Chapter 1 - The Woman on the Floor
The deputy was still wiping rain off his badge when my stepdaughter screamed, "He hit me!"
Beth Crane stood in our hallway with one hand against her cheek. Then she dropped to the floor as if her knees had quit working. My wife, Ruth, rushed to her side. I stayed where I was, holding a dish towel and wondering how a person could look you straight in the eye and tell a lie that large.
"Walter attacked me," Beth sobbed. "He said he'd make me sorry for asking about the house."
Deputy Erin Doyle raised one palm. "Mr. Price, please stay by the kitchen door."
I was seventy years old. I'd spent thirty of them helping Ruth raise Beth and her younger brother, Micah. I'd never struck either child. Yet Ruth looked up at me with fear I hadn't seen on her face since the night her first husband left.
"Walt?" she whispered. "What happened?"
"She came to discuss selling Rosebridge. I said the answer was no. That's all."
Beth pointed to the red scrape by her jaw. "He shoved me into the wall."
I pointed above the coat hooks, toward our security camera.
"Please watch the recording," I said.
Beth stopped crying. Only for a heartbeat, but the deputy noticed.
Ruth handed over the tablet we used to review the camera. The video showed Beth alone in the hall, checking her reflection in the dark window. She stepped against the edge of the coat rack, made a sharp movement, then sat down. Seconds later she began shouting my name.
Deputy Doyle replayed it. Beth turned chalk white.
"That's not what you think," she said.
"Then tell us what it is," Ruth answered.
The deputy scrolled back another fifteen minutes. The camera had caught Beth beside a tall man I didn't recognize. He wore a tan work jacket and held a folded floor plan.
His voice came clearly through the speaker: "All five of them will be here Sunday?"
Beth nodded. "Once Walt's gone, keep them inside until Mom signs. I don't care how scared they get."
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Ruth gripped my arm. Sunday wasn't just a family lunch anymore. Someone had made it a deadline.
And our granddaughter Winnie was one of those five.
