“Vanessa?”
Vanessa laughed, but it sounded brittle. “This is ridiculous. She’s a child. She probably saw someone playing or—”
“I saw you!” May insisted, pointing again. “At the last party. You told me to go play with the balloons but I needed to pee. You were behind the big tree biting Mr. Thompson’s neck and he was holding your butt!”
Several guests nearby gasped. A woman dropped her champagne glass.
Mr. Thompson—Richard’s business partner and best friend for twenty years—had gone deathly pale near the bar. His wife, who had been standing right beside him, turned slowly to look at him.
The party was imploding in real time.
---
**How It All Began**
Two months earlier, we had attended Richard’s annual summer barbecue at the same mansion. It was the first big company event where Jamal brought me and May. I had been nervous, but excited. Jamal worked eighty-hour weeks trying to climb the ladder at Caldwell Enterprises, a logistics and real estate giant. This was supposed to be our breakthrough.
While Jamal networked, I had taken May to explore the grounds. She really did need to use the bathroom. I let her run ahead toward the pool house while I grabbed her a juice box. When I caught up, she was coming back from behind a cluster of tall hedges, looking confused.
