A black Lincoln Navigator pulled up to the grand entrance of the Long Island estate.
Irina Kovacs, the head housekeeper, rushed down the steps holding an umbrella. She opened the door, her eyes darting nervously to the ground.
Bridget stepped out. She wore a beige trench coat, a small clear bandage covering the stitches on her forehead.
She walked up the steps and pushed open the heavy double doors.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
The Ming dynasty vase that had sat in the foyer for three years was gone. In its place stood a cheap, twisted metal modern art sculpture.
Bridget walked into the main living room. Her stomach plummeted.
The antique French provincial furniture was gone. The Persian rugs were gone. Everything had been replaced with sterile, beige, minimalist garbage. It looked exactly like Golda's tasteless apartment.
"Irina," Bridget said, her voice dangerously low. "What is this?"
Irina swallowed hard. "Mr. Cline ordered it, ma'am. He said the house needed better feng shui for the new guests."
Bridget's vision swam with red.
Before she could speak, a delicate, tinkling melody drifted down from the second floor. A music box.
Bridget sprinted up the spiral staircase. She ran down the hall and shoved open the door to her locked private collection room.
Pippa was jumping up and down on the silk rug, wearing her dirty sneakers.
Around Pippa's neck hung a heavy, flawless emerald pendant.
It was Dr. Eulalia's necklace. The only physical thing Bridget had left of her dead mother.
Bridget crossed the room in three strides. She grabbed Pippa by the shoulder, her grip like a vice.
"Who told you to come in here?" Bridget yelled.
She ripped the emerald necklace off Pippa's neck, clutching the cold stone against her racing heart.
Pippa screamed. She threw herself on the floor and started wailing at the top of her lungs.
Footsteps pounded down the hall. Golda rushed into the room, wearing a pair of Bridget's silk slippers.
Golda dropped to her knees and pulled Pippa into her chest, looking up at Bridget with wide, terrified eyes.
"She's just a baby!" Golda cried out. "Jayson said she could look at anything in the house!"
Jayson strode into the room, fresh from the office. He took one look at the crying child and the cowering woman, and his face twisted in absolute fury.
He marched up to Bridget. "Have you lost your damn mind? She doesn't have a father, and you're attacking her over a piece of jewelry?"
Bridget held up the emerald. Her hand shook with rage. "This is my mother's. It's not a toy for a thief."
"Thief?" Jayson barked. He stepped into Bridget's personal space, towering over her. "You're delusional. The crash scrambled your brain. You're acting like a maniac."
"She broke into my locked room!" Bridget shouted.
"The door was open!" Jayson lied, his voice booming. "Golda apologized. You're just a hysterical, jealous mess."
Bridget stared at him. The gaslighting was so blatant, so suffocating, it made her physically sick.
"You disgust me," Bridget whispered.
Jayson's eyes flashed. He reached out and grabbed Bridget's arm, trying to yank her forward to face Golda. "Apologize to them."
Bridget ripped her arm out of his grasp with violent force.
Jayson lost his temper. He shoved her hard in the chest.
Bridget's heels slipped on the silk rug. She fell backward.
Her right hand slammed down onto the floor to break her fall. It landed directly on the shattered glass of a picture frame Pippa had knocked over.
The jagged glass sliced deep into her palm—the exact same hand that still bore the bruised puncture mark from her hospital IV.
Blood immediately pooled on the floor, soaking into the rug.
