“Ma’am, I swear I didn’t steal it—”
Victoria gently took the pitcher from her trembling hands and set it aside.
“Come with me, darling. Just for a moment.”
She led her through a side door into one of the hotel’s private lounges, away from staring eyes and camera phones. Once inside, she closed the door and turned on only one small lamp.
Then she faced the daughter she had buried in her heart a quarter-century ago.
“Tell me what you remember,” Victoria whispered. “Anything at all.”
Rosie’s eyes filled. “Fire,” she said softly. “I remember fire everywhere. A big house. A pretty room with a rocking horse. A woman singing… something about stars.” She touched the pendant again. “Then I woke up in a children’s home with this around my neck and no one who knew my name.”
Victoria made a sound that was half sob, half prayer.
She sank onto a velvet settee and reached for Rosie’s hands—calloused, capable hands that had cleaned houses and served strangers for years.
“My daughter vanished the night our house burned,” she said, voice shaking. “June twenty-fourth. She was two years old. That necklace never left her neck.”
Rosie stared, the color draining from her face.
“My birthday… is June twenty-fourth.”