Chapter 1 - Six Inches From Her Face

Vanessa Sterling's high heel stopped six inches from Naomi Reyes's face.

For one impossible second, the whole ballroom seemed to hold its breath. The blonde woman in the black designer dress stood balanced on one foot, her other leg extended like she had every right to kick a server in front of three hundred guests. Crystal chandeliers burned overhead. A string quartet played on because no one had told them to stop.

"Move," Vanessa hissed. "Or I'll finish it."

Naomi was twenty-nine, exhausted, and wearing a hotel vest that had been washed so many times the seams had gone gray. Her hands were empty. She'd brought a tray of water to the head table. She had not expected to find her dead mother's photograph towering above it on a ten-foot screen.

"Take down the picture," Naomi said. Her voice shook, but she kept her eyes on Vanessa. "You didn't ask my family."

Vanessa's smile changed. "Your mother was a tragic little headline. Don't confuse that with being important."

A man in a navy suit pushed through the crowd. Daniel Sterling, Vanessa's husband, held his palms out. "Vanessa. Enough."

"She embarrassed me at my own fundraiser."

"I asked a question," Naomi said. "Why is the Sterling Renewal Foundation using Rosa Reyes's face to raise money when Sterling Properties blamed her for the fire?"

There it was: the thing none of them wanted spoken aloud. Rosa had died three years earlier in the Riverside Towers fire, trying to get two children out of a locked stairwell. The official report said she had wedged a fire door open and helped smoke spread through the building. Naomi knew her mother would never do that. Knowing wasn't the same as proving.

Vanessa snapped her foot forward.

Naomi turned instinctively. The pointed shoe scraped her cheek. She raised one arm to block another strike and struck Vanessa across the face with her open hand. The sound cracked through the room.

Vanessa staggered and fell onto the polished floor. A champagne glass shattered. Someone screamed.

"She attacked me!" Vanessa cried. "Daniel, do something!"

Three phones rose. Then thirty. Naomi could already see how the clip would look if someone started filming one second too late.

Naomi whispered, "Then remember what happened."

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Two guards seized her arms. Across the ballroom, Vanessa touched her reddening cheek and whispered something to the hotel's security chief. Naomi couldn't hear the first words. She heard the last three perfectly.

"Delete the footage."