Chapter 1 - THE NIGHT I CAME HOME EARLY
I thought I was walking into my house.
I didn’t know I was walking into a nightmare.
My name is Daniel Ashford.
For fourteen months, I believed my children were safe.
I believed Kate Morrison was protecting them.
She was my late wife Emily’s sister.
She was family.
After Emily died, I was desperate for my children to have someone who loved them.
Someone who knew their mother.
Someone I could trust.
I was wrong.
The night I came home early from Chicago, I expected Lily to run into my arms.
She didn’t.
She stood frozen beside the kitchen pantry.
Her little fingers wrapped tightly around a broken blue crayon.
Her eyes looked terrified.
Not surprised.
Terrified.
Kate stood in front of her.
Calm.
Cold.
Like nothing was wrong.
Then Lily whispered six words.
“Daddy… I wrote everything down.”
Those words changed my entire world.
Because Kate heard them.
And the fear on her face told me one thing.
She knew exactly what Lily had written.
Before I could ask another question, Kate turned and ran toward the hallway closet.
Not the front door.
Not her purse.
The closet.
And that was when I realized.
May you like
She wasn’t trying to escape.
She was trying to destroy the truth.
