Chapter 1
The second I walked through the front door, I saw my wife swinging a mop handle down against my five-year-old daughter’s prosthetic leg while she cried on the floor.
I had come home early from work after a client canceled our last meeting.
The house should have been quiet.
Instead, I heard Sophie screaming from the hallway.
“Please stop! Daddy said I’m allowed to wear it!”
I dropped my keys and ran toward her.
Vanessa was standing over my daughter with both hands wrapped around the mop handle.
Sophie was curled beside the wall, clutching her prosthetic leg and sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.
“What are you doing?”
Vanessa spun around.
Her face went white.
“She was disobeying me.”
I rushed past her and dropped to my knees beside Sophie.
My daughter threw both arms around my neck.
“Daddy, she kept hitting my leg.”
I looked down.
The prosthetic had fresh scratches across the side.
I felt my whole body go cold.
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“She uses that thing to get sympathy.”
I stared at her.
“She is five years old.”
“She needs discipline.”
Sophie buried her face against my chest.
“I tried to go to my room, Daddy.”
Vanessa suddenly grabbed Sophie’s prosthetic ankle.
“Tell him why I was angry.”
I slapped her hand away.
“Do not touch her.”
Vanessa shoved my shoulder.
“This is my house too.”
I stood up and handed Sophie to my mother, who had just rushed in from the backyard.
Then I turned back toward Vanessa.
She raised the mop handle again.
“Stay away from me.”
I grabbed it and ripped it out of her hands.
Vanessa lunged forward and shoved me hard in the chest.
Something inside me snapped.
I punched her once.
She stumbled backward and crashed onto the carpet beside the overturned laundry basket.
The whole room went silent.
Vanessa stared up at me, stunned.
“You hit me?”
“You attacked my daughter.”
She started screaming.
“She’s not innocent!”
I stepped between her and Sophie.
“What could a five-year-old possibly have done to deserve that?”
Vanessa’s expression suddenly changed.
Sophie stopped crying.
Then my daughter whispered from behind me.
“I saw her taking Mommy’s jewelry.”
Vanessa froze.
My first wife had been dead for three years.
I slowly turned toward Sophie.
“What jewelry?”
Sophie pointed toward Vanessa’s purse.
“The necklace Mommy wore in the hospital.”
Vanessa lunged for the purse.
But my mother grabbed it first.
May you like
The zipper was already open.
And sticking out from underneath Vanessa’s wallet was the velvet box I had buried with my wife’s belongings three years ago.
