Chapter 1 - The Sign in the Christmas Rain
The first thing Gabriel Mercer saw when his car reached the Christmas-lit mansion was a little girl standing barefoot in the rain with a cardboard sign against her chest.
I RUINED CHRISTMAS, the sign said.
His seven-year-old daughter, Rosie, was wearing the thin red velvet dress he had bought for her last December. One sleeve was torn. Wet blond hair stuck to her cheeks. She held her shoulders so tightly together that she looked smaller than the child in the photographs on his phone.
On the covered porch, Gabriel's sister-in-law, Celeste, lifted a brass fireplace poker and struck the stone beside Rosie's feet. The clang made the child flinch backward into the rain.
"Stand where I told you," Celeste snapped. "Your grandfather's guests need to see what happens to liars."
"I didn't break it," Rosie whispered.
"Then why did you touch it?"
"I was trying to catch it."
The front door opened. Gabriel's mother, Evelyn Mercer, stood beneath a wreath tied with an enormous gold bow. Warm light spilled around her slippers. Behind her, someone laughed over Christmas music and the clink of dinner plates.
"Celeste," Evelyn said, "don't leave the door open. You're letting the heat out."
The lock clicked. Rosie stared at the door as if she could persuade it to change its mind.
Gabriel was out of the car before his driver could open the door. The wind caught his dark overcoat. His suitcase toppled into a puddle behind him. He had spent eleven days in Denver finalizing the sale of his family's struggling furniture company, telling himself Rosie was safe with the grandmother who had raised him.
"Rosie."
She turned. For one extraordinary second her face opened with relief.
"Daddy?"
She started toward him, then stopped and looked at Celeste. "I'm not supposed to move."
Gabriel crossed the driveway and dropped to one knee on the wet gravel. "Come here, sweetheart."
"I'll get the rug dirty."
"There isn't a rug out here."
"She said I'll ruin everything again."
He took the cardboard from her trembling fingers. The marker had soaked through in places. Someone had drawn a black X over a crooked little Christmas tree at the bottom. He recognized Rosie's handwriting only in the word Christmas. The rest had been written by an adult.
"Who made you hold this?"
Rosie glanced toward the porch. Celeste's hand tightened around the poker.
"Gabriel," she called, suddenly smiling, "you weren't due until tomorrow. We're teaching Rosie accountability. She destroyed the angel your father left your mother."
Gabriel slipped off his coat and wrapped it around Rosie. "Inside. Now."
Celeste stepped across the doorway. "Evelyn said she stays out until she admits it."
"Move."
"You don't understand what she's been doing."
"I understand she's barefoot in December."
Rosie caught his sleeve. "Please don't make Grandma mad. She said if I tell you, she'll send my dog away."
The words landed harder than the wind. Gabriel lifted her, feeling how cold her legs were through the soaked dress. The little girl tucked her face against his neck and tried to make herself light.
His mother appeared behind Celeste. "Gabriel. Put her down. You're undermining the only structure she has."
"Her structure?" he said. "She's seven."
"She stole money, broke the angel, and accused your brother's boy."
"I didn't steal it," Rosie said into his collar.
"Hush," Evelyn ordered.
Gabriel looked at the brass poker, the sign, and the holiday table visible beyond the hall. A place had been set for everyone except Rosie. At the far end, his younger brother Daniel sat beside Celeste's son, Owen. Owen was staring down at his plate.
"Get her a blanket," Gabriel told the housekeeper, Mrs. Alvarez, who had hurried to the entrance. "And call Dr. Bell."
Evelyn's expression sharpened. "You will not bring a doctor into this over a little rain."
"Then you should have kept her out of it."
As Gabriel carried Rosie through the doorway, she whispered, "Daddy, I didn't break Grandpa's angel. I saw who did."
He stopped beneath the chandelier. "Who?"
She looked past his shoulder at Owen, whose fork slipped from his hand.
"The angel was already broken," Rosie said. "And Grandma told me not to look in its head."
Behind them, Evelyn reached for the cardboard sign. Gabriel folded it and put it inside his coat instead.
"Don't throw that away," Rosie whispered. "There's something on the back."
May you like
He turned it over. Beneath the wet cardboard, written in a different hand, were four words:
ASK ABOUT THE ATTIC.
