Chapter 1 - THE SOUND INSIDE THE CASKET
The scrape was so faint Margaret almost mistook it for the wick of a candle collapsing into wax.
She bent closer to the small white casket in Julian Mercer’s living room, one hand pressed against the black wool over her ribs.
“Goodbye, sweetheart,” she whispered.
Something moved beneath the satin.
Margaret stopped breathing.
Then a tiny hand pushed weakly against the lining.
She tore the lid upward.
Chloe’s brown curls were damp against her forehead. Her skin looked gray beneath the candlelight, but her eyes opened.
“Grandma?”
Margaret made a sound she would remember for the rest of her life.
She reached inside.
A padded strap crossed Chloe’s waist.
“Daddy said I had to stay still,” Chloe whispered. “Like a dead person.”
Margaret’s grief disappeared so violently it left room for only instinct.
She found a silver key beneath Chloe’s pillow, tied to a narrow burgundy ribbon. Her fingers shook twice before the lock released.
Then she lifted the six-year-old against her chest.
Chloe was warm.
Alive.
Terrified.
Heavy footsteps sounded above them.
Margaret turned toward the foyer.
Before she could move, something amber caught the candlelight inside the casket.
A medicine bottle had been wedged beneath the padding.
She grabbed it.
The pharmacy label had been deliberately peeled away. Only part of a name remained.
R. MER—
Julian appeared at the top of the staircase.
For one second, the polished widower Margaret had known for ten years simply stared at his daughter.
He did not say Chloe’s name.
He did not run to her.
His eyes dropped to the bottle.
“Put that down.”
Margaret backed toward the front door.
“What did you give her?”
Julian descended three steps.
“Margaret.”
His voice was eerily controlled.
Chloe buried her face in Margaret’s shoulder.
“Grandma, please save me. I’m scared. I don’t want to go back in there.”
Julian’s composure cracked.
He came down the stairs faster.
Margaret clutched the bottle in one hand, Chloe in the other, and reached behind herself for the deadbolt.
Then Julian said something that stopped her.
“You don’t understand what happens if anyone sees that label.”
Margaret looked down again.
Not at the medication.
At the remaining letters of the name.
May you like
R. Mercer.
Her daughter Rebecca had been dead for eleven months.
