Chapter 1 - THE SOUND THAT STOPPED HIM
The first scream came from Noah. The second never came from Lily, because somebody had covered her mouth.
Daniel Blake ran into the living room and saw his three-year-old daughter suspended beneath the ceiling fan, her ankles caught in a strip of knotted fabric. The fan wasn't moving. Lily was. Her small body twisted as she struggled, and the chair beneath her had been kicked aside.
Amanda stood beside the chair holding kitchen shears.
“Get her down!” Daniel shouted.
“Stop yelling,” his wife said. “You'll upset the baby.”
Noah, eighteen months old, sobbed from the couch.
Daniel lunged toward Lily. A fierce pain struck his side. He stumbled, touched his shirt, and found blood on his fingers. Amanda stood close enough to whisper.
“Interfere again and you'll make this worse.”
For one second he could only stare at the woman he had loved for eleven years. Then Lily made a muffled, desperate sound.
Daniel swept a dining chair between them. The shears clattered onto the hardwood. He climbed onto the chair, supported Lily's weight, and worked the knot loose with trembling hands.
“Daddy,” she gasped when he pulled the cloth away.
“I have you. I have you.”
Amanda reached for the scissors. Daniel kicked them beneath the bookcase and backed toward the hallway with Lily against his chest. His knees threatened to fold.
“Put her down,” Amanda ordered.
“No.”
“Every account you own is under my control. You couldn't leave even if you wanted to.”
A small voice came from the terrace.
“Actually, he can.”
Their sixteen-year-old daughter Emma stood in the doorway, a tablet shaking in her hands. “I streamed it. The whole thing. And I sent it somewhere you can't delete it.”
Amanda's expression emptied. She started toward Emma, but police sirens rose beyond the front windows.
The first officer came through the door and froze at the sight of Daniel's bloody shirt. Minutes later Amanda was in handcuffs, still insisting it was a misunderstanding.
As a paramedic carried Lily toward the ambulance, Emma caught her father's sleeve.
“Dad,” she whispered, “there's something else on that recording.”
“What else?”
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“She made a phone call before you got home. She said tonight was the deadline.”
