Chapter 1 - The S Is Backward
My little girl didn't cry. She just stared at the pink frosting scattered across the lawn, then hid the box of matches behind her back like she'd done something wrong.
She'd been waiting all afternoon to say "now" so I could light her eight birthday candles.
She never got the chance.
I walked over to the patio chair, picked up Courtney's Louis Vuitton purse by both handles, and carefully set it on the burning coals of our fire pit.
Then I looked her in the eyes.
"Oops. It's just a bag."
Courtney screamed.
"That's Louis Vuitton! That's a $2,000 bag! Kevin! Kevin!"
My brother dropped the brat he was grilling and ran for the garden hose. By the time he got the water running, the purse handles were gone.
They hadn't burned.
They'd melted.
Kevin kicked over a patio chair. Then another.
"Every penny, Heath. $2,000."
My mother stared at me.
"Heath, what on earth is wrong with you?"
Twenty people had watched Courtney destroy my daughter's birthday cake.
Nobody had moved.
But the moment her expensive handbag went into the fire, suddenly everyone had something to say.
I knew I'd be expected to pay for what I'd done.
What I didn't know yet was that the fire had left something behind.
Something Courtney would become desperate to get back.
I'm Heath, a thirty-six-year-old single father from Rapid City, South Dakota.
Maisie's mother moved away when our daughter was two. It's been just the two of us ever since.
That birthday cake wasn't store-bought. We'd spent two days making it from my grandmother's strawberry cake recipe.
Three layers. Homemade frosting. Maisie's name written across the top in pink gel.
She'd written the S backward.
I thought it was the most beautiful cake I'd ever seen.
Courtney, my older brother Kevin's wife, had never been particularly kind to Maisie.
At family gatherings, she'd make little remarks about how needy children could become without their mothers around. Once, when Maisie was telling a story at Easter, Courtney asked, "Does she ever stop?"
My mother laughed along.
Courtney had two children of her own, a successful Facebook handbag business called Courtney's Closet, and practically unlimited support from my parents.
She sold expensive designer purses, each accompanied by a certificate guaranteeing it was authentic. Around four thousand people belonged to her group.
My mother couldn't stop talking about what a wonderful entrepreneur Courtney was.
And that afternoon, about five minutes before the cake was destroyed, Mom had complimented Maisie's baking.
"Oh, honey, that's prettier than the one we bought for Brinley's party."
Courtney was standing right behind her.
I watched something change in her face.
A few minutes later, she walked past the picnic table, swinging her purse off her shoulder.
Then my daughter's birthday cake was lying in the grass.
That night, when I tucked Maisie into bed, she asked me a question I'll never forget.
"Was it because I made it wrong?"
"No. The S was backward. The S was perfect."
"Then why'd she do it?"
I didn't have a good answer.
The next morning, I went outside to clean the fire pit.
Courtney's handbag was still sitting in the ashes, reduced to a warped, blackened shell. The handles had disappeared, but one small interior zipper pocket had survived.
I opened it.
Inside was something I couldn't immediately make sense of.
I put what I found into a freezer bag and locked it inside the fireproof box in my closet.
A little after ten that morning, Courtney called.
She wasn't calling to apologize.
"I need my purse back."
"You told me to keep it."
"I said that because I was upset. I need it back for insurance."
"What insurance?"
"Homeowners. They need the item. They need to see it."
"Then they can come see it."
Silence.
"Did you throw it away?"
"No."
"So it's still there?"
May you like
"It's here."
She insisted she was coming to get it.
