Chapter 1 - The Girl Behind the Bars
The first thing my daughter said after I broke her out of the cage was not “I love you.”
I remembered the first time I taught Emily to swim. She was five, afraid to let go of the pool wall, and furious whenever I told her she was doing well. “Don't say I'm brave,” she'd complained. “Just stay close.” I'd laughed then, because it sounded so grown-up coming from a little girl in purple goggles.
Now, looking at the murky water behind Sarah's house, I understood what she had been asking. She hadn't needed a speech about courage. She had needed someone who wouldn't move away. I had mistaken her silence during our weekend phone calls for the ordinary distance of growing older. Once, I had asked whether Jason was treating her well, and she'd said, “He's nicer when you're there.” Instead of asking what happened when I wasn't, I'd told her she could always call me.
That memory would follow me long after the police cars left. I couldn't change the past months, but I could refuse to let my fear of another custody fight become an excuse ever again. I crouched beside the enclosure after Emily crossed the fence and photographed its lock, the empty water dish, and the scratches on the inside of the door. I wanted every detail preserved, because children shouldn't need perfect words before adults believe what happened to them.
It was, “Daddy, don't look in the pool. He'll know.”
Emily was ten years old. She weighed almost nothing in my arms. Her hair was tangled against my neck, and every time a branch scraped the fence, she flinched like someone had shouted her name.
Behind us, the swimming pool was the color of spoiled milk mixed with green paint. Three black trash bags rested just below the surface. Something had been tied around them to keep them down.
“Who will know, honey?” I whispered.
She pressed two fingers over my mouth.
“Please. We have to go.”
Three days earlier, Emily had stopped answering my calls. Her mother, Sarah, hadn't answered either. Her stepfather, Jason Vale, had sent one text: SHE'S FINE. STOP HARASSING US.
I had driven straight over. Mrs. Harris, the neighbor, had told me about the arguments and the bags Jason had thrown into the pool. Then I climbed the fence and found the metal dog run beneath a blue tarp, its padlock shining in the afternoon sun.
Now I held Emily against my chest and looked for a way out.
The back door rattled.
I ducked behind a row of dead hedges just as a man's voice carried across the patio.
“Emily?”
Jason.
He wore a gray polo and carried a paper grocery bag. His face changed when he saw the broken lock hanging from the enclosure.
“Emily!” he shouted again.
My daughter made a sound I had never heard from her before, a tiny gasp that seemed to come from the bottom of her lungs.
I set her behind me. “Run to Mrs. Harris's yard. Don't stop.”
She didn't move. She was staring at the pool.
Then Jason spotted us.
“What the hell are you doing on my property?”
“I'm taking my daughter home.”
“Put her down.”
I backed toward the fence, keeping myself between him and Emily. “Call the police. I'd love to explain the cage.”
He laughed once, without humor. “You have no idea what you've walked into.”
I lifted Emily toward the low fence. On the other side, Mrs. Harris reached for her with both arms.
Jason dropped the grocery bag. Something metallic struck the patio.
“Ben,” he said, suddenly calm, “if you take her across that fence, Sarah doesn't come home.”
I froze.
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Because until that moment, I hadn't known Sarah was missing.
THE THINGS BENEATH THE WATER • 20 CHAPTERS
