Chapter 1 - THE SCREAM BEHIND THE DOOR
“Dad, please! She locked me in here!”
Lily’s scream tore through the mansion.
Lucas Bennett froze beneath the crystal chandelier, one hand still resting on the gold buttons of his wedding jacket.
The musicians kept playing in the courtyard.
Two hundred guests kept drinking champagne.
But Lucas heard only his ten-year-old daughter pounding on a locked bathroom door at the far end of the second-floor hallway.
“Lily!”
He ran.
His polished shoes struck the marble floor as he pushed past white roses, wedding photographs, and startled catering staff.
He was three steps from the bathroom when Vanessa grabbed his arm.
“Lucas, stop.”
His bride stood behind him in her ivory wedding gown, breathing hard.
Her smile was gone.
“What happened to Lily?” Lucas demanded.
“Nothing happened.”
“She’s locked in a bathroom.”
“She locked herself in there.”
Another bang shook the door.
“That’s a lie!” Lily cried. “Vanessa did it!”
Vanessa tightened her grip.
“She wants to ruin our wedding. You know how difficult she’s been since we announced the engagement.”
Lucas stared at her.
Lily had been quiet since her mother, Rachel, died three years earlier.
She had never ruined anything.
She barely spoke above a whisper around strangers.
“Move,” Lucas said.
“Lucas, think about our guests.”
“My daughter is crying behind that door.”
“It’s another tantrum.”
Lily screamed again.
“I can’t get out!”
Lucas pulled away from Vanessa.
That was when he saw something flash between her fingers.
A small silver key.
Vanessa immediately closed her fist.
“What’s in your hand?”
“Nothing.”
“Open it.”
Her eyes hardened.
“You’re embarrassing me.”
Lucas seized her wrist and opened her fingers.
The key dropped onto the marble.
For one silent second, neither of them moved.
Then Lucas picked it up.
He looked at the key.
He looked at the locked door.
Finally, he looked at the woman he was supposed to marry in twenty minutes.
“Then why do you have this?”
Vanessa’s face lost all color.
“Lucas, I can explain.”
“Unlock the door.”
“Not until you calm down.”
His voice became dangerously quiet.
“Unlock the door.”
From inside the bathroom, Lily began sobbing.
“She put me in here because I found something.”
Lucas slid the key into the lock.
Vanessa lunged for his hand.
“Don’t open that door!”
Lucas shoved the key all the way in.
The lock clicked.
The door swung inward.
Lily stood beside the bathtub, her face wet with tears.
In her trembling hands was a yellow envelope covered in dust.
Written across the front in Rachel’s unmistakable handwriting were six words:
FOR LUCAS—IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME.
Lucas stopped breathing.
Vanessa stared at the letter.
May you like
Then she whispered the one sentence that made his blood run cold.
“That letter was supposed to be destroyed.”
