Chapter 1 - The MatchAt five in the morning, my pregnant daughter was found bleeding at a bus stop. By four that afternoon, I was standing outside her husband's mansion with a match in my hand.

And then my phone rang.

I had spent eleven hours imagining what fire would do to that beautiful house. Eleven hours hearing Chloe whisper, “They said my baby was a mistake.” Her husband, Garrett Harrington, had attacked her. His mother, Evelyn, had helped. Now my twenty-four-year-old daughter lay unconscious in intensive care, five months pregnant, while the people responsible sat behind iron gates.

The hospital's number lit my screen.

“Ms. Ward?” a nurse asked. “You need to hear this before you do anything.”

“Is Chloe alive?”

“Yes. Her condition remains critical. And we found something.”

A gust of rain bent the flame toward my fingers. I pinched it out. Whatever justice meant, it couldn't begin with me burning down a home full of employees who had done nothing to my child.

“Tell me.”

“Before surgery, Chloe asked an officer to put something in her belongings. She said it was for you. We're bringing it to the hospital security desk.”

I stared at the blackened match. “What is it?”

“A little silver bell,” the nurse said. “There appears to be a recording device inside it.”

My stomach tightened. Chloe had called me three weeks earlier and said the Harringtons were making her polish their antiques every night. I had told her to come home. She had said it was complicated.

Complicated. What a small word for terror.

I backed away from the porch and called the one person I had promised myself I'd never ask for help again.

“Nora?” I said when she answered. “It's Samantha Ward.”

Silence. Then: “Sam? We haven't spoken in nine years.”

“They hurt Chloe.”

“What do you need?”

“Your best investigator. And someone who can protect evidence before the Harringtons make it disappear.”

Nora's tone changed. “Don't go near that house again. Meet me at St. Jude's.”

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I turned toward my truck. Across the estate driveway, a security camera swiveled in my direction.

Then the mansion doors opened, and Garrett stepped out holding Chloe's phone.