Chapter 1 - THE CHILD BEHIND THE GLASSThe first thing I heard when I opened the front door was my seven-year-old daughter screaming that she couldn’t breathe.
“Daddy!”
I dropped my briefcase.
The sound came from upstairs.
Then I smelled smoke.
I ran.
At the top landing, Caitlyn was trapped behind the glass-paneled guest-room door, pounding both hands against it.
Her strawberry-blonde curls were stuck to her tear-soaked face.
Smoke drifted behind her.
My ex-wife, Victoria, stood outside the door.
Calm.
Our twenty-year-old daughter, Madison, stood beside her with one finger resting on the exterior latch.
Neither woman was opening it.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Victoria spun around.
“Peter?”
I wasn’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.
Madison stepped away from the latch.
Behind the glass, Caitlyn sobbed.
“Daddy!”
I hit the door.
Once.
The frame groaned.
Victoria grabbed my arm.
“She’s having another tantrum.”
“There’s smoke in there.”
“It’s already being handled.”
“By locking her inside?”
Madison said, “Nobody believes the difficult kid anyway.”
I looked at her.
My oldest daughter.
Smirking.
Something in me turned cold.
I hit the door again.
The latch bent.
Inside, Caitlyn suddenly stopped pounding.
She looked toward the floor.
Then dropped onto her knees.
“Caitlyn!”
She crawled beneath the bed.
For one terrifying second, I thought she was hiding from the smoke.
Then she dragged out an old brown work boot.
Mine.
I hadn’t seen it since Victoria and I separated three years earlier.
Caitlyn ripped at the loose insole.
Something fell onto the carpet.
A faded hospital bracelet.
And a tiny photograph.
She picked up the bracelet.
Read it.
Then pressed it against the glass.
MONROE — TWIN B.
Victoria’s face changed.
Not confusion.
Fear.
Caitlyn looked at her mother.
“Then who’s Twin A, Mom?”
Madison turned toward Victoria.
“What?”
The room seemed to tilt.
I hit the door a third time.
The latch tore loose.
I pushed through.
The smoke was coming from a small electrical appliance near the wall that had started overheating.
I unplugged it, opened the window, then grabbed Caitlyn.
She wrapped both arms around my neck.
“I found Daddy’s boot,” she cried. “Mommy said I wasn’t supposed to see.”
Victoria entered.
“Peter, give her to me.”
“No.”
“She needs to calm down.”
“No.”
“Stop making this worse.”
I turned toward her.
“You left a seven-year-old behind a locked door with smoke in the room.”
“It only started smoking after—”
“And you still didn’t open it.”
Silence.
That was the part she couldn’t explain.
Caitlyn held up the bracelet.
“Daddy?”
I looked at it.
I knew exactly who Twin A was.
I had known for seven years.
My mistake was believing Victoria when she insisted Caitlyn was too young, too emotional, too “difficult” to be told.
I looked at my daughter.
“Her name was Anna.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
Caitlyn whispered:
“Was?”
My throat tightened.
“She was your sister.”
Madison stared at me.
“I had another sister?”
“Yes.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Caitlyn looked at the tiny photograph.
Two premature babies lay side by side beneath hospital blankets.
The label beneath one bassinet read A.
The other read B.
“Where is she?”
I held Caitlyn tighter.
“She died when you were both babies.”
Caitlyn started crying.
Victoria stepped forward.
“Peter, this is exactly why we agreed—”
“We agreed to tell her when she was ready.”
“She isn’t.”
I looked at my seven-year-old daughter standing barefoot in a room her mother had locked from the outside.
“No, Victoria.”
I held up the bracelet.
May you like
“You decided she’d never be ready.”
And I was about to learn that hiding Anna’s existence was not the biggest secret Victoria had built around the twins.
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