Chapter 1
My four-year-old daughter screamed, “You hurt me every day!” at my wife—and Vanessa’s face changed the moment she realized I had come home early.
I was supposed to be in New York until Friday.
Instead, a canceled meeting brought me back to our Malibu home two days early.
I heard Sophie before I even reached the kitchen.
“You’re lying!”
Then her tiny voice broke.
“You hurt me every day!”
I stopped in the hallway.
Vanessa stood beside the marble island, still wearing the calm expression everyone loved about her.
“Sophie,” she said softly, “stop making up stories.”
My daughter flinched.
“She isn’t making anything up,” I said.
Vanessa froze.
“Ethan? You’re home?”
I walked straight to Sophie.
She grabbed my jacket and hid behind me.
That frightened me more than anything.
“What happened to your arm?”
“Nothing,” Vanessa answered immediately.
I pulled Sophie’s pajama sleeve back.
There were dark marks around her small arm.
Vanessa stepped toward us.
“She bruises easily.”
“Don’t.”
My voice made her stop.
For weeks, Sophie had changed whenever Vanessa entered a room.
She stopped talking.
She stopped asking me not to travel.
She even started locking her bedroom door.
I had convinced myself there had to be another explanation.
Vanessa suddenly started crying.
“You know how difficult she’s been since her mother died.”
Sophie looked up at me.
“My mommy didn’t die.”
Vanessa’s crying stopped.
I stared at my daughter.
“What did you say?”
Sophie pointed toward Vanessa.
“She told me Mommy is alive.”
Vanessa went completely pale.
I reached into my coat and placed an old photograph on the kitchen counter.
“I already knew about the bruises,” I said.
Vanessa stared at the picture.
Then I turned it over.
A handwritten address was on the back.
“I also know you visited Sophie’s mother three weeks before everyone was told she died.”
Vanessa grabbed the edge of the island.
“That’s impossible.”
“No,” I said. “What’s impossible is what the private investigator found yesterday.”
Sophie squeezed my hand.
Vanessa whispered, “Ethan, please.”
I finally looked directly at her.
“He found my first wife alive.”
The crystal glass slipped from Vanessa’s fingers.
May you like
But before it hit the floor, Sophie whispered something that made me forget how to breathe.
“She comes here when you’re gone.”
