Chapter 1 - Daddy… You’re a Ghost
Buster found Lily before I did.
I had been home from deployment for less than ten minutes when our German Shepherd stopped beside the backyard shed and started growling.
Not aggressively.
Urgently.
“Buster?”
The dog looked at me, then back toward the darkness.
I followed.
And saw a small shape curled against the fence.
“Lily?!”
My duffel bag hit the ground.
I ran through the mud and dropped beside my five-year-old daughter.
She was wearing pale pink pajamas.
One sock.
No shoes.
Her legs were streaked with wet dirt, her hands purple-red from the cold.
Buster had curled himself around her.
“Baby, wake up.”
Her eyes opened.
She stared at my uniform.
Then screamed.
Lily scrambled backward so fast she slipped in the mud.
“Daddy… you’re a ghost.”
My chest tightened.
“No. Lily, it’s me.”
She shook her head violently.
“Mommy said you died overseas.”
For a second I couldn’t speak.
I pulled off my military jacket and wrapped it around her.
She finally touched my face.
Her fingers were freezing.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
Then she broke.
She threw both arms around my neck and sobbed into my shoulder.
I lifted her.
“Why are you outside?”
Her crying became quieter.
“Brad made me sleep here.”
That name meant nothing to me.
Yet.
I carried her toward the house.
Music was pounding through the walls.
When I pushed open the back door, roughly thirty people turned toward me.
Rachel stood beside the kitchen island in a black party dress with a wineglass halfway to her mouth.
A man I had never seen had one arm around her waist.
He removed it immediately.
Rachel’s face emptied.
Brad, apparently.
Nobody moved.
I stood there holding our muddy daughter against my chest.
Rachel whispered:
“Daniel?”
I looked at her.
Then at Brad.
Then at the balloons, catered food and champagne bottles spread through the house I was still paying for.
“Why does my daughter think I’m dead?”
Rachel set down the glass.
“Daniel, I can explain.”
Lily tightened her arms around my neck.
Then she whispered something only I could hear.
“Daddy… Mommy made me hide your letters.”
I looked down at her.
“What letters?”
Rachel heard me.
May you like
And the terror that crossed her face told me this was no misunderstanding.
Someone had been controlling what my daughter knew about me for a very long time.
