Chapter 1 - THE GARAGE DOOR
By the time Rachel Morgan reached the driveway, Claire was already on the concrete.
The dark sedan ticked behind her as the engine cooled.
Exhaust still hung in the fluorescent-lit garage, thin enough now to see through but thick enough to make every breath taste metallic.
Claire lay curled beside the rear tire, coughing so hard her ribs hurt.
Matthew stood over her holding her keys.
“Stay down and tell them you left the car running yourself—unless you want to lose everything.”
Then he kicked her.
Once.
Hard into her side.
Claire recoiled and threw an arm over herself.
“Matthew…”
“Stop.”
He glanced toward the driveway.
That was when he saw Rachel.
Their neighbor stood just beyond the open garage door in a denim jacket, phone raised in one trembling hand.
Matthew’s expression changed.
Claire pushed herself onto one elbow.
The world tilted.
She had been locked inside the garage long enough to become confused about which direction the door was.
Long enough for her fingers to stop working properly.
Long enough to understand that Matthew was standing outside with the remote while she pounded against the metal panels.
She started crawling toward daylight.
Matthew grabbed the back of her shirt.
“You were leaving me tonight, Claire.”
He dragged her backward across the concrete.
“I wasn’t about to let you take my car, my money, or my life with you.”
Claire clawed at the floor.
Rachel stepped closer.
“Matthew.”
He released Claire instantly.
Not because he had become reasonable.
Because Rachel’s phone was pointed directly at him.
Claire twisted around, knocked Matthew’s key hand away and scrambled toward the driveway.
The keys hit the concrete.
“My God,” Rachel whispered.
Claire reached the threshold.
“He locked me in.”
Matthew pointed toward the sedan.
“She left it running.”
Claire shook her head.
“You locked me in here, stood outside with the remote, and waited for me to stop fighting.”
Rachel’s voice came next.
Clear.
Terrified.
“I saw you close that garage door after she started pounding on it.”
Matthew stared at the phone.
Then past Rachel.
At his black pickup parked halfway down the driveway.
Claire followed his eyes.
On the passenger seat was her navy travel bag.
The one she had packed upstairs two hours earlier.
Except Claire had left it beside the front door.
Matthew had moved it.
Her laptop was inside.
So was her passport.
Her medication.
And a folder containing the financial records she planned to take to an attorney the following morning.
Matthew lunged toward Rachel’s phone.
Claire grabbed the dropped keys first.
Rachel jerked backward.
From somewhere across the street, another neighbor shouted that 911 was already on the way.
Matthew stopped.
For several seconds nobody moved.
Then Claire looked at the bag inside his locked truck.
She understood something that frightened her even more than the exhaust.
May you like
Matthew had not simply been trying to stop her from leaving.
He had been preparing to control what disappeared with her.
