Chapter 1 - Don’t Look in the Pool
Daniel Hale knew something was wrong before he reached the backyard.
The sliding glass door stood open.
Lily’s pink sandal lay upside down beside the kitchen threshold.
And somewhere beyond the beige stucco wall came the thin, exhausted cry of a child who had been screaming for far too long.
“Lily?”
Daniel dropped his briefcase.
He ran.
The backyard opened before him in flashes—the wet green lawn, the gray sky reflected in the swimming pool, the blue tarp beside the hedge.
Then he saw the cage.
It was an old rectangular wire crate Daniel remembered from when his father had kept hunting dogs decades earlier. Someone had dragged it from the storage shed and placed it on the grass near the pool.
A bright blue tarp covered half of it.
A chain wound through the door.
A padlock held it shut.
And inside sat Daniel’s three-year-old daughter.
Lily’s reddish-brown hair had nearly escaped its tiny ponytail. Tears streaked her flushed cheeks. Her pale pink romper was grass-stained at the knees.
Her tiny fingers clutched the wire.
“Dad! Dad!”
Daniel felt the world contract around that sound.
“I’m here!”
He stumbled to the crate.
A pair of red-handled bolt cutters lay on the patio several feet away.
Daniel grabbed them.
“I’m here! I’m getting you out!”
“Daddy!”
He jammed the jaws around the chain.
His hands were shaking so badly the cutters slipped.
Again.
Metal scraped.
Lily sobbed.
Daniel forced himself to breathe.
He repositioned the jaws, braced one handle against his thigh, and squeezed.
The chain snapped.
He ripped it free, threw the cutters aside, and dragged the cage door open.
Lily lunged toward him.
Daniel dropped to both knees.
One hand supported her back. The other slid beneath her hips.
He lifted her against his chest.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Lily wrapped both arms around his neck and buried her face beneath his jaw.
“I got you,” Daniel whispered.
He carried her away from the cage.
His heart hammered.
Someone had locked his daughter inside it.
Someone had left her beside a swimming pool.
Where was Rebecca?
Where was Celia, the nanny?
Where was anybody?
Daniel touched the back of Lily’s head.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head against him.
“Did somebody touch you?”
Another shake.
“Who put you in there?”
Lily refused to answer.
Her fingers tightened in the collar of his dark green shirt.
Daniel stepped onto the concrete pool deck.
That was when Lily suddenly lifted her head.
Her expression changed.
The relief disappeared.
Fresh terror filled her eyes.
She placed both tiny hands against Daniel’s face.
“Dad…”
“What?”
“Dad, don’t look in the pool!”
Daniel stared at her.
“What?”
Lily’s eyes moved past his shoulder.
Toward the water.
Daniel followed her gaze.
Slowly.
The pool looked ordinary from above.
Green-blue water.
Gray sky trembling across the surface.
A few leaves near the shallow end.
Then he noticed something dark beneath the water.
Daniel took one step closer.
Several shapes rested on the bottom of the deep end.
Large black plastic garbage bags.
Five of them.
Maybe six.
Each tightly tied.
Each heavy enough to remain submerged.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Lily whimpered.
He stared at the bags, trying to force his mind toward harmless explanations.
Construction debris.
Old clothes.
Garbage.
Anything.
But people did not lock three-year-old children inside cages because they had seen ordinary garbage.
A voice came from behind him.
“Put her down.”
Daniel froze.
He knew that voice.
Slowly, he turned.
Victor Hale stood in the open doorway.
Daniel’s older brother wore a dark navy suit, white shirt, and perfectly knotted charcoal tie.
Not one strand of his dark hair was out of place.
His posture was calm.
His expression was colder than the water.
Daniel tightened his hold around Lily.
Victor’s eyes moved from Daniel to the child and back again.
“I said,” Victor repeated quietly, “put her down.”
May you like
Daniel stared at the brother he had trusted for forty-one years.
And for the first time in his life, he was afraid of him.
