Chapter 1 - The Locked Cabinet
Ethan opened the front door just as Maisie screamed.
He stopped in the mansion hallway.
Corinne had one hand tangled in the fourteen-month-old girl’s light brown hair and the other clamped around her upper arm, dragging her toward the living room.
Maisie’s pale pink pajamas twisted around her knees as she tried to pull away.
Corinne leaned close.
“YOUR MOTHER LEFT YOU. YOUR DAD WILL TOO.”
Maisie saw Ethan.
“DADDY!”
Ethan moved.
He crossed the hallway in seconds, seized Corinne’s wrist and forced her fingers open.
Maisie immediately threw both arms toward him.
“DON’T TOUCH MY DAUGHTER!”
Ethan lifted her against his chest.
Corinne lunged again.
He blocked her arm and struck her across the face.
Corinne stumbled sideways and crashed against the edge of an elegant console table.
“GO NEAR HER AGAIN—YOU’RE DONE.”
Corinne held her cheek.
Then Maisie slid down enough to stand beside Ethan’s leg.
Still crying, she pointed across the living room.
A tall wooden cabinet stood against the wall.
Dark walnut.
Two carved doors.
A heavy brass lock.
Corinne followed Maisie’s finger.
Her expression changed instantly.
Not anger.
Fear.
Ethan noticed.
He looked at cabinet.
Then at her.
“What’s in there?”
Corinne rushed ahead and pressed her body against the doors.
“ETHAN... YOU CAN’T SEE WHAT’S IN HERE.”
His voice became quieter.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Corinne.”
“You don’t understand.”
Ethan pulled her away.
She screamed.
He grabbed the small decorative hammer kept beside fireplace tools and struck the brass lock.
Once.
Twice.
The lock broke.
Corinne started crying.
“Please.”
Ethan opened the left door.
Then the right.
He looked inside.
His entire body went still.
A sharp gasp left him.
He stepped backward and covered his mouth.
“No…”
Maisie started crying harder.
Corinne whispered:
“I warned you.”
Inside the cabinet was no body.
No weapon.
No hidden person.
It was a small television monitor.
Live.
On the screen was a hospital-style room.
A woman lay asleep in a bed.
Thin.
Pale.
Alive.
Ethan knew her immediately.
“Laura…”
Maisie’s mother.
The woman Ethan had spent eleven months believing had abandoned them.
The monitor timestamp showed:
LIVE.
May you like
And someone had written directly beneath the screen:
DO NOT LET ETHAN FIND HER.
