The Crescent Charm
Chapter 02 - The Crescent Charm
Security guided Grace into a quiet service room while the gala continued beyond the walls. Ethan entered a moment later, closed the door, and placed Luna on the table between them. Emma had refused to leave the rabbit until he promised to bring it back.
“You have sixty seconds,” Ethan said. “Tell me why my daughter’s toy made you collapse in the middle of my event.”
Grace pulled a thin chain from beneath her uniform collar. A second silver crescent rested against her palm. Its curved edge matched the charm on Luna’s bow, except hers carried the other half of a tiny engraved star.
“I bought a pair of these at a church market,” she said. “One was for me. One was for my baby.”
Ethan did not touch the necklace. “A crescent charm isn’t proof.”
“No. But the stitching might be.” Grace turned the rabbit’s paw over. “I used blue upholstery thread because the maternity home had run out of white. Three long stitches, one short. I was nervous and kept missing the seam.”
The door opened. Beatrice stepped in without knocking.
“Ethan, this woman should leave.”
Grace looked directly at her. “You know the rabbit.”
Beatrice’s eyes flickered.
Ethan caught it. “Mother?”
Beatrice straightened. “I know only that Emma arrived with a box of personal items. Claire decided to keep the toy.”
Claire, Ethan’s late wife, had died when Emma was two.
“Where was Emma adopted?” Grace asked.
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “That is not information I give to strangers.”
“St. Agnes Maternity House?”
His face changed.
Grace gripped the table. “I gave birth there on October seventeenth. A nurse told me my daughter had stopped breathing. They would not let me hold her. They said the paperwork was already finished and that grief had made me confused.”
Beatrice turned toward the door. “This is cruel speculation.”
“Then why are you afraid?” Grace asked.
For the first time, Ethan looked at his mother instead of Grace. “Was St. Agnes the agency?”
Beatrice said nothing.
Ethan picked up the rabbit. Under the bow, tucked close to the seam, he found a faded cloth label. Most of the ink had vanished, but two letters remained: G.B.
Grace’s maiden name had been Grace Bell.
Her knees weakened. “I embroidered that label before labor.”
Ethan’s anger did not disappear, but uncertainty entered it. He took out his phone and called his head of security.
“Find the sealed adoption file in my private archive,” he said. “No one opens it except me.”
Beatrice whispered, “Ethan, some doors protect the people on both sides.”
May you like
He faced her slowly. “Then tell me what is behind this one.”
Outside, the ballroom erupted in applause for a speech no one in the service room heard.
