Chapter 1 - THE KENNEL DOOR
The first thing I heard when I came home was my daughter screaming my son’s name.
The second was the metal latch snapping shut.
I dropped my briefcase inside the mansion’s glass doors and ran.
Across the back lawn, my wife stood beside an old wooden dog kennel we had stopped using years earlier.
Vanessa was wearing a cream silk dress.
Diamonds.
Barely a hair out of place.
Inside the kennel were my children.
Lily was seven.
Noah was one.
My daughter had curled her entire body around her baby brother, shielding him against her chest while he screamed.
Vanessa crouched beside the slats.
Smiling.
“Your father believes me,” she told Lily. “You’re just the noisy little problem.”
My body went cold.
Then Lily saw me.
“Dad!”
I sprinted across the lawn.
Vanessa turned.
The confidence left her face for half a second.
I knocked her reaching hand away, dropped beside the kennel and ripped the latch open.
Lily crawled out first, dragging Noah toward me.
I lifted him.
Then pulled Lily against my side.
Her cardigan was dirty.
One braid had come loose.
She was shaking so violently her teeth clicked.
“What happened?”
Vanessa recovered instantly.
“She locked herself in there.”
Lily stared at her.
“No!”
“Adrian, she’s been acting out all day.”
I looked at the blue rubber ball inside the kennel.
Lily’s favorite.
Then at Vanessa.
“She threw my ball in,” Lily sobbed. “She made me get it.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“You see? Everything is a performance.”
Lily grabbed my jacket.
Then whispered:
“Dad… she does bad things every time you go to work.”
Every time.
Not today.
Not this week.
Every time.
Something inside me shifted.
I looked toward the patio.
A small backup security camera sat above the stone column.
Green light.
Still active.
Vanessa followed my eyes.
Her face drained.
Our primary garden cameras had been offline for a week during a security-system upgrade.
Vanessa knew that.
Apparently she had forgotten the backup unit.
I picked up her diamond clutch from the grass.
Threw it into the empty kennel.
Shut the door.
“Funny,” I said. “The backup never went dark.”
Vanessa stared at the glowing light.
But the camera would eventually become only one piece of what happened next.
Because when I reviewed the footage, I discovered something worse than a cruel stepmother losing her temper.
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Vanessa had been carefully teaching everyone around us to believe Lily was dangerous.
And she had started months before I saw the kennel.
