Chapter 1 – THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE RED SILK PURSE

The dining room fell into a deathly silence.

Forty guests stared at Adrian Caruso.

Celeste Whitmore didn’t move.

Her face, usually so perfectly composed, turned completely white.

“Excuse me?” she whispered.

Adrian didn’t raise his voice.

He didn’t have to.

“You heard me. The engagement is over. Get out of my house.”

Celeste looked around the table.

She expected the wealthy politicians and business owners to defend her.

But nobody met her eyes.

They were all looking at Joseph, who was still holding his blue-handled fork, tears drying on his weathered cheeks.

Celeste let out a sharp, bitter laugh.

“You’re making a massive mistake, Adrian.”

“My only mistake was letting you near my father.”

She grabbed her red silk purse from the back of her chair.

Her hands were shaking with rage.

“You think this is about a fork? You think I care how your crippled father eats?”

Adrian’s jaw tightened.

His tattooed hands balled into fists.

“Don’t push me, Celeste. Just leave.”

“Oh, I’ll leave.”

She unclasped her purse.

“But you’re going to wish you had kept me happy. Because I know exactly what your father has been hiding since his stroke.”

Joseph gasped.

His blue fork clattered against the porcelain plate.

“Celeste, no,” the old man pleaded.

His sudden terror sent a chill down my spine.

Adrian stepped between his father and his ex-fiancée.

“What are you talking about?”

Celeste smiled coldly.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a faded, crinkled photograph.

She threw it onto the white tablecloth.

It landed right next to Joseph’s untouched champagne glass.

Adrian picked it up.

I stood close enough to see the image.

It was a picture of Joseph, taken decades ago, standing in front of his old carpentry workshop.

But he wasn’t alone.

He was shaking hands with a man wearing a dark, expensive suit.

A man I recognized immediately from the financial magazines in Adrian’s study.

Marcus Whitmore.

Celeste’s billionaire father.

“Why do you have a picture of my father with yours?” Adrian demanded.

Celeste zipped her purse.

“Because your father didn’t just build kitchen cabinets, Adrian. He built the foundation of my father’s empire. And he stole something from us to do it.”

Joseph began to tremble violently.

“I didn’t steal it,” he whispered. “He gave it to her.”

Adrian looked at his father.

“Gave who what, Dad?”

Celeste leaned closer to Adrian.

“Ask him about the gold pocket watch. The one he keeps locked in his bedside drawer. The one that belongs to my family.”

She turned on her heel.

Her red gown swept across the marble floor as she walked out of the dining room.

The heavy front doors slammed shut.

Adrian stared at the photograph in his hand.

Then he looked at his father.

“Dad. What is she talking about?”

Joseph looked terrified.

He didn’t look at Adrian.

He looked at me.

“Ellie,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “Go upstairs. Check the drawer.”

My heart pounded.

I ran out of the dining room and rushed up the grand staircase.

I pushed open the door to Joseph’s bedroom.

The room was perfectly neat, just as I had left it this morning.

But the top drawer of his mahogany bedside table was hanging open.

The wood around the lock was splintered.

Somebody had broken into it during dinner.

I walked over, my breath catching in my throat.

The drawer was completely empty.

Except for one thing.

Resting on the velvet lining was a heavy, silver bracelet.

A woman’s bracelet.

And engraved on the clasp was a single name: Eleanor.

My mother’s name.

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