Chapter 1 - The Photograph From Inside the House
The rain had turned the backyard into black mud by the time Emma stopped screaming for help.
Not because she had stopped being afraid.
Because she had heard something.
Her wrists were secured separately above her head to the low branch of the old maple tree, her soaked pale-yellow dress clinging to her knees. Several feet away, Maya stood with the loose rope in one hand.
“Tell me where she hid it.”
Emma shook her head violently.
“I don’t know!”
Maya stepped closer.
“You heard her talking to your grandfather. You know.”
“I don’t!”
Three rooms away, inside his downstairs office, David’s phone illuminated.
The photograph on the screen emptied every thought from his mind.
Emma.
Outside.
The chair crashed backward as David stood.
“Emma!”
He ran.
Seconds later the back door flew open.
Maya barely had time to turn before David crossed the yard. He shoved past her, forcing her away from Emma, then immediately reached for his daughter.
“What did you do to my daughter?”
“David, listen—”
“Stay away from her.”
He worked at the wet knots with shaking fingers until Emma could lower her arms. She collapsed against him.
Then she saw the glowing phone still clenched in his hand.
Her expression changed.
“Dad…”
“I’ve got you.”
“No.”
Emma leaned closer.
“She isn't the mastermind.”
David stopped.
Maya stopped too.
“What did you say?”
Emma pointed at his phone.
The screen changed.
Another photograph had arrived.
This one showed all three of them in the backyard.
David holding Emma.
Maya standing several feet away.
Taken perhaps ten seconds earlier.
David slowly looked at the angle.
The photograph had not come from Maya.
It had been taken from inside the house.
From upstairs.
Maya saw it too.
For the first time that night, fear replaced the coldness in her face.
A curtain moved in the second-floor window.
“She said someone was watching us,” Emma whispered.
David stared at Maya.
Maya shook her head.
“I thought it was you.”
Lightning split the sky.
For half a second, a human figure appeared behind the upstairs glass.
Then vanished.
David pulled Emma behind him and moved toward the house.
His phone vibrated again.
No photograph this time.
Only a message:
SHE HID IT BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED.
David read it twice.
Maya looked over his shoulder.
Her lips parted.
“Who is ‘she’?” David demanded.
Maya didn't answer.
“Maya.”
Her eyes remained fixed on the upstairs window.
Finally she whispered:
May you like
“The woman your father paid me never to mention.”
And before David could ask another question, a loud metallic crash came from the locked bedroom directly above them.
