Chapter 1 - THE CANE
The first thing Daniel Carter saw when he opened his front door was his wife standing over a thirteen-year-old boy with a cane raised above her head.
Not just any cane.
His dead father's black-walnut cane.
Noah crouched against the hallway wall, one arm shielding five-year-old Lily. Daniel's daughter was sobbing into her cousin's shoulder. Vanessa stood three feet away, barefoot, breathless, her fingers white around the polished handle.
“Put it down,” Daniel said.
Rainwater slid from his coat onto the marble floor. Behind him, thunder rolled over the Connecticut hills.
Vanessa turned. “He broke into your office.”
“Put it down.”
Something in his voice made her lower it an inch.
Lily reached for him. “Daddy, Noah found files.”
Vanessa's phone rang on the entry table. In the stunned silence, the speaker answered automatically.
A man's voice filled the foyer.
“Did Carter see the death certificate?”
Vanessa lunged for the phone. Daniel caught her wrist. The cane struck the floor with a crack like a rifle shot.
He walked into his father's old office and opened the top drawer. Beneath tax folders lay a cream envelope he had never seen.
Inside was a certified death certificate.
CLAIRE MARIE CARTER.
His younger sister.
Date of death: thirteen months earlier.
For thirteen months, emails from Claire had insisted she had abandoned her family. Daniel had believed them because belief had hurt less than doubt.
He returned to the foyer. “Where is my sister?”
Vanessa's anger vanished. What replaced it was colder.
“This wasn't how you were supposed to find out.”
Then a door slammed in the back of the house.
May you like
Vanessa looked toward the kitchen—and smiled with relief.
Someone else was inside.
