Part 1
“Ma’am, with that sleeping child and those bruised flowers, you might want to look for a cheaper motel down the road.”
Clara Vance froze in front of the marble reception desk of the Grand Regent Hotel, right in the heart of downtown Chicago.
Her six-year-old daughter was fast asleep against her shoulder, and a bouquet of red roses was tightly gripped in her left hand.
She didn’t reply immediately.
Not because she hadn’t felt the sting of the humiliation, but because Lily was breathing softly against her neck, completely exhausted after a three-hour flight delay from Denver.
