Chapter 1 - The Red Envelope in the SnowThe cold bit harder than Ellie had ever felt. It reached through her thin lavender sweater like tiny needles, sinking straight into her bones. She didn’t cry anymore. The tears had frozen on her cheeks, turning into stiff tracks of ice that pulled at her skin every time she blinked.
She looked down at the red envelope in her hands.
Her name was written on the front in her father’s messy, rushed handwriting: Ellie. Inside was a single piece of lined notebook paper. She hadn't opened it yet. Her father had handed it to her right before they left Room 114, telling her, "Don't open this until the clock hits twelve. That's your present."
The wind howled through the cracked glass of the transit shelter. The flickering blue light from the buzzing vending machine made her look like a ghost standing in a concrete tomb.
A quarter mile away, the black Mercedes-Benz S-Class slowed to a crawl.
Grant Mercer stared through his heated windshield, his foot resting lightly on the brake. His phone was still connected to the Bluetooth system, though his operations director had stopped talking.
"Grant? You still there?" Mark’s voice echoed in the luxury cabin. "We can push the boiler replacements to Q3. The tenants in the west wing can use space heaters. It’s cheaper."
Grant didn't answer. He turned down the volume on the console.
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Through the falling sleet, he saw the child. She was standing completely alone, wearing sneakers that looked completely inadequate for an eleven-degree morning. No coat. No hat. Just a thin sweater and a red envelope clutched in frozen fingers.
Grant shifted the car into park, hazard lights blinking amber against the desolate gray landscape.
