Chapter 1 - Bolted Shut

The playhouse door was bolted from the outside, and my seven-year-old daughter was screaming my name from inside it.

I saw it on the security monitor in my home office first—a blur of pale blue moving behind the tiny square window in the backyard playhouse, then a little hand slamming hard against the glass. For half a second, my brain refused to process what I was looking at.

Then I heard it.

“Daddy!”

I flew out of my chair so fast it crashed backward into the bookshelf. By the time I hit the kitchen, my pulse was hammering in my ears. Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, making the backyard look clean, bright, and normal.

Nothing about it was normal.

Emma’s little wooden playhouse sat near the hedges, painted white with a pale blue trim. It looked like something out of a catalog.

It looked harmless.

It wasn’t.

I ran across the patio, cutting hard over the grass, and heard another thud from inside. “Emma! I’m here!”

My hands hit the latch.

Locked.

From the outside.

A hot spike of panic tore through me. I yanked at the metal bolt, threw the tiny door open, and found my daughter crumpled on the floor, sweaty, red-eyed, terrified, still wearing her light blue summer dress. Her light brown hair was stuck to her face. She threw herself at me so hard she almost knocked me back.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy—”

“I’ve got you,” I said, pulling her into my arms. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Her body was shaking.

Behind me, I heard footsteps on the patio.

Claire.

My fiancée stood in the sun in a fitted cream dress, one hand pressed to her chest, the other still holding a glass of iced tea. Her face arranged itself into shock a second too late.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Ethan, she was supposed to stay in there for five minutes.”

I slowly turned toward her, Emma clinging to my neck.

“For what?” I asked.

Claire lifted her chin. “She needed a timeout.”

Emma whimpered against my shoulder.

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Then I saw it.

In Claire’s right hand, half hidden by the sweating glass, was a tiny brass padlock.