Chapter 1 - THE BABY ABOVE THE FLAMES
Helen held my daughter above the fire as though Lily were an object she had already decided to destroy.
The flames rose from the stone pit between us. Heat twisted the daylight around the pink blanket. My six week old baby began crying beneath Helen’s hands.
“Knocked up before your sister,” Helen said. “You are a disgrace.”
I lunged forward.
Rebecca stepped directly into my path.
Her fitted cream dress looked untouched by the smoke. Her blonde hair remained perfectly arranged. She placed both hands against my shoulders and forced me backward.
“Give me my baby!”
Guests stood around the garden beneath string lights and white canopies.
Nobody moved.
Some stared at the grass.
Others watched with the stunned fascination of people who had not yet decided whether intervention would damage their relationship with my family.
Helen shifted Lily farther over the flames.
My baby screamed.
“You caused this,” Rebecca whispered.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were supposed to wait.”
“For what?”
“For me to have the first child.”
I tried to move around her.
Rebecca blocked me again.
Helen opened her fingers.
The pink bundle fell.
A sound left my body that I did not recognize.
Then my father moved.
James had been standing near the garden doors less than twenty feet away. At sixty four, he was still broad shouldered, but nobody expected him to cross that distance before Lily reached the fire.
He vaulted over the stone edge.
His arms closed around my baby in midair.
He twisted his entire body around her and struck the grass on his shoulder. The cuff of his jacket caught fire as he rolled away from the pit.
Guests screamed.
Someone finally called emergency services.
I dropped beside him and tore at the burning fabric with my bare hands. James crushed the flames against the wet grass, then opened his arms.
Lily was crying.
Alive.
Unburned.
I took her against my chest and checked every visible inch of her face.
“I have you. Mommy has you.”
James rose slowly.
His right sleeve had burned away near the wrist. Red skin covered his forearm. Smoke lifted from the ruined fabric.
He looked at Helen.
Then at Rebecca.
“You are done.”
His voice was quiet.
Rebecca’s face collapsed.
Helen stepped away from the fire.
“This was an accident.”
I stared at her.
“You dropped my baby.”
“You rushed me.”
“She was holding Lily safely until Margaret became hysterical,” Rebecca said.
“You were blocking me.”
“I was trying to stop you from knocking Mom into the flames.”
The lie arrived immediately, polished and complete.
They had prepared it.
Helen turned toward the guests.
“You all saw Margaret attack us.”
Nobody answered.
Then an older man near the garden table slowly lowered his phone.
His name was Peter Wallace. He had worked as my father’s attorney for twenty three years.
“I recorded it,” he said.
Helen’s eyes moved toward him.
“You will delete that.”
“No.”
“You represent this family.”
“I represent James.”
The first sirens sounded beyond the hedges.
James held his injured arm against his chest and looked toward me.
“Take Lily inside. Do not give her to anyone.”
I carried my daughter toward the house.
Rebecca followed.
James stepped between us.
“You heard me.”
“I am her aunt.”
“You stood between a mother and her child while Helen held that child above a fire.”
Rebecca looked toward the arriving guests who had begun lifting their phones.
“You cannot speak to me like I am a criminal.”
James’s expression did not move.
“The police will decide what to call you.”
Paramedics entered through the side gate.
One examined Lily while another treated James’s burns. The baby’s skin temperature and breathing appeared normal, but they wanted her evaluated for smoke exposure and possible neck injury.
I entered the ambulance with her.
James insisted on following despite his arm.
Police separated Helen and Rebecca.
Peter handed an officer his phone.
The recording showed everything.
Helen insulting me.
Rebecca blocking my path.
Lily held over the flames.
Helen releasing her.
No stumble.
No collision.
No accident.
At the hospital, doctors took Lily into a pediatric room. She cried through the examination, which was the most comforting sound I had ever heard.
James sat beside me with his arm wrapped in sterile bandages.
“I should have seen it,” he whispered.
“What?”
“What Helen had become.”
“She tried to kill Lily because Rebecca wanted the first baby?”
James looked toward the closed examination door.
“There is something you do not know.”
Peter entered carrying a brown leather folder.
The clock above the nurses’ station showed 4:48 p.m.
He placed the folder on the table.
“James’s father created a family succession trust forty years ago,” he said. “Controlling voting rights in the company transfer to the first legally recognized grandchild who survives forty two days.”
I stared at him.
“Lily is six weeks old today.”
“Yes.”
“What time was she born?”
“Five o’clock,” James answered.
Peter opened the document.
“At five this afternoon, Lily becomes the controlling beneficiary of fifty one percent of Carter Agricultural Holdings.”
I looked at the clock.
4:51.
Rebecca had planned her wedding for the following month.
She had spent years telling everyone she intended to provide James with his first grandchild.
My pregnancy changed the succession.
“Helen wanted Lily dead before five.”
James closed his eyes.
The hospital door opened.
A police officer entered carrying Helen’s confiscated phone.
A message had been sent to Rebecca four minutes before the party began.
KEEP JAMES AWAY UNTIL FIVE FIFTEEN.
BENEATH IT WAS REBECCA’S REPLY.
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IF THE BABY SURVIVES, WE LOSE EVERYTHING.
Continue to the next part: The trust transfers to Lily while investigators discover Margaret was drugged before the fire pit attack.
