Victoria pulled Emily’s chair away just as the seven-year-old sat down.
Emily landed hard on the marble, catching herself with both hands. Every conversation at the inheritance banquet stopped.
“Orphans eat with the servants,” Victoria announced.
Emily pushed herself upright. “Roman adopted me.”
Victoria lifted a ceramic tureen from the table and poured orange soup over the child’s head. It ran through Emily’s hair, across her face and down the pale-blue dress Roman had bought her for the evening.
“Paper doesn’t make you his daughter.”
There were relatives, attorneys and longtime advisers around the table. None of them moved.
The double doors opened.
Roman stopped when he saw Emily on the floor and the empty tureen in Victoria’s hands.
“Say that again while I’m standing here.”
Victoria smiled. “She isn’t your blood.”
Roman crossed the room, lifted Emily and wiped the soup from her eyes with his handkerchief.
“She is my daughter because I chose her.”
Emily held tightly to his jacket. Then she reached inside the pocket of her dress and gave him a cracked black phone.
“Victoria took this from Mommy’s room.”
Victoria’s smile vanished.
Before Roman could examine it, Anton, Victoria’s bodyguard, rushed him. Roman set Emily beside the nearest doorway, out of their path, and caught Anton by the collar. They crashed across the banquet table. Plates fell, guests stumbled back and the glass cabinet behind Anton shattered.
Two security officers pulled Anton away. Roman retrieved the phone from beneath a chair.
Its call history showed repeated conversations with an attorney Roman had never hired. An unsent message mentioned transferring Emily’s inheritance as soon as the adoption became final.
Then the phone rang.
The caller was inside the mansion.
Emily pointed toward the service corridor. “Victoria answers it behind the freezer door.”
Roman looked at Victoria.
She was watching the corridor, too.
“Daddy,” Emily whispered, “there’s a lady crying in there. She called me Little Star.”
Roman knew the name. Emily’s mother, Isabelle, had called her that when she was small.
Isabelle was supposed to be dead.
Six months earlier, Roman had received word that she had died while traveling abroad. Emily’s grandmother had died years before, and the man listed as her father had never been part of her life. Roman had known Isabelle since childhood. When he learned that Emily needed a home, he brought her into his.
He had asked questions about Isabelle’s death. Victoria always had an answer and a document to support it.
Now Emily was telling him Isabelle was inside the house.
Roman gave the phone to his head of security. “Keep that call connected. Contact the police.”
Victoria stepped toward him. “You’re frightening the child.”
“You poured soup over her.”
“She’s confused about the voice.”
“Then you won’t mind opening the door.”
Victoria said nothing.
Roman asked his housekeeper, Mrs. Bell, to take Emily upstairs and help her change. Emily refused to let go of him.
“I’m coming back,” he promised. “Mrs. Bell will stay with you.”
Emily looked toward the corridor. “Please help her.”
“I will.”
Roman waited until Mrs. Bell and Emily had reached the stairs. Then he went through the service doors with his security team. An attorney from the banquet followed, carrying the cracked phone in a clean napkin.
At the end of the corridor stood a walk-in freezer that had not been used in years. It was locked from the outside. The incoming call had stopped, but a faint tapping came from behind the door.
“Isabelle?” Roman called.
The tapping stopped.
A woman’s voice answered, weak but unmistakable. “Roman?”
He turned to the security officer. “Open it.”
Victoria appeared behind them. “That room isn’t safe. The hinges are damaged.”
Roman looked at the heavy padlock on the handle. “Who locked it?”
No one answered.
A security officer removed the lock. Roman pulled the door open.
Isabelle sat on a narrow bench inside, wrapped in a blanket. A small portable heater stood nearby, its indicator light on. She was pale and exhausted, but when she saw Roman, she tried to rise.
“Emily,” she said. “Is she here?”
“She’s safe.”
Isabelle reached for the wall to steady herself. Roman went in and helped her into the corridor while someone called for an ambulance.
Victoria backed away. A security officer asked her to stay where she was.
As they waited for the paramedics, Isabelle told Roman what she could. She had never gone abroad. Victoria had intercepted her on the way to meet an attorney about property left to Emily by her grandmother. Isabelle said Victoria’s associates had kept her hidden, then moved her into the mansion the previous night after she escaped one of the places they were using.
“Why bring you here?” Roman asked.
“She needed me to sign the transfer papers. She thought you’d be away after the banquet.”
Victoria called the story absurd.
Isabelle looked directly at her. “You told Emily I was dead.”
Police arrived before Victoria could answer. They separated everyone for questioning, collected the phone and secured the corridor. The attorney from the banquet gave them the message Roman had seen. Anton remained under guard after the fight.
Roman went upstairs to find Emily. She had changed into a dry sweater, but a little orange soup still clung to the ends of her hair. Mrs. Bell was combing it out when he entered.
“Did you find her?” Emily asked.
Roman knelt beside the chair. “Yes. The doctors are checking her, but she’s here.”
“Can I see her?”
“As soon as they say it’s all right.”
Emily climbed into his arms and began to cry. Roman held her until the paramedics came upstairs to tell them Isabelle was ready for a brief visit.
In the guest room, Isabelle sat propped against pillows. Emily stopped at the threshold.
“Mommy?”
Isabelle opened her arms. Emily ran to her.
Roman stayed by the door while they held each other. He had thought he was giving Emily a home after she lost her mother. Now he understood that someone had taken Isabelle from her and used that loss to reach the child’s inheritance.
The investigation would take longer than one night. Roman would answer every question about the adoption and the papers Victoria had brought him. For now, Emily was safe, and Isabelle could finally tell her daughter why she had disappeared.
Roman stepped into the room when Emily held out a hand to him, too. He took it and sat beside them.
