I backed up until my shoulders hit the wall, hiding the photograph behind the folds of the velvet coat.

“How did you get in here?” I demanded, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

Vanessa smiled. It was a hollow, dead expression.

“I’ve had a master key to this house since before you learned how to fold a fitted sheet,” she said, taking a slow step closer. The click, snap of the lighter echoed in the dark hallway. “Give me the coat, Claire.”

“It’s not yours,” I said.

“No,” she agreed softly. “It was my sister’s. But there is something hidden inside the lining that belongs to my family.”

My mind raced. How did my mother know Vanessa and Sarah? Why was my father killed?

“Luca is downstairs,” I bluffed loudly, hoping to wake the guards.

“Luca is in his study on a secure line with my father, trying to negotiate his way out of a war,” Vanessa replied smoothly. She stopped ten feet away. “He won’t hear you. Hand over the coat, or I promise you, your mother won’t live to see the sunrise.”

I tightened my grip on the heavy velvet.

If she wanted the coat, it meant she wanted the photograph. And if she wanted the photograph, it held the key to why my father died.

“You killed him,” I said, my voice rising. “You killed my father.”

Vanessa stopped clicking the lighter. Her expression turned entirely cold, devoid of any humanity.

“Your father was a parasite. He blackmailed my family for years.”

“My father was a mechanic!” I yelled.

“Your father,” Vanessa sneered, stepping into the light, “was the mechanic who fixed the brake lines on the car Sarah died in.”

The hallway spun. I felt like I had been punched in the chest.

Sarah didn’t die of an illness.

“It was a car crash,” I whispered, piecing the old news stories together. “Everyone said it was a tragic accident on the icy roads.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Vanessa said, her eyes flashing with venom. “Your father cut the lines. But the stupid mechanic messed up. He was supposed to target Luca’s car. Sarah took Luca’s car that night.”

She held out her hand, palm up.

“Give me the coat.”

I looked at her outstretched hand. I realized what I was holding. The coat didn't just smell like lavender.

It smelled faintly of smoke. And ash.

Sarah was wearing this coat the night she died.

I threw the heavy velvet coat straight at Vanessa’s face.

She shrieked, stumbling backward as the heavy fabric blinded her, the lighter dropping to the carpet.

I didn’t wait. I turned and sprinted into Sophie’s room, slamming the heavy oak door and throwing the deadbolt.

I leaned against it, panting violently.

Sophie sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes in the dark.

“Claire? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sweetie,” I lied, trying to steady my ragged breathing.

She looked at my hands.

“Why are you holding my mom’s necklace?”

I looked down. When I threw the coat, something had fallen out of the lining. I had instinctively caught it in mid-air.

It was a heavy gold chain with a shattered emerald pendant.

“This was your mom’s?” I asked, walking over to the bed.

Sophie shook her head. “No. It’s my grandfather’s. He gave it to Vanessa to give to my dad.”

I stared at the broken emerald. The Bellini family crest was engraved on the back.

But there was a fresh, deep scratch across the gold. It formed a single letter, carved frantically with a sharp edge.

C.

TITLE: The Girl With the Blue Ribbon