Chapter 2 - Whose Child Matters
"He's six!" I shouted. "Lower that thing."
The guard was thick through the shoulders, with OWEN RUSK printed on the badge clipped to his jacket. His eyes stayed fixed on me, not on Beatrice, who had just threatened a room full of people with a handgun.
Noah pressed his forehead into my shoulder. "Please don't take Holly," he whispered.
A woman near the ruined champagne display finally found her voice. "I saw the whole thing! She pulled the gun!" Two other guests raised their phones. Rusk's jaw tightened. He kicked Beatrice's pistol farther away and ordered everyone to remain still.
Police reached us within minutes. An officer named Ruiz moved Noah behind a banquet table and asked me to show both hands. I obeyed. For a moment an officer put cuffs on me while they sorted out the screaming accounts. I hated the fear in Noah's face more than the metal around my wrists.
Beatrice stood beside her lawyer, who seemed to have materialized out of thin air. "This woman attacked me," she announced. "The child became hysterical for no reason."
"There's video," I said.
A caterer handed Ruiz a phone showing the tray, the chair, the slap, and the gun. The officer watched twice. She removed my cuffs and told Beatrice she was being detained. For the first time, the diamonds on that woman's neck looked useless.
"You'll regret turning this into a circus," Beatrice said to me as another officer escorted her away.
"No," I answered. "I'll regret not getting here sooner."
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Noah had been invited to receive a scholarship in memory of his mother, my older sister Lena. Fourteen months earlier, Lena had died in a fire at Juniper House, a temporary family residence run by Beatrice's foundation. I had promised to keep him safe. Instead, a staff member had led him onstage while I was held up at check-in.
At the ambulance, Noah stopped me from lifting him inside. "Holly," he said, staring at the police car, "that's the lady who told them not to open the door for Mommy."
