Chapter 1
Audrey screamed before the flowers from her wedding had begun to wilt.
I was halfway down the hall before Richard reached our bedroom door. For one terrible second, I thought someone had fallen down the stairs. Then I heard my son’s voice coming from the guest room.
“Tell me what you did.”
Julian sounded like a stranger.
An hour earlier, our house in Oakhaven Springs had been full of music. Guests had danced beneath the lights Richard had strung across the backyard. Audrey had laughed with her head against Julian’s shoulder, her white dress brushing the grass.
I had spent years hoping to see him that happy.
Julian was our only child. I remembered the nights he stayed awake studying for the scholarship that took him to college, and the proud phone call when he got his first engineering job in Richmond. He worked hard. He kept his promises. I thought I knew what kind of man I had raised.
When he brought Audrey home two years ago, she was nervous enough to call me Mrs. Bennett three times during dinner.
Afterward, she helped me wash dishes while everyone else sat outside.
“You can leave those,” I told her.
“I know,” she said. “I’d like to help.”
That was Audrey. She remembered that Richard took his tea without sugar. She brought me soup when I was sick. Every Sunday, I saved her a slice of sweet bread from the bakery, and she always acted surprised.
Somewhere along the way, I began calling her my daughter.
Now she was screaming in the room where I had helped her hang her wedding dress that morning.
Richard caught up with me at the door. Julian had Audrey backed against the dresser. He wasn’t touching her, but she had nowhere to go. Her veil lay on the floor between them.
“Move away from her,” I said.
Julian turned. His face was pale, his eyes bright with anger.
“Ask her where Sienna is.”
I looked at Audrey. She pressed a hand to her mouth. Her other hand held a small silver charm so tightly that the chain had cut a red line across her palm.
Sienna was Audrey’s younger sister. I had met her that afternoon for the first time in nearly a year. She had come to the ceremony, smiled for one photograph, and left before dinner. Audrey had watched her go but said nothing.
“What happened to Sienna?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” Julian pointed to the charm. “She left that on our doorstep with a note.”
Audrey shook her head.
“Julian, please. Let me explain.”
“You told me she was getting better.”
“She is.”
“Then why did she say you sent her away?”
Richard stepped between them.
“Everybody needs to lower their voice.”
Julian pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket. The flowers embroidered on it matched the stationery I had placed beside the wedding guest book.
He held it out to me.
I read six words in uneven handwriting.
Ask Audrey where she put me.
Below them was an address on the far side of town.
I read it twice. It was the address of St. Agnes House, the residential care home where Richard’s aunt had lived years earlier.
Julian watched my face.
“Now do you understand why I’m asking?”
“No,” I said. “I understand why we need to find Sienna.”
Audrey’s eyes filled.
“She wasn’t supposed to leave alone.”
Julian let out a bitter laugh.
“So she was there.”
“Yes.”
“You told me she was staying with a friend.”
“I told you she had somewhere safe to stay.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No,” Audrey whispered. “It isn’t.”
I wanted to ask why she had kept a secret from the man she had just married. I also wanted Julian to notice how badly she was shaking.
Instead, I asked the only question that mattered.
“Is Sienna safe right now?”
Audrey looked toward the open window. Beyond it, the last guests’ cars were pulling out of our driveway.
“I don’t know.”
Julian went still.
Audrey swallowed hard.
“She called me before the ceremony. Someone had been asking for her at St. Agnes. She was scared. I asked her to wait for me, but I couldn’t get away, and then my phone was in the bridal suite. When I finally called back, nobody answered.”
“Someone who?” Richard asked.
Audrey stared at the charm in her hand.
“Our father.”
I knew very little about Audrey’s family. She had told us her mother died when she was young and her father lived out west. The subject hurt her, so I had let her choose when to say more.
Julian looked as stunned as I felt.
“You said he was dead.”
“I said he was gone.”
“You let me believe he was dead.”
“I was afraid of what he’d do if he found us.”
Julian opened his mouth, then closed it. The anger on his face had begun to give way to something else.
The doorbell rang.
All four of us turned.
It rang again, followed by three hard knocks.
Richard went downstairs while I stayed with Audrey and Julian. I could hear him open the front door. A woman spoke too softly for me to catch her words.
Then Richard called up to us.
“Clara. You need to come down.”
We found him in the foyer with a woman wearing a St. Agnes name badge. She held a damp cardigan and looked exhausted.
“I’m Maribel,” she said. “I care for Sienna. We searched everywhere before I came here.”
Audrey gripped the banister.
“Where is she?”
Maribel’s expression gave me the answer before she spoke.
“Sienna disappeared just after six.”
Audrey took a step backward. Julian reached for her, but she moved past him toward the front door.
Maribel followed her with her eyes.
“There’s something else,” she said. “The man who came looking for Sienna told our receptionist he was her father. He also knew about the wedding.”
Outside, Audrey stood beneath the porch light, clutching the silver charm.
Julian remained beside me, his wedding ring shining on a hand he no longer seemed able to move.
“What did he want?” I asked.
May you like
Maribel looked at Audrey.
“He said he was bringing his daughter home.”
