Chapter 3 - A NAME FROM TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO
Maya read Julian’s message five times.
Rachel read it twice.
Then she looked at Maya.
“Julian Sterling?”
“You know him?”
“Everyone knows him.”
Maya shook her head.
“I don’t.”
“He buys companies the way normal people buy coffee.”
“That makes me feel much better.”
Rachel sat beside her.
“How would he know about your ring?”
Maya pulled the chain from beneath her shirt.
The antique silver ring rested against her palm.
“My mother gave it to me three days before she died.”
Maya’s mother had called herself Catherine Brooks.
She had raised Maya alone.
They moved constantly when Maya was young.
Pennsylvania.
Maryland.
New Jersey.
Then Long Island.
Whenever Maya asked about her father, Catherine gave the same answer.
“He loved us, but some kinds of love become dangerous when powerful people are involved.”
At seventeen, Maya thought her mother was being dramatic.
At thirty-one, she wasn’t so sure.
Rachel pointed toward the engraving.
“Did she ever explain the orchid?”
“She said it meant survival.”
Maya remembered something else.
Her mother had been weak from cancer when she pressed the ring into Maya’s hand.
If anyone ever recognizes this, Catherine had whispered, listen before you run.
Maya had always assumed the medication was making her confused.
Now her skin went cold.
At 9:00 the next morning, Julian arrived at Rachel’s house alone.
No limousine.
No security team crowding the driveway.
Just a black sedan and a man in a charcoal coat carrying an old photograph.
Maya met him on the porch.
“You were at the party.”
“Yes.”
“You watched.”
Julian accepted the accusation.
“I did.”
“You didn’t stop him.”
“No.”
For the first time, shame crossed his face.
“I was too far away when he grabbed you.”
“But I should have done more afterward.”
Maya studied him.
“Why are you here?”
Julian handed her the photograph.
Maya looked down.
The woman in it appeared to be around thirty.
Elegant.
Dark-haired.
Smiling beside a tall man whose face Maya recognized from business magazines.
Grant Vale.
Maya’s fingers tightened around the photograph.
The woman was her mother.
Not similar.
Not close.
Her mother.
Maya whispered, “Why is my mother standing beside Grant Vale?”
Julian answered quietly.
“Because Catherine Brooks was born Catherine Vale.”
Maya looked up.
“And the little girl who disappeared with her twenty-five years ago was named Maya.”
The porch seemed to tilt beneath her.
Julian pointed at the ring around her neck.
“That ring belonged to the missing daughter of Grant Vale.”
Maya’s mouth went dry.
“You’re saying I’m her?”
“I’m saying we need proof.”
Inside the house, Lily called for her mother.
Maya looked toward the door.
Then back at the photograph.
“What happens if you’re right?”
Julian’s answer was immediate.
“Your entire life changes.”
Neither of them noticed the dark SUV parked half a block away.
Inside it, Olivia Vance was watching the house.
And when Maya lifted the ring into the morning light, Olivia recognized the orchid.
She had seen it before.
Twenty-five years before.
May you like
On the night Catherine Vale disappeared.
—
