CHAPTER 1
The duffel bag hit the stone floor before Captain Emily Walker saw what they had done to her mother.
It landed hard in the mansion courtyard, the heavy green canvas slamming against the pale stone tiles with a sound that made every bird in the glass-roof patio scatter.
Emily stood over it in her military uniform, black combat boots planted, shoulders stiff from twenty-one hours of travel and six months of unanswered calls.
The courtyard looked the same as it had when she was a child.
White arches.
Clay pots full of green plants.
Warm California sunlight.
The glass patio roof her father had built because her mother loved hearing rain without getting wet.
But something was wrong.
The house was too quiet.
Then Vivian Cole stepped out from behind one of the arches in a fitted red dress, pearl necklace shining against her throat.
She looked shocked for half a second.
Then she smiled.
“Emily,” Vivian said. “We weren’t expecting you until Friday.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed.
“I came early.”
Vivian’s smile tightened.
Emily stepped over the duffel bag.
“Where is my mother?”
Vivian lifted her chin like the mansion still belonged to her.
May you like
“She’s exactly where she belongs.”
Emily’s stomach turned cold.
