Chapter 1 - THE DIAMOND IN LILY’S POCKET “OPEN HER BAG.”
The command cut through the wedding ballroom like a knife.
Three hundred guests fell silent.
Claire Bennett stared across the glittering room at her older brother, Ethan.
“What did you say?”
Ethan stood beside the wedding cake in a black tuxedo, one hand resting on the shoulder of his new bride, Vanessa. His face was calm.
Too calm.
“My watch is missing.”
Claire frowned.
“What does that have to do with Lily?”
Ethan pointed toward Claire’s eight-year-old daughter.
“Because I saw her near my jacket.”
Every face turned.
Lily froze beside her chair.
She was wearing a pale yellow dress and holding the pink rabbit purse Claire had bought her for the wedding.
“I didn’t take anything,” Lily whispered.
Claire immediately stepped between her daughter and Ethan.
“She said she didn’t take it.”
Their mother, Margaret Bennett, rose from the head table.
“Claire, don’t make a scene.”
“A grown man just accused my eight-year-old daughter of stealing a twenty-thousand-dollar watch.”
“Thirty-two thousand,” Ethan corrected.
Claire stared at him.
Then something caught her attention.
Ethan wasn’t angry.
He was watching Lily.
Waiting.
A hotel security guard approached.
“Ma’am, may we check the child’s bag?”
“No.”
Ethan smiled.
“Afraid of what they’ll find?”
Claire turned toward Lily.
Her daughter was shaking.
“Mommy…”
Claire knelt.
“Did Uncle Ethan touch your purse tonight?”
Lily hesitated.
“I…”
Ethan’s expression changed.
Only for a second.
But Claire saw it.
Fear.
“Lily?”
“He helped me pick up my crayons.”
Claire slowly stood.
Ethan interrupted.
“Search the bag.”
The guard opened it.
Crayons.
A small sketchbook.
Two pieces of candy.
A stuffed rabbit.
And—
A silver watch.
Gasps exploded across the ballroom.
Lily stared at it.
“That’s not mine!”
Ethan smiled.
“I think we have our answer.”
Claire looked at the watch.
Then at Ethan.
And suddenly understood.
May you like
Someone had just framed her child.
And her own brother was standing closest to the trap.
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