Chapter 1 - The Baby Who Stopped Crying
My son stopped crying the second a stranger touched the necklace his dead mother used to wear.
I was standing beneath a crystal chandelier with two hundred people watching when Theo reached out of my arms and grabbed the little silver moon hanging at a hotel employee's throat.
Then he said, "Mama."
The ballroom went quiet enough for me to hear ice settle in a champagne glass.
Theo was ten months old. Since the night his mother died, he had cried himself hoarse whenever I took him to a crowded room. Tonight was supposed to be different. Tonight the Mercer Foundation was celebrating its new children's hospital wing, and my father had insisted I bring the baby for photographs.
"Let the donors see what we're building for," he'd said.
I had agreed because I'd forgotten how to say no to anyone after losing Mara.
Now Theo's tiny fingers were locked around a necklace that should have been buried with her.
The woman wearing it had red hair pulled into a tight knot and a brass name tag that read NORA BELL. She couldn't have been older than thirty. A silver serving tray lay forgotten on the table behind her.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
She didn't answer. She watched Theo's face with an expression so painful I almost looked away.
"Sir," she whispered, "we can't talk here."
Vivian Hart appeared beside us, all emerald silk and polished smiles. She ran the foundation's public relations, and lately my father had started treating her as though she belonged in my family.
"Evan, you're making a scene," she said. "Give the child to his nanny."
Theo pulled on the moon. The clasp opened, and the pendant dropped into his palm.
Vivian's smile vanished.
"Security," she called sharply.
Nora caught my wrist before I could step back. Her fingers were cold.
"Your wife gave me that," she said.
I felt the floor tilt.
"That's impossible. Mara died five months ago."
"That's what they told you."
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A man in a dark suit started toward us through the crowd. Nora glanced at him, then leaned close enough that only I could hear.
"Mr. Mercer, your wife is alive. And if we don't get her out tonight, she won't be tomorrow."
