Chapter 1 - The Story He Chose for Her
Caleb’s fist tightened in Emily Hart’s hair before she could reach the horn.
He drove her face into the steering wheel with enough force to make the parked SUV rock against the curb.
“Shut up, you stupid slut. You did this to yourself.”
Pain burst beneath Emily’s right eye. Her nose struck the hard center of the wheel, and warmth spilled over her upper lip. For one stunned second, she heard nothing but the faint ticking of the cooling engine and her own breath scraping through her throat.
The SUV sat beneath a dim streetlight three houses from their Overland Park home. Sprinklers clicked across somebody’s lawn. Behind drawn curtains, families finished dinner and loaded dishwashers while Caleb leaned over the center console as if violence were simply another household task.
Emily reached shakily for her face.
Caleb caught her jaw and forced her toward him.
“At the hospital, you lost control and smashed your face in a crash.”
“There wasn’t a crash.”
His thumb pressed into the swelling beneath her eye.
“There will be whatever I say there was.”
Emily curled toward the wheel, trying to protect her head. He crushed her shoulder against the driver’s seat.
“Please,” she whispered. “My face hurts. I can’t breathe.”
Caleb lowered his mouth near her ear.
“Memorize the lie, or I’ll finish the other side too.”
Her sobbing stopped.
Not because she believed him. Not because the pain had eased. Something colder had moved through her.
Emily slowly laid her bloodied palm across the horn without pressing it. Caleb’s fist rose again, then paused inches from her cheek when she turned and looked directly at him.
For the first time that night, he looked uncertain.
Emily glanced toward the back seat.
Lucy’s purple backpack was gone. So was the pink overnight bag Emily kept beneath it for sleepovers at her sister’s house.
“Where’s our daughter?”
Caleb’s eyes flicked toward the missing bags before returning to her.
“With someone who knows how to protect her from you.”
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He pulled Emily’s purse from the floor, removed her insurance card, and slipped it into his pocket.
That was when Emily understood that the lie had started before he touched her.
