Chapter 1 - THE CHILD AT THE SINK
Susan Whitmore knocked the cookie from Emma’s hand and watched it fall into the greasy sink.
She did not apologize.
She pointed at the wooden step stool instead.
“Up.”
Emma stared at the ruined cookie.
Behind Susan, two expensive dolls sat in glossy boxes on the kitchen table.
Emma had asked whether one was hers.
Susan had smiled.
“Those are for my real granddaughters.”
Emma was six.
Old enough to understand the sentence.
Too young to know what to do with it.
Susan shoved a sponge into her wet hand.
“Make yourself useful for once.”
Emma climbed onto the stool.
By the time Michael Whitmore entered through the back door, his daughter’s purple hoodie was soaked to the elbows.
“Emma?”
She turned.
Her eyes were red.
Susan jerked open a drawer to grab the dish towel before Emma could reach it.
A deep-burgundy envelope fell out.
Several papers spilled across the floor.
Emma bent to pick them up.
Susan lunged.
“No!”
Michael reached them first.
He saw three canceled mortgage checks.
His address.
His account number.
His name.
“What is this?”
Susan’s face tightened.
“Give it to me.”
Michael lifted Emma off the stool and placed her behind him.
Then he unfolded the first document.
Susan rushed forward.
“Michael, don’t.”
He stopped.
“Why?”
Her eyes flicked toward Emma.
“Because she doesn’t need to see whose name is on that.”
Michael looked down.
A second signature appeared beneath the fold.
The last name was Whitmore.
But the first name wasn’t Susan.
May you like
It was his sister’s.
Dana.
