Chapter 1 - THE DEVICE UNDER THE DIAPER BAG
Ranger dragged Noah’s stroller three feet across the ballroom before Claire understood what the dog was doing.
“Ranger! Let go!”
The German shepherd kept his teeth locked around the lower stroller strap.
Noah remained securely strapped inside, startled but unharmed.
Evelyn came rushing across the polished ballroom floor.
“Get that dog away from him!”
Ranger pulled once more.
Then released.
Claire caught the stroller handle.
A violent electrical flash erupted behind her.
She spun around.
The diaper bag Noah’s stroller had been parked beside was smoking beneath one of the wedding tables.
Someone screamed.
Claire immediately bent over her son.
Ranger planted himself beside them, barking.
Noah began crying.
Claire checked his face.
His hands.
His breathing.
Nothing had touched him.
Nothing had burned him.
Then she looked at Ranger.
“He was saving him.”
Evelyn turned away.
Something dropped from her champagne-colored purse.
A small rectangular battery module struck the floor and rolled beneath a chair.
Claire stared.
It looked almost identical to the smoking device beside Noah’s diaper bag.
“Why do you have the same battery?”
Evelyn bent for it.
Claire reached her first.
She shoved Evelyn backward against the edge of a banquet table.
“You knew.”
“Claire—”
“You knew!”
Evelyn tried to move around her.
Claire slapped her.
The crack echoed beneath the chandeliers.
Evelyn recoiled.
Then Daniel ran into the ballroom.
His mother pointed immediately at Claire.
“She attacked me.”
Claire held up the module.
“Your mother had this.”
Evelyn suddenly moved toward Noah’s stroller.
Daniel stepped between them and pushed his mother backward.
“Don’t go near my son.”
Evelyn stopped.
The fury on her face was not aimed at Claire.
It was aimed at Daniel.
“You promised she would never find out.”
Claire slowly turned toward her husband.
“Find out what?”
Daniel said nothing.
Ranger began barking again.
Not at Evelyn.
At Daniel.
The dog stared directly at the front of his tuxedo jacket.
Daniel’s face changed.
Claire smelled it then.
Faint.
Acrid.
The same scorched electrical odor drifting from the ruined diaper bag.
Ranger barked harder.
Daniel put one hand inside his jacket.
“Daniel?”
His hand stopped.
Evelyn touched her reddened cheek and gave a small, terrible smile.
“Ask your husband why Ranger recognizes that smell on him too.”
Daniel went pale.
Claire looked from him to the smoking bag.
“What’s in your pocket?”
“Claire—”
“What’s in your pocket?”
Slowly, Daniel removed another small battery module.
Not identical to Evelyn’s.
This one had a strip of blue tape across one corner.
Claire recognized that blue tape.
She had seen it before.
On the “baby monitor accessory” Daniel had insisted they keep clipped inside Noah’s diaper bag for the past six weeks.
Claire looked at her husband.
“No.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
And before anyone explained the burned device, Claire understood something worse.
May you like
Whatever had almost happened to Noah had not entered their family tonight.
It had been traveling with them for weeks.
