Chapter 1 - THE MATTRESS ON THE GARAGE FLOOR
Vanessa dragged Sophie’s mattress through the laundry-room doorway and threw it onto the cold concrete garage floor.
The mattress landed with a hollow thump.
Sophie stood beside it in pale blue pajamas, clutching her stuffed rabbit against her chest.
She was already crying.
Vanessa came back with the pillow.
That went onto the floor too.
“You want to act like a problem?” Vanessa said. “Then sleep out here again.”
Sophie wiped her face with one sleeve.
“Please… Daddy said I sleep in my room.”
Vanessa pointed at the mattress.
“Your daddy isn’t here.”
Except Daniel was.
He stood in the open garage doorway holding the overnight bag from the business trip he had cut short.
Neither of them had heard his car because Vanessa had been arguing too loudly.
Her face went white.
Daniel crossed the garage, pushed Vanessa away from Sophie, then grabbed Vanessa’s packed overnight bag from the bench and threw it onto the driveway.
“The only one sleeping somewhere else tonight is you.”
Sophie ran behind him and grabbed his shirt.
Vanessa recovered quickly.
“She’s lying to you. She throws tantrums every time you leave.”
Sophie wrapped both arms around Daniel.
“Daddy… she makes me sleep here every time you travel.”
Daniel looked down at her.
Every time.
Then Vanessa snapped, “She’s a liar.”
Daniel slowly turned.
Something from two years earlier came back to him.
A phone call he had dismissed before marrying Vanessa.
A man named Mark Caldwell.
Vanessa’s first husband.
Funny, Daniel thought.
Mark had called his own daughter a liar too—according to Vanessa.
But Mark had said something different.
Something Daniel wished he had taken seriously.
“He warned me never to leave a little girl alone with you.”
Vanessa stopped breathing.
May you like
Daniel stepped closer.
“Why?”
