Chapter 1 - THE FACE BENEATH HER HEEL
Victoria Sinclair’s cream-colored heel came down across the chalk portrait before anyone understood what the child was drawing.
Blue dust burst over a woman’s carefully shaped eyes. Pink chalk broke beneath the sole. The smiling face disappeared under a gray smear on the cracked pavement outside Chicago’s most expensive stores.
“Clean up this mess,” Victoria said.
Lily Hart remained on her knees.
The nine-year-old girl wore an oversized brown sweater, faded pants, and shoes held together with silver tape. Her messy hair framed a face streaked with dust and tears. She looked at the ruined portrait but made no sound.
Victoria adjusted the cuff of her cream designer jacket.
“Did you hear me?”
Lily reached for another piece of chalk.
Instead of running, she began drawing again.
Her hand moved with desperate speed. She rebuilt the curve of the face, the narrow nose, and the long dark hair. Tears fell onto the pavement, turning white chalk into paste beneath her fingers.
Pedestrians slowed.
Victoria watched with a mocking smile.
“Pathetic.”
Lily pressed harder. The chalk snapped. She grabbed another piece and continued.
Officer Daniel Brooks had been crossing the street when the growing circle of people caught his attention. He approached expecting an argument over panhandling.
Then he saw the face.
He stopped.
A bystander whispered, “What is that?”
Daniel did not answer. The city noise seemed to pull away from him. Lily added a small scar through the woman’s left eyebrow and shaded one dimple beside her mouth.
Daniel’s breathing changed.
“No way…”
Victoria’s smile weakened.
The crowd became quiet.
Lily chose a yellow fragment and drew one final symbol beneath the portrait—a tiny oval necklace divided by a crooked line.
Daniel’s radio slipped from his hand and struck the sidewalk.
Eight years earlier, his younger sister Rachel had disappeared with her fourteen-month-old daughter. Rachel had worn one half of a broken gold locket. Daniel still kept the matching half in his apartment.
No photograph released to the public showed it.
“She disappeared eight years ago…”
The sidewalk fell silent.
Still kneeling, Lily raised one chalk-covered hand.
She pointed directly at Victoria.
Daniel and every bystander turned.
Victoria’s face drained of color.
May you like
Daniel stared at her.
“You…”
