Chapter 2: The Woman With the Copies
Nathaniel didn't look at me first.
He looked at Lily.
She had her face pressed against my shoulder.
Her small hand was still shaking.
He crouched down.
Right there in front of two hundred guests.
Black tuxedo, one knee almost touching the ballroom floor.
"Hey," he said quietly.
"Are you okay?"
Lily didn't answer.
She turned her face further into me.
He stood slowly.
Then he looked at Vanessa.
"Who gave you that folder?"
The room went completely still.
Vanessa's expression shifted.
Just slightly.
The way a person's face moves when they realize they've miscalculated something.
"What folder?" she said.
"The red one.
Behind the champagne table." His voice was calm.
Almost gentle.
"The one with my mother's signature on the cover."
Vanessa said nothing.
A woman near the back of the room stepped forward.
Gray hair.
Quiet shoes.
She had been standing near the terrace doors all evening and I had assumed she was a donor's wife.
She was not.
She placed a second folder on the table beside the chocolate fountain.
Thicker than the first.
"I brought copies," she said.
"In case they disappeared again."
Vanessa turned to look at her.
And for the first time that night, Vanessa Lowell looked afraid.
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What was in those folders — and what had Vanessa been hiding for months?
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