Chapter 1 - THE GIRL BENEATH THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
On Christmas Eve in Chicago, grieving millionaire Gideon Vale abandons the glittering charity gala he is supposed to attend and walks alone through a snow-covered park, haunted by the death of his five-year-old daughter, Juniper, three years earlier.
There, beneath blue Christmas lights, he finds seven-year-old Norah curled on a frozen bench, nearly buried beneath snow and clutching a battered stuffed rabbit with one ear stitched in pink thread.
Norah tells Gideon her mother promised to return and ordered her to stay exactly where she was. She does not know that her mother is lying unconscious in a hospital after a brutal attack—or that the person responsible is already searching for the child.
Unable to abandon a freezing little girl after losing his own daughter, Gideon wraps Norah in his coat and carries her toward his car.
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For the first time in three years, someone needs him.
Neither of them realizes that Gideon has just stepped into a conspiracy built around stolen millions, a silenced witness, and the charitable legacy of the daughter he still mourns.
