Chapter 1 - THE GIRL AT THE DESSERT TABLE
“THAT CAKE IS NOT FOR YOU!”
The little girl jerked her hand away so fast she knocked a strawberry onto the marble. Three hundred guests watched it roll across a spotless white tablecloth.
Elisa Rochefort stepped closer, diamonds flashing beneath the garden lanterns. “Where is security? Someone get this child out of my party.”
“Your party?” Damon Cross asked.
The string quartet stopped. Damon had paid for the evening, but he hadn't expected to see a barefoot child threatened over dessert at a fundraiser for hungry families. The girl wore a faded yellow blouse and had dark curls tangled around her cheeks. She looked too small to be standing alone among strangers.
Elisa offered him her practiced smile. “Damon. I was handling a situation.”
“You told a hungry child she wasn't allowed to eat.”
“She isn't on the guest list.”
“She is exactly who the guest list is supposed to help.”
He took a clean plate, cut a slice from the five-tier cake, and knelt on the grass until his eyes met the girl's.
“I'm Damon. What's your name?”
“Daisy.”
“Would you like some cake, Daisy?”
She stared at the plate, then at Elisa. “Will she get mad?”
“I'm not asking her.”
Daisy accepted the plate with both hands. She didn't eat. Instead, she slid half the cake into the paper napkin tucked in her pocket.
“Saving some?” Damon asked.
“For Mama. She didn't get dinner.”
Elisa's smile disappeared. “What did you say your last name was?”
“Reyes,” Daisy whispered.
For an instant Damon saw genuine fear cross Elisa's face. Then she signaled security.
Damon rose. “Nobody takes this girl anywhere until we find her mother.”
Daisy caught his sleeve. Her tiny fingers were cold.
“Mister,” she said, “Mama told me to find the man named Cross if the lady in red came back.”
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And behind Damon, Elisa dropped her champagne glass.
