Chapter 1 - The Sentence That Stopped the Music
"Dad, that baby isn't yours!"
Six-year-old Lucía Navarro said it before the minister could ask her father to take his bride's hand. Two hundred wedding guests turned toward her. A violinist dragged her bow across the strings. The ugly note hung in the air.
Daniel Navarro had been smiling. Now his mouth went still. "Lucía?"
She stood halfway down the aisle in her flower-girl dress, her little fingers digging into a ribbon of white satin. Eleven days was a long time to be afraid when you were six. She had marked each with a black dot on her calendar.
Harper Rowe, the bride, pressed a hand over the slight curve beneath her wedding gown. "Sweetheart, this isn't funny."
"I'm not being funny." Lucía swallowed. "You told him it was his. But I heard you tell the other man."
The room started murmuring. Harper's mother, Joyce, sprang from the front pew. "Daniel, get her out of here. She's upset about the wedding."
"I'm scared," Lucía admitted. "That's different."
Harper's eyes sharpened. For just a second her lovely smile disappeared, and Lucía saw the same hard face she'd seen at her bedroom door at midnight.
"Somebody take her," Harper said.
Daniel stepped off the platform. His suit jacket caught on the rail, but he didn't stop. When a uniformed event guard reached for Lucía, Daniel got there first. He knelt before his daughter, letting her see his whole face.
"No one is taking you anywhere," he said. "Tell me what happened."
Lucía pointed toward the side doors. A man in a charcoal suit had slipped out of his chair and was moving quickly away from the ceremony. He owned the wedding venue. Everyone knew Mr. Silas Beck.
"That man," she whispered. "He was at our house in the storm."
Silas stopped with one hand on the exit bar.
"And I heard him say something about a paper you're supposed to sign," Lucía added.
May you like
Daniel looked from the man to his bride. Harper's hand fell away from her belly. On the altar, the minister quietly closed his book.
Then Daniel asked the question that changed the day: "What paper, Harper?"
