Chapter 1 - Come Back Right Now
“Please… I haven’t eaten anything.”
Eight-year-old Lily Oleson’s voice barely carried across the kitchen.
She sat on the tile floor beside the back door, knees pulled close, her school braids coming loose around her face. In front of her was a stainless-steel pet bowl with a scoop of cold white rice in it.
Across the room, Vanessa Sterling leaned against the island in a magenta satin blouse and ate a green grape.
“Then eat from there,” she said.
“I’m hungry.”
“You should have thought about that before lying to me.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Then prove you can follow one simple instruction.”
Lily’s hands shook as she reached toward the rice.
In the hallway, Maria Lopez covered her mouth.
She had worked in the Oleson house for eleven months. She had seen Vanessa criticize Lily’s clothes, take away desserts, cancel playdates, and call the child “dramatic.”
Maria had spent the last week wondering why Lily looked thinner.
She stepped backward before the floorboard beneath her shoe could creak.
Her phone was already in her hand.
Daniel Oleson answered on the third ring.
“Maria?”
“Mr. Oleson… come back right now. It’s about Lily.”
“What happened?”
Maria looked through the narrow crack in the door.
Lily was picking up rice with two fingers.
“Just come home.”
“Maria.”
“I think she hasn’t been feeding her.”
“What?”
“Please. Don’t call Vanessa. Don’t tell anyone I called. Just come.”
He was supposed to be in Boston until tomorrow.
“I’m at LaGuardia.”
“I landed early.”
“Then hurry.”
Behind her, a voice said:
“Who were you talking to?”
Vanessa stood at the end of the hallway.
Lily was no longer beside the bowl.
“Give me your phone.”
Maria slipped it into her apron pocket.
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
Lily stood behind the kitchen island, eyes wide.
“No.”
“You work for me.”
“No.”
“I work for Mr. Oleson.”
A man’s voice filled the foyer.
“Lily?”
The little girl gasped.
“Daddy!”
May you like
Vanessa’s head snapped toward the sound.
For the first time that evening, she looked afraid.
