Chapter 4

My assistant called at seven that evening. "The party started an hour ago, madam. The Sapphire Club. The deposit came out of the weight-loss account, eight hundred thousand dollars, and the bar is running on the black card."

"Kill them both," I said. "Right now."

Upstairs, Lily sat in front of her mirror while the stylists I had flown in worked around her. A new dress, soft curls, gentle makeup over the bruises, and around her neck the diamond pendant her father had given her when she turned sixteen.

She looked beautiful. She looked terrified.

"They all think Ashley is your daughter," she whispered. "The whole school. She tells everyone I'm the maid's kid that your family took in out of pity. They call me the charity case."

"Then tonight we correct them," I said.

"Mom, I don't want to go."

"You don't have to do anything," I told her, and took her hand. "You just stand where they can see you. I'll do the rest."

At the club entrance my phone buzzed with the confirmation, and I stopped to read it. Lily went through the doors a few steps ahead of me, alone.

It took the room ten seconds to notice her.

The Sapphire's main hall was packed with teenagers in expensive clothes, and at the center of it Ashley held court in a silver gown, accepting compliments like a queen at her coronation. Someone spotted Lily first and laughed out loud. "Oh my god. The charity case actually showed up."

"Is she wearing real couture?"

"No way. Look at her. There's no way."

The whispers spread fast. My daughter stood frozen at the edge of that glittering hall in her diamonds, and I watched every old instinct swallow her. Her shoulders came up, her eyes went down, and her hands twisted together in front of her.

Ashley pushed through the crowd, and for one second I saw raw panic cross her face. Lily was supposed to be locked at home, half-starved and invisible, not standing here looking like money.

Then Ashley's eyes fixed on the pendant, and the panic turned into something uglier.

That pendant was the last gift her father gave her before his work took him overseas. Watching Ashley's eyes lock onto it, I felt something at the bottom of my chest go hard and hot.

She grabbed Lily's wrist and raised her voice so the whole room could enjoy it. "Where did you get this? This is real. Where does a girl like you get real diamonds?"

Lily tried to pull free. "Ashley, please—"

"She stole it." Ashley turned to her audience, playing every second of it. "That's what she does. My family took her in out of charity, and she steals from us. Jewelry, cash, anything she can get her hands on."

"She stole a sandwich from the deli on Fifth just this morning," someone called out. "I heard she got arrested and everything."

So they had already spread that story too.

"Give it here," Ashley said, and reached for the clasp of Lily's necklace. "I'll return it to my mother for you, you little thief."

I was already moving through the crowd when a man in a manager's uniform got there first.

"Miss." He caught Ashley's reaching hand, polite and immovable as stone. "I'm afraid there's a problem with your account."

Ashley blinked at him. "What?"

"Your deposit for tonight has been fully spent, and the bar bill has exceeded it by a considerable amount." He held out a card reader. "The card you left on file was just declined. I'll need payment now."

The music kept playing, but the circle around them had gone very quiet.

Ashley pulled out the black card. My daughter's black card. She slapped it into the reader with a confident little smile. "Run it again. There's no limit on that card."

The machine beeped. Declined.

She ran it again, slower this time. Declined.

"That's impossible," she said, and her voice had climbed half an octave. "Run it again. Do you have any idea who my mother is?"

I stepped back into the shadow of a marble pillar and let my eyes rest on her, cold as the grave.

Run it as many times as you like, sweetheart. That card died ten minutes ago.