Chapter 1 - DADDY
The hockey stick hit Grace before Nathan even understood what he was seeing.
She dropped to the kitchen floor and folded herself over the four-year-old girl beneath her.
"Please," Grace gasped. "Don't hurt my child."
Victoria Vale stood above them in a white designer dress, both hands locked around the stick.
"Dead people keep secrets," she whispered.
She raised it again.
The front door clicked.
Nathan Cole stepped into the breakfast room.
Victoria went white.
The stick fell from her hands and struck the tile.
Nathan's eyes moved from his fiancée to Grace, the quiet maid he had hired three months earlier. Grace's shoulder was already darkening beneath her uniform. A little girl trembled against her chest.
Near the doorway, housekeeper Emma Clark held up a phone with shaking fingers.
"Nathan," Victoria said quickly. "This isn't what it looks like."
The child lifted her face.
Wide gray-blue eyes met Nathan's.
She stared at him as if she knew him.
Then she whispered, "Daddy..."
Nathan stopped breathing.
Victoria lunged toward Emma's phone.
Marcus Hale, Nathan's cousin and chief financial officer, moved at the same time.
Nathan lifted Lily into Emma's arms, blocked Marcus's reach, and sent him crashing backward through an antique map rack.
Victoria reached for Lily.
Nathan knocked her hand away and forced her back onto the leather ottoman.
Then he picked up the stainless dog bowl from the floor and placed it in front of her.
"Enjoy your last meal in my house."
Victoria stared at him.
But Nathan was looking at Emma's phone.
On the screen, Victoria repeatedly forced Lily toward that same dog bowl while Marcus laughed and closed the breakfast-room door.
Nathan looked at Emma.
"You started recording before they touched her."
Emma swallowed.
"Yes."
"Why?"
May you like
Her eyes filled with fear.
"Because this wasn't the first time."
