Chapter 1 - The Cloth in Her Little Hand
The first thing Malcolm Reed saw when he walked through his own courtyard gate was a little girl on her knees, polishing a stranger's shoe.
Five-year-old Nia was wearing a faded red Christmas sweater that hung past her wrists. Her tights had a run at one knee. A paper Santa hat sat crooked over her two puffs, and she was pressing a white cloth against the black leather loafer of a man who had just donated fifty thousand dollars to the Reed Family Christmas Fund.
Above her, strings of golden lights crossed the courtyard. A brass band played a carol beside a wall of poinsettias. Guests in evening clothes sipped cider and posed for photographs with a giant gold sign that read EVERY CHILD DESERVES CHRISTMAS.
“Miss Simone,” Nia whispered, “my fingers hurt.”
Simone Reed, Malcolm's wife, didn't look down. She was busy smiling at the donor.
“Then stop dragging your feet and finish.”
“I am trying.”
“You wanted to be helpful, didn't you?” Simone turned the smile into a warning. “Don't embarrass me.”
Nia polished harder. Her mother had taught her to fold towels and put her crayons away. Her mother had never made her clean a grown man's shoes. But her mother was gone, and the adults in the house kept telling Nia she was lucky to have a roof.
The donor shifted his foot. “This really isn't necessary.”
“It's our little character-building activity,” Simone said. “She's had a difficult year.”
From the other side of the courtyard, sixteen-year-old Isaiah Price pushed past a table stacked with gift bags.
“Nia. Get up.”
She looked toward her brother, relief trembling across her face.
Simone caught his arm before he reached her. “You were told to stay in the kitchen.”
“She's five.”
“And you're sixteen, which is old enough to follow directions.”
“I'm taking her inside.”
Simone raised two fingers. Darius Bell, the foundation's security supervisor, stepped between them with another guard. Isaiah tried to go around him. Darius seized the back of his blazer and drove him against a parked maintenance cart. The cart rattled. Isaiah staggered, caught himself, and threw an arm across Nia when she scrambled toward him.
“Don't touch my sister!”
“Stop fighting,” Darius growled.
“Then let me go.”
A woman near the sponsor backdrop lowered her phone. Two guests turned away. Someone said the children needed discipline. Nobody stepped forward.
Simone bent toward Nia and held out the cloth.
“Pick that up. We are not finished.”
Nia stared at Isaiah's twisted collar. Tears clung to her lashes. The man whose shoe she had been cleaning backed away.
“Ma'am,” he said, “I think that's enough.”
“It is a family matter.”
At the gate, a voice answered her.
“Then the family can explain it to me.”
Malcolm stood beneath the iron arch in a charcoal overcoat, his overnight bag hanging from one hand. He had left a construction site in Baltimore three hours early and driven home without telling anyone. His flight had been canceled, and he wanted to surprise the children before the Christmas charity gala ended.
He had not expected this.
Nia saw him first.
“Uncle Mal!”
She ran so fast one sneaker slipped off. Malcolm dropped his bag, crossed the courtyard, and caught her before she hit the wet stone. She wrapped both arms around his neck.
He felt her shaking.
“Hey, starshine. I've got you.”
She buried her face against his collar.
Malcolm looked over her head at Isaiah, still trapped between Darius and the cart.
“Take your hands off my nephew.”
Darius released him at once. Isaiah straightened his blazer, breathing hard.
“Are you hurt?” Malcolm asked.
“No, sir.”
“Did you swing first?”
“No. I was getting Nia.”
Malcolm looked around at the guests who had suddenly become fascinated by their glasses.
“Who saw it?”
Silence.
Then an elderly caterer in a green apron spoke from beside the warming trays.
“I did. They grabbed that boy.”
Another guest raised her hand. “I saw it too.”
Malcolm's voice remained low. “And you let it happen?”
Simone approached, touching her pearl necklace. “Baby, you don't understand. Nia was acting out.”
He looked down at the shoe-polishing cloth clenched in his niece's fist.
“What was she doing on the ground?”
“She insisted on helping.”
Nia shook her head against his coat.
Malcolm felt that movement before he saw it.
“Tell me, sweetheart.”
“She said if I didn't clean their shoes, I couldn't have dinner.”
Simone gave a brittle laugh. “She's overtired.”
Nia pulled back. “And they make Isaiah kneel too.”
Isaiah's face changed. He stared at his sister, then at Simone.
Malcolm turned slowly.
“How many times?”
“Uncle Mal—”
“How many, Isaiah?”
The boy swallowed. “Whenever you go away.”
Nia held up the cloth like evidence.
“Today they said Mama would've been ashamed of us.”
The brass band stopped in the middle of a carol.
Malcolm had spent a year telling himself he had given his late sister's children a safe home. He had signed checks, built a playroom, hired tutors, and flown across the country believing Simone handled the everyday things.
Now his niece was afraid to put down a rag in his own yard.
“Everyone stay where you are,” Malcolm said. “Security, open the office. I want every camera feed saved.”
Simone stepped in front of him. “You don't get to humiliate me at my event.”
He met her eyes. “It's my family's name on that sign.”
“Mine too.”
“Then you'll want the truth on the record.”
He started toward the house with Nia in his arms and Isaiah at his side. Behind the sponsor wall, the caterer called out again.
“Mr. Reed? The camera in the courtyard isn't the one you need.”
Malcolm stopped.
May you like
The woman looked directly at Simone.
“Ask her why she installed a second camera facing the children's bedroom.”
