Chapter 2 - Blood on Park AvenueEvelyn moved faster than anyone I had ever seen.
She lifted me into her arms and ran.
Her silk gown dragged across the marble.
Security guards rushed toward us.
"Bring the car around!" she shouted.
The ballroom doors exploded open.
Cold air hit my face.
Park Avenue stretched before us, shining beneath the streetlights.
"Sarah!"
Evelyn's voice cracked across the night.
"Sarah!"
I pointed toward a hedge.
"There!"
My mother was lying behind it.
She was soaked.
Her hair was tangled.
Blood covered her left sleeve.
"Mom!"
I broke free from Evelyn and ran.
Sarah looked up.
For a moment, mother and daughter stared at each other.
Twenty years of silence lived inside that single look.
"Baby girl," Evelyn whispered.
Sarah flinched.
"Don't call me that."
Evelyn stopped.
"You lost that right a long time ago."
Then Sarah nearly collapsed.
Evelyn caught her.
"You're bleeding."
"It's nothing."
"It's not nothing."
I looked at them.
"They shot at us."
Both women froze.
"Two men in a black SUV," I said. "They followed us from the shelter."
Evelyn's face changed.
"Who?"
Sarah whispered:
"Marcus."
Evelyn went completely still.
"My brother?"
"Your brother."
Before Evelyn could respond, an engine roared.
A black SUV came around the corner.
Too fast.
Too close.
"Get down!"
Evelyn threw herself over Sarah and me.
Gunfire ripped through the hedge.
Leaves exploded around us.
A hotel window shattered.
Two men stepped from the SUV.
"Sarah Whitmore!"
One raised his weapon.
"We don't want the kid. Give us the necklace."
Evelyn slowly stood.
She straightened her shawl.
Her voice became terrifyingly calm.
"You have ten seconds to leave my property."
The men laughed.
Then the hotel doors opened.
Six armed security officers emerged.
The gunmen hesitated.
Evelyn smiled.
"Your ten seconds are almost over."
The SUV vanished into the night.
Evelyn watched the taillights disappear.
Then she turned toward Sarah.
Her voice broke.
"He shot you."
Sarah looked away.
"I survived."
Evelyn touched her daughter's face.
"I thought you were dead."
Sarah's eyes filled with tears.
"You were supposed to think that."
"Why?"
"Because your brother wanted me gone."
Evelyn stared at her.
Sarah finally whispered:
"He has been hunting us for three weeks."
Evelyn looked toward the dark street.
Then toward me.
Her granddaughter.
The child she had never known existed.
"Get in the car."
Sarah hesitated.
"Where?"
"Home."
Sarah's eyes hardened.
"I don't have a home."
Evelyn looked at her.
"Then we'll build one."
For the first time, Sarah didn't argue.
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Three generations of Whitmore women climbed into the Rolls-Royce.
None of us knew that by sunrise, the family fortune would become a battlefield.
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