Chapter 1
The teacup was inches from my mouth when a child screamed.
“Daddy, don’t drink it!”
A little girl in a black-and-white maid uniform ran across the marble floor so fast her shoes slipped.
Before anyone could stop her, she slammed into my arm.
The cup flew from my hand.
Porcelain shattered across the floor.
Tea spread in a dark stain near my shoes.
The room froze.
Then Nora moved.
My fiancée struck the child across the face so hard she fell to the marble.
“How dare you spill tea I made?”
The girl curled on the floor, one hand over her cheek.
I stared down at her.
Not at the tea.
Not at Nora.
At the child.
“What did you call me?”
Her lips trembled.
She looked terrified.
Then I saw the locket around her neck.
Silver.
Old.
Familiar.
I knelt and opened it with shaking fingers.
Inside was a tiny photograph of my late wife, Amelia, holding a newborn baby.
My heart stopped.
The girl’s sleeve had slipped down.
On her shoulder was a crescent-shaped birthmark.
The same mark Amelia had shown me the night our baby was born.
Before I was told both of them died.
I turned slowly toward Nora.
“Who is this child?”
Nora’s face had gone pale.
The little girl reached into her apron with trembling fingers and placed a hidden phone in my hand.
“She killed Mommy with tea,” she whispered.
The room went colder than death.
I looked at the phone.
One video waited on the screen.
Saved four years ago.
The date was the night Amelia died.
Nora stepped forward.
“Victor, don’t.”
May you like
I pressed play.
And my dead wife’s voice filled the room.
