breathe.
“Who are ‘they’?”
Eleanor looked toward the restaurant windows.
Her expression suddenly changed.
Fear.
“Victoria,” she whispered, “we don’t have much time.”
A black car had stopped outside.
Two men got out.
Eleanor grabbed Lily’s hand.
“They found us.”
Victoria stood frozen.
Eleanor looked directly at her.
“And if they know you’ve seen me…”
She swallowed.
“They’ll come for you next.”