Chapter 1 - The Chain at the Bottom of the Stairs
Colleen Mercer’s shoulder hit the polished oak floor hard enough to knock the air from her lungs.
Dana kept pulling.
One fist was twisted into Colleen’s short reddish-brown hair, dragging the sixty-six-year-old woman backward through the grand foyer of the Naperville house while Colleen clawed uselessly at Dana’s wrist.
“Dana, let me go!”
The wide staircase blurred past Colleen’s watering eyes. Her heels slid across the floor she had been ordered not to walk on without slippers.
Dana didn’t answer until she had dragged her to the carpeted landing beneath the stairs.
Then she released Colleen’s hair.
For half a second, Colleen believed it was over.
Dana reached beneath the bottom step and pulled out a thick padded cuff attached to a short, heavy chain.
Colleen stared.
“What are you doing?”
Dana fastened the loose cuff around Colleen’s ankle and secured the chain to the railing.
“I’m sick of you walking around and dirtying my floors.”
The words were ridiculous.
That frightened Colleen almost more than the chain.
This hadn’t started because of footprints.
Twenty minutes earlier, Colleen had picked up the afternoon mail and found a yellow envelope from First Prairie Credit Union addressed jointly to Dana and Brett.
Dana had ripped it from her hand.
Colleen had asked why their mortgage lender was sending a delinquency notice when Brett had told her the house was nearly paid off.
Dana’s face had changed.
Then everything had happened quickly.
Now Colleen gripped the stair railing and pulled herself upward.
Dana shoved her back onto the carpet.
The slap came next—one sharp open hand across Colleen’s cheek.
Colleen recoiled.
Dana kicked a pile of dirty laundry toward her.
“Stay right there until I say you can move.”
Colleen’s eyes filled.
Not from the slap.
From the realization that Dana had prepared the cuff before their argument began.
Then the front door flew open.
Brett Mercer stood beneath the late-afternoon sunlight with a duffel bag over one shoulder.
His eyes moved from Dana to the chain.
The bag dropped.
“What the fuck are you doing to my mother?”
He ran toward Colleen.
Dana backed away.
“Mom! Mom!”
Colleen looked at her son.
For one desperate second, relief flooded her.
Then Brett reached the stairs, saw the yellow credit-union envelope lying beneath Dana’s shoe—
May you like
and his face changed in a way Colleen did not understand.
He already knew what was inside.
