Chapter 1 - Rosie knew the word buried
My daughter did not understand exactly what Delphine had told her.
That made it worse.
Rosie was eight.
Old enough to remember her mother.
Young enough to still believe adults generally meant what they said.
She clung to my jacket while hotel security surrounded the staircase.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Is Mommy alive?”
I looked at Delphine.
She was sitting against the railing, holding a napkin to a cut above her eyebrow.
The blood looked worse than the injury eventually proved to be.
Rosie had bruising across one shoulder and shin.
A bump near her temple.
No fracture.
No serious head injury.
But we did not know that yet.
I carried her into a private lounge.
My security director, Caleb Warren, followed.
I knelt in front of Rosie.
“What exactly did Delphine say?”
Rosie swallowed.
“She said Mommy didn’t die.”
“Anything else?”
“She said Mommy was someplace where nobody could hear her.”
My stomach tightened.
“Did she say where?”
Rosie shook her head.
Then:
“She said you buried the wrong story.”
Wrong story.
Not:
Wrong body.
May you like
Interesting.
Because there had never been a body.
