The dining room felt like a tomb.

Luca didn’t look at Vanessa. He didn't look at the sixty guests who were pretending not to breathe.

He only looked at his twelve-year-old daughter.

“Sophie.” His voice was unnaturally calm. “Who is sending you these?”

Sophie’s hands were shaking, but she held the second photograph out to her father.

Luca took it.

I was standing close enough to see the image.

It wasn't a security camera still.

It was a candid picture, taken inside a hospital room. Grace was lying in bed, pale and frail. But she wasn't alone.

Vanessa was standing next to the bed.

And she was holding a syringe.

Vanessa saw the photograph in Luca’s hand. Her knees gave out. She grabbed the edge of the table, knocking over a crystal wine glass.

“That’s photoshopped,” Vanessa gasped. “Luca, I swear to God, someone is trying to frame me!”

“Who sent this to you, Sophie?” Luca repeated, ignoring his fiancée entirely.

Sophie looked at her grandmother, Evelyn, who looked just as horrified.

“He didn't give a name,” Sophie whispered. “He just left envelopes in my backpack at school. Three times.”

Luca’s head of security, a massive man named Marco, stepped forward instantly.

“No one approaches Sophie at school without my men seeing it, boss.”

“Obviously, someone did,” Luca said softly. The quietness of his voice made Marco flinch.

Luca turned over the photograph.

Written on the back, in thick black ink, were the words:

Ask her about the watch.

Luca frowned. He looked at Vanessa.

“What watch?”

Vanessa was hyperventilating now. “I don't know! I don't know what he means!”

Evelyn suddenly gasped. She covered her mouth with both hands.

Luca turned to his mother-in-law. “Evelyn. What watch?”

“Grace’s watch,” Evelyn breathed, tears spilling over her cheeks. “A silver Cartier watch. It was a family heirloom. Grace never took it off. But when the hospital gave me her personal effects after she died… the watch was missing.”

Vanessa shook her head violently. “I didn't take it! I wasn't even there when she died!”

“You were there the night she collapsed,” Luca stated.

“Yes, but—” Vanessa choked on her words, realizing she had just admitted to the lie she’d maintained for years.

“Answer one,” Evelyn said bitterly, stepping toward the younger woman. “You lied about being in New York.”

“I was scared!” Vanessa cried, looking around the room for any sympathetic face. There were none. “Grace and I had a falling out years ago! If I told you I was at her apartment the night her cancer got worse, you would have blamed me!”

“Cancer doesn't make you collapse while someone holds a syringe,” Luca said, his eyes drilling into her.

He held up the photograph.

“What is in this syringe, Vanessa?”

“Pain medicine!” she sobbed. “She asked me to give it to her! She was in agony!”

It was a plausible lie. Almost too plausible.

But Sophie shook her head.

“No.”

Everyone looked at the little girl.

“Mom didn't take pain medicine,” Sophie said. “She told me it made her forget things, and she wanted to remember every second with me before she went to heaven.”

The absolute innocence in Sophie’s voice broke something in the room.

Luca’s expression went completely dead.

He looked at Marco.

“Take her to the basement.”

Vanessa screamed. She lunged toward Luca, but Marco grabbed her by the arms, dragging her backward.

“Luca, please! I love you! The man sending these is lying to you!”

“Take her,” Luca repeated.

As Marco dragged a hysterical Vanessa out of the dining room, the heavy front doors of the mansion suddenly opened.

A man walked into the foyer.

He was in his late fifties. Graying hair. A dark wool coat.

Evelyn let out a sharp cry.

“David?” she whispered.

Luca stared at the man.

I didn't know who he was, but the reaction of the family told me everything.

This was the man who had been sending the photographs.

David stopped at the entrance of the dining room. He looked at Luca, then at Sophie.

“Hello, Luca,” David said quietly.

Luca didn't draw a weapon, but every muscle in his body tensed.

“David,” Luca said. “You’ve been dead for five years.”

David offered a sad, bitter smile.

“I had to be,” he said. “To figure out who murdered my daughter.”

My stomach dropped.

David was Grace’s father.

TITLE: THE COAT THAT HID A FATHER’S SECRET