Chapter 1 - The Black Handbag
“SHUT UP! IF YOU MAKE A SOUND, YOUR MOTHER DIES!”
Marlene Walker had one hand clamped over my eight-month-old daughter’s mouth when I kicked the bedroom door open.
For half a second, my brain refused to understand what I was seeing.
Lily was on the floor.
Her purple unicorn shirt was twisted beneath her tiny body. Her legs kicked helplessly while my mother’s knee held her down beside the ribs.
Then Lily saw me.
Her terrified eyes widened.
Something inside me exploded.
I crossed the room before Marlene could stand.
I grabbed her shoulder and hauled her away from my daughter.
“What are you doing to my daughter?!”
Marlene stumbled into the chair beside the bed.
Lily crawled toward me, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.
I dropped between them.
“Daddy’s here. I’ve got you.”
Marlene straightened her cream blouse.
There was no shame on her face.
Only irritation.
“That brat is lying. You believe her or me?”
I stared at my own mother.
Lily was eight months old.
She couldn’t invent what I had just witnessed.
Then Lily suddenly stopped crying.
Her eyes moved past me.
Toward the black leather handbag sitting on the chair.
She pointed.
A tiny frightened sound left her throat.
“Da... bag.”
Marlene’s face changed.
It happened so quickly I almost missed it.
Fear.
She lunged toward the chair.
I reached it first.
“Give me that!”
She grabbed my arm.
I shook her loose and opened the bag.
The first thing I saw made no sense.
A phone.
Not my mother’s.
My wife Nora’s.
The same phone everyone had been searching for since the night she was rushed to the hospital.
Underneath it was a sealed envelope bearing Lily’s full name.
Then I saw something metallic beneath the envelope.
Something I recognized from Nora’s hospital room.
My mother saw my expression.
Every trace of arrogance vanished.
“Ethan,” she whispered. “You don’t understand.”
I closed the bag.
“No.”
I stepped between her and Lily.
“Get out of my house. Right now.”
Marlene didn’t move.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the handbag.
And suddenly her threat replayed inside my head.
Your mother dies.
Nora hadn’t simply gotten sick three nights earlier.
May you like
My mother knew something about it.
And whatever the truth was, she had carried it into my bedroom inside that bag.
