Chapter 1 - Two Days Early

I was supposed to be in New York until Friday.

Instead, a canceled meeting put me back in Malibu on Wednesday afternoon, carrying a suitcase no one expected to see.

I heard my eight-year-old daughter before I reached the kitchen.

"You're lying!"

Then Sophie's voice broke.

"You hurt me every day when Dad leaves!"

I stopped in the hallway.

Vanessa stood beside the marble island, still wearing the calm expression everyone loved about her. She was my second wife, the woman our friends called patient, elegant, and impossibly good with Sophie.

"Sophie," Vanessa said softly, "stop making up stories."

My daughter flinched.

That tiny movement hit me harder than a punch.

"She's not making anything up," I said.

Vanessa froze.

Sophie spun toward me. Relief crossed her face so fast it nearly broke me.

"Dad."

I dropped my bag and went to her. When I touched her shoulder, she winced. I pulled up the sleeve of her pajama top.

Dark marks circled her upper arm.

Vanessa stepped closer. "She bruises easily. You know that."

"Don't."

My voice stopped her cold.

For weeks, Sophie had gone quiet whenever Vanessa entered a room. She had stopped asking me to travel less. She had started locking her bedroom door. I had blamed grief, school, the anniversary of her mother's death—everything except the woman standing ten feet away.

Sophie gripped my hand.

"She said my mom is alive."

Vanessa went white.

I stared at her. "What did you tell her?"

"Ethan, she's confused."

"No," Sophie whispered. "She told me Mom was alive, and if I told you, she'd make sure I never saw you again."

My stomach turned.

I had already suspected the impossible. The private investigator I'd hired after finding an old hospital discrepancy had called me the night before.

He had found Claire.

My first wife.

Sophie's mother.

Alive.

The crystal glass slipped from Vanessa's fingers.

It never hit the floor.

Sophie whispered something that made me forget how to breathe.

"Mom comes here when you're gone."

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I remembered the first month after Claire's funeral, when Sophie was barely old enough to understand why everyone kept bringing casseroles to the house. She used to sleep with one of Claire's scarves because it still smelled like her perfume. Vanessa had been the person who told me grief had no schedule. Now I wondered whether she had been studying ours.

And Vanessa looked toward the back door.