CHAPTER 2 — THE LOCKET
The ballroom fell silent.
Cake slowly slid from six-year-old Lily's face onto her tiny pink dress.
She didn't cry.
She simply bent down, picked up the small gold locket, and wiped it gently with her sleeve.
The wealthy woman, Victoria Hawthorne, stared at it as though she had seen a ghost.
Her hands began to tremble.
"Where..." she whispered.
"Where did you get that?"
Lily carefully opened the locket.
Inside was a faded photograph.
On one side stood a young woman smiling beneath an old oak tree.
On the other side was a handwritten message.
"To my sister Victoria. No matter what happens, we'll always be family. — Claire."
Victoria's champagne glass slipped from her hand.
It shattered across the marble floor.
Guests exchanged confused glances.
Claire.
The younger sister who had disappeared nearly ten years earlier after a bitter family dispute.
Everyone believed she had left forever.
Lily looked up innocently.
"My mommy said..."
"...you'd know this."
Victoria's lips quivered.
"Your mother..."
"...is Claire?"
Lily nodded.
"Mommy couldn't come."
"She's very sick."
"She said if I found Aunt Victoria..."
"...to give this back."
From the locket, Lily unfolded a tiny handwritten letter.
Victoria recognized the handwriting instantly.
Her sister's.
The sister she had spent years convincing herself she no longer cared about.
As she read the first line...
May you like
Tears blurred her vision.
'If you're reading this... I must finally need your help.'
