My family treated my four-year-old daughter like garbage, dragging her away from the Easter dinner table. My mother literally yanked her by the hair, throwing her onto the hardwood floor while my sister screamed, “Get out before you ruin dinner!” They thought they had successfully humiliated us. What they didn’t know was that the Easter gift hidden in my purse was about to strip them of the very house they were trying to protect.

ORY.

The key in my pocket seemed to grow heavier.

The men were not simple movers.

They were taking pieces of the house somewhere secret.

I followed at a careful distance, heart thudding with the guilt of doing something Vivian would call sneaky and my father would call observant.

The van drove beyond town, past greening fields and a church sign advertising a pancake supper, then turned into an industrial park softened by wild mustard flowers.

Oryx occupied a brick warehouse with narrow windows and a polished brass plaque.

I parked near the loading dock and waited.

A woman in a navy coat emerged and approached my car as if she expected me. She was around sixty, with silver hair pinned low and a clipboard against her chest.

“Mara Hale?”

I considered denying it, then remembered I was tired of disappearing.

“Yes.”

She smiled.

“I knew your father. I’m Helen Ory. He left instructions for you, though I hoped circumstances would be kinder.”