Chapter 1
Bianca Moretti stood beside the bridal makeup table with electric clippers in her hand.
At first, I did not see her.
I heard my daughter scream.
That was the sound that cut through the wedding music, through the corridor chatter, through every lie I had been telling myself all morning.
“Daddy!”
Livia’s voice broke on the second syllable.
I was outside the bridal suite, speaking to my uncle about security, when I heard it.
My three-year-old did not cry like that over spilled juice.
She did not cry like that when she fell.
She cried like that when she was afraid.
I ran.
By the time I reached the doorway, a thick curl of my daughter’s dark hair was already lying on the marble floor.
Livia stood near the makeup table, trembling so hard her tiny shoulders shook.
One side of her soft hair had been shaved close, leaving a pale patch exposed above her ear.
Rosalie Kent, her nanny, had stepped in front of her with both arms out.
Bianca laughed.
Not nervously.
Not apologetically.
She laughed like Livia had spilled glitter on a dress.
“Relax,” Bianca said. “I trim my dog’s fur all the time.”
My vision narrowed.
The clippers buzzed in her hand.
Livia reached for me over Rosalie’s arm.
“Daddy… Daddy…”
I crossed the room.
Bianca lifted the clippers again.
Toward my child.
I took them from her hand before anyone breathed.
Then I pulled Livia behind me.
She wrapped both arms around my leg and sobbed into my trousers.
The bridal suite went silent.
Makeup artists froze.
Bridesmaids stared.
My mother covered her mouth.
Bianca’s face twisted.
“Touch my things again,” she snapped, “and the wedding is over.”
I looked at the clippers.
Then at the hair on the floor.
Then at my daughter hiding behind my leg.
I threw the clippers onto the bridal vanity.
Glass perfume bottles tipped over.
Lipsticks rolled.
Powder shattered.
Bianca flinched.
Good.
“You put those near my daughter again,” I said, “and the wedding will be the least of your problems.”
Her anger faltered.
For one second, fear crossed her face.
Not fear of me.
Fear of something else.
I looked down at the hair on the floor.
A little pink barrette was tangled inside the fallen curl.
Livia always wore that barrette.
Her mother had bought it before she died.
Bianca had hated it from the beginning.
I bent and picked it up.
The plastic flower was cracked.
Something tiny slipped from inside and hit my palm.
A black memory card.
My blood went cold.
Bianca went completely pale.
That was when I understood.
She had not cut my daughter’s hair because she was cruel.
May you like
She had cut it because she was searching for something.
And my three-year-old had been hiding it in plain sight.
