Chapter 1 - THE METAL DOOR
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Daniel’s grip tightened around the hammer.
For one terrible second, nobody in the storage room moved.
Lily stood behind him, clutching the back of his shirt with both hands.
Vanessa had gone completely white.
Daniel turned toward her.
“What is behind that door?”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Another heavy bang shook the metal.
Then a woman’s voice came through the other side.
“Help me!”
Daniel dropped the hammer.
He rushed to the narrow steel door and grabbed the handle.
Locked.
“Where’s the key?”
Vanessa backed toward the doorway.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel looked at her.
The lie was so obvious that it changed something in his face.
“Vanessa.”
“I said I don’t know.”
Lily suddenly pointed at Vanessa’s necklace.
“Daddy.”
Daniel glanced down.
Hanging beside the diamond pendant Vanessa wore every day was a small silver key.
Vanessa immediately covered it with her hand.
Daniel stared at her.
Lily whispered.
“She uses that one.”
Vanessa turned toward the hall.
Daniel caught her wrist before she took two steps.
“Take it off.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“Take off the necklace.”
“I can explain.”
“Then explain after I open that door.”
Vanessa’s eyes moved toward Lily.
That was when Daniel understood something he should have noticed much earlier.
His daughter was afraid of her.
Not shy.
Not uncomfortable.
Afraid.
Daniel ripped the chain from Vanessa’s neck.
He pushed the silver key into the lock.
It turned.
The steel door opened inward.
A stale rush of air spilled into the room.
Daniel froze.
A woman was sitting on the concrete floor.
Her wrists had been bound with plastic ties.
Her clothes were dirty.
Her face was pale from exhaustion.
But Daniel recognized her immediately.
“Margaret?”
Margaret Hale had worked for Daniel’s family for almost twenty years.
She had helped raise Lily from infancy.
Three weeks earlier, Vanessa had told Daniel that Margaret had suddenly resigned and gone to stay with relatives in Vermont.
Daniel had even received a text message from Margaret’s phone saying she needed time away.
Now Margaret was sitting inside a hidden room in his own mansion.
“Mr. Reed.”
Her voice cracked.
Daniel dropped to his knees and cut the ties with a utility knife from the workbench.
“What happened?”
Margaret grabbed his arm.
“Don’t let Vanessa leave.”
Daniel looked behind him.
Vanessa was gone.
“Adrian!”
His shout thundered through the mansion.
Daniel’s head of security appeared at the end of the hallway.
“Lock the estate down.”
Adrian saw Margaret and stopped cold.
“Sir?”
“Every gate.”
“Every door.”
“No one leaves.”
Adrian immediately reached for his radio.
Daniel helped Margaret stand.
She nearly collapsed.
Lily ran toward her.
“Miss Margaret!”
Margaret wrapped both arms around the little girl.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Lily began crying silently against her shoulder.
Daniel looked into the hidden chamber.
It was larger than he had expected.
A folding chair sat beside a small table.
There were bottles of water.
A flashlight.
A box of medication.
And along the far wall stood several metal filing cabinets.
One drawer was open.
Inside were folders.
Dozens of them.
Daniel stepped closer.
One folder had his name on it.
Another had Lily’s.
Then he saw the third.
ELENA REED.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Elena had been his wife.
Lily’s mother.
She had been dead for four years.
Daniel slowly pulled the file from the drawer.
A photograph slipped onto the floor.
It showed Elena standing beside her car two days before the crash that killed her.
Someone had circled the brake line in red ink.
Daniel turned toward Margaret.
“What is this?”
Margaret’s eyes filled with fear.
“That’s what I found.”
Daniel looked down at the photograph again.
May you like
Margaret lowered her voice.
“And that isn’t the worst thing in this room.”
