Chapter 1 - The Sound Inside the Case
Lily Dawson had carried the pale flower across half the ballroom before Claire noticed her.
The five-year-old looked painfully small among chandeliers, champagne glasses and hundreds of formally dressed guests celebrating the Ashford Foundation’s annual gala.
She stopped beside Claire and offered the flower with both hands.
“This is for you.”
Claire took it.
For one second Lily thought she might smile.
Instead, Claire crushed the petals in her fist.
“Don’t bother us again.”
Then her hand struck Lily sharply across the forehead.
Lily fell backward onto the gold carpet, clutching her head and crying.
Across the ballroom, Victor Dawson saw everything.
At sixty-two, Victor rarely raised his voice. He crossed the room with frightening calm, knelt beside his granddaughter and helped her up.
“Who did this to you?”
Lily pointed through her tears.
Claire stood beside Daniel Ashford.
“They said Mom doesn’t belong here.”
Victor slowly rose.
Daniel saw him coming too late.
Victor’s fist drove him backward into a large black wheeled equipment case. Daniel crashed against it, and the case toppled sideways with him.
Guests scattered.
Claire rushed toward Lily and seized her hair.
“Don’t touch her!”
Victor spun and struck Claire away. She stumbled sideways through a wheeled garment rack and crashed behind its hanging fabrics.
Then something rattled.
Victor stopped.
So did Lily.
The sound came from the overturned black case.
Three dull knocks.
Lily’s crying stopped.
“Mom…”
Daniel’s face changed.
He scrambled upright and immediately sat against the case, blocking its latches.
Victor stared at him.
“Move.”
“It’s equipment.”
Another knock came from inside.
Daniel pressed his weight harder against it.
Claire pushed herself upright behind the fabrics.
“Victor, don’t!”
Victor shoved Daniel aside.
Claire screamed:
“DON’T OPEN IT!”
Victor snapped one latch.
Then another.
The ballroom seemed to stop breathing.
He lifted the lid several inches.
And froze.
There was no woman inside.
There was a portable audio recorder.
A woman’s voice was playing through its tiny speaker.
“Lily?”
Victor knew that voice.
So did Lily.
It belonged to Lily’s mother, Sarah Dawson.
The woman who had disappeared eleven months earlier.
Victor reached for the recorder.
Daniel lunged toward him.
“Turn it off!”
Victor grabbed his wrist.
“Why?”
Daniel looked at Lily.
Because the recording had continued.
Sarah’s frightened voice whispered:
“If Lily hears this, Daniel lied.”
Then came a metallic slam.
A man’s voice.
May you like
And Sarah screaming one name.
“Victor!”
