Chapter 1 - The Woman in the Snow
Snow had been falling since noon, burying the long drive to Kincaid House beneath a white silence that made every sound feel forbidden.
Samuel Kincaid stood inside the mansion's library with a glass of untouched bourbon in his hand while his mother entertained three board members in the drawing room.
Daria Kincaid had insisted that the winter dinner proceed despite the storm.
She said tradition mattered most when a family was grieving.
Samuel had learned to hate the word grieving.
Two years had passed since Catherine's funeral, yet the mansion still displayed her absence like a carefully arranged portrait.
Her books were gone.
Her photographs had been moved to a locked cabinet.
Her name appeared only when Daria wanted to remind him that love had made him weak.
The bell at the front gate rang once and then went silent.
A few minutes later, one of the security guards called the house and reported that a woman was standing near the steps with a baby.
Daria dismissed it with a wave of her jeweled hand.
"Send her away."
Samuel heard the order from the library doorway.
"It is freezing outside."
Daria turned toward him with the patient expression she used whenever she wanted to make cruelty sound reasonable.
"Then she should have made better choices before bringing a child into a storm."
Samuel set down his glass.
"I will speak to her."
The moment he opened the double doors, cold air swept into the marble foyer.
At the bottom of the snow-covered steps stood a young woman in a brown hooded coat.
Her boots were cracked.
Her scarf was soaked.
A baby wrapped in a gray blanket slept against her chest.
The woman lifted one trembling hand.
"Please, sir."
Her voice was almost lost beneath the wind.
"My little girl is starving."
Samuel descended one step and stopped.
There was something familiar in the shape of her mouth.
There was something impossible in the way she held her shoulders, as if refusing to collapse would require the last of her strength.
Then she raised her face.
The world narrowed to her eyes.
"Catherine?"
Her lips parted, but no sound came at first.
A pale scar crossed her right eyebrow.
Fading scratches marked her cheek.
Her hair, once long and dark, had been hacked unevenly above her shoulders.
"My God," Samuel breathed.
"You're alive."
Catherine's eyes filled with tears, but she shook her head sharply.
"Don't look at me like that."
Samuel's heart pounded against his ribs.
"What?"
"Your mother is behind that door."
The baby stirred between them.
Samuel looked down and saw a tiny face framed by the blanket.
The child had Catherine's mouth.
She also had his father's unmistakable gray eyes.
"Tell me she's mine."
Catherine swallowed.
"She is."
Samuel stepped toward her.
"Catherine, what happened?"
"Your mother locked me away and faked my death."
The words struck him harder than the cold.
Behind him, the front door opened wider.
Daria stood in the glowing foyer, wrapped in a white fur coat with diamonds at her throat.
For one naked second, horror erased the elegance from her face.
Catherine saw it.
Samuel saw it.
Then Daria recovered.
"Samuel," she said quietly, "step away from that woman."
Samuel descended the remaining steps and wrapped one arm around Catherine while shielding the baby with his body.
"You know her."
Daria's expression hardened.
"I know a fraud when I see one."
Catherine began trembling so violently that Samuel could feel it through her coat.
"She will call them," Catherine whispered.
"Who?"
"The men who kept me."
Daria turned her head slightly toward the security guard by the gate.
It was a small movement.
It was enough.
The guard reached inside his coat.
Samuel pulled Catherine behind him.
"Do not move."
The guard froze.
Samuel's voice carried across the steps with a force the household had not heard from him in two years.
"If you touch that weapon, every camera on this property will record you threatening my wife and child."
Daria's gaze flicked toward the nearest security camera.
For the first time, uncertainty entered her eyes.
Samuel took Catherine's hand.
"We are going inside."
"No," Catherine said.
Her fingers tightened around his.
"Not through the front door."
A black SUV appeared beyond the iron gates, moving slowly through the snow.
Catherine looked at it and went white.
"They found me."
"Who found you?"
The SUV stopped outside the gate.
Its headlights remained on.
Daria smiled.
It was the smallest smile Samuel had ever seen.
It frightened him more than a scream.
"Bring them in," she told the guard.
Samuel understood then that Catherine had not returned to the mansion by chance.
She had been followed.
And his mother had been waiting.
May you like
"Run," Catherine whispered.
Samuel lifted the baby from her arms, seized Catherine's hand, and led her down the side path toward the frozen gardens as the iron gates began to open behind them.
