CHAPTER 3: The Woman in the Green Dress

The Silver Bracelet
Before Lena could answer, a woman in an emerald evening gown pushed through the watching crowd. Celeste Vale, Thomas's second wife, wore a calm smile that did not reach her eyes.
"Thomas," she said gently, "this poor girl is frightened. Perhaps we should not turn grief into a spectacle."
The guests relaxed at her polished tone. Celeste had always been the graceful face beside Thomas, the woman who hosted auctions for missing children and smiled beside oversized checks. But Lena noticed how Celeste's fingers tightened around her clutch when she glanced at the bracelet.
Thomas did not look away from Lena.
"Call Detective Morgan," he told his assistant. "And ask the hospital to send a private team for a DNA test. Tonight."
Celeste's smile thinned.
"You cannot be serious. A bracelet is not evidence."
"No," Thomas said. "But the engraving is. I designed it. Only one bracelet like that was made."
Lena felt the ballroom tilt beneath her. For years the bracelet had been the only thing she owned that felt older than her pain. Now it had become a door.
Across the room, the string quartet tried to begin again, but no one listened. A waiter stood with a tray suspended in midair. A senator's wife lowered her champagne without drinking. The charity screens behind the stage still showed a smiling photograph of Thomas beside the words Every Lost Child Deserves a Way Home, and for the first time that slogan sounded less like a promise than an accusation.