CHAPTER 1: A White Dress in a Room of Gold

The Ashford Ballroom was designed to make ordinary people feel as if they had stepped into someone else's inheritance.
Gold-backed chairs lined the polished floor. White roses climbed the columns. Above everything, three chandeliers burned with the kind of light that made diamonds look innocent.
Clara Whitcomb stood near the dessert table in a white satin dress with tiny pearl buttons down the back. She was seven, small for her age, and trying very hard not to touch anything expensive.
Her mother, Maren, had tied the ribbon in her hair twice before they left home because Clara wanted to look perfect for her grandfather's foundation dinner.
Across the room, Adelaide Whitcomb watched the child as if perfection itself had offended her.
Maren saw the expression too late. She saw the older woman lift a porcelain plate from the serving table, saw the brown sauce slide toward the rim, and saw Clara smile because she still believed adults came close to be kind.
Then the plate tilted.
Sauce ran down the front of the white dress, hot enough to shock, not hot enough to explain Adelaide's smile.