Chapter 1 - Thirty MinutesAyla Mercer’s knees struck the basement floor before she understood that Melanie had grabbed her hair again.
“Get up.”
Ayla’s fingers slipped against the polished concrete.
“Please!”
Melanie tightened her grip at the back of the eleven-year-old’s head and pulled her toward the steel door at the end of the corridor.
Beyond that door was the walk-in freezer.
The basement beneath the Mercer mansion had been designed for caterers, wine storage, laundry, and household staff. Everything was oversized and immaculate.
Tonight, it felt like a prison.
Ayla’s light sweater dragged against the floor as she struggled to find her footing.
“I swear I won’t do it again!”
Melanie stopped beside the freezer.
Her elegant cream blouse was perfectly pressed. Not one strand of her dark hair had moved.
Only her face had changed.
Her eyes narrowed.
Her jaw tightened.
“What exactly won’t you do again?”
Ayla swallowed.
She knew the answer Melanie wanted.
“I won’t go into your office.”
“And?”
“I won’t touch your things.”
“And?”
Ayla’s voice dropped.
“I won’t tell Dad.”
Melanie smiled.
That frightened Ayla more than the shouting ever did.
Three hours earlier, Ayla had entered Melanie’s upstairs office looking for a charger.
She had found Melanie’s phone on the desk.
The screen had lit up with a message.
S: Once Grant signs Friday, it’s finished.
Ayla had not understood what that meant.
Then another message appeared.
Delete the transfers after you print them.
Ayla had picked up the phone.
That was when Melanie walked in.
Now Melanie leaned toward her.
“Thirty minutes,” she said quietly. “Try it again, and I’ll leave you in here for good.”
“No.”
Melanie opened the freezer door.
Icy blue light spilled across the basement.
Ayla jerked backward.
“No! Melanie, please!”
Melanie shoved her forward.
Ayla stumbled across the threshold.
The steel door slammed.
Darkness swallowed the corridor outside.
Inside, Ayla screamed.
She hit the door with both palms.
“Melanie!”
No answer.
“Please!”
She pounded harder.
“I’m sorry!”
The refrigeration system hummed around her.
Ayla wrapped both arms around herself.
At first she thought Melanie would come back immediately.
Five minutes.
Maybe ten.
Melanie had done cruel things before.
She had taken Ayla’s phone.
Locked her bedroom door from the outside.
Thrown away photographs of Ayla’s late mother, Serena.
Once, Melanie had made Ayla sit alone in the basement for an entire evening because she had spilled juice on a rug.
But never this.
Ayla’s teeth began to chatter.
“Dad…”
Grant Mercer was supposed to be in Chicago until Friday.
Two more nights.
Melanie had reminded Ayla of that several times.
Your father isn’t here to rescue you.
Ayla banged again.
“Help!”
Upstairs, Kiara Ellis folded towels into a laundry basket.
She had worked for the Mercer family for almost four years.
Long enough to recognize sounds in the house.
The washing machine on its spin cycle.
The elevator motor.
The wine cooler compressor.
Ayla laughing from the kitchen.
Grant coming home through the garage.
Melanie’s heels on marble.
The sound she heard now belonged to none of them.
Bang.
Kiara stopped.
Bang. Bang.
Then something faint.
“Help me!”
The basket fell from Kiara’s hands.
She ran.
Down the service staircase.
Across the basement corridor.
The pounding became louder.
“Ayla?”
“Kiara!”
Kiara’s stomach dropped.
She reached the freezer door and pulled the handle.
It opened.
Ayla almost fell into her arms.
The girl’s body trembled violently.
“Ayla!”
Kiara wrapped her arms around her and pulled her away from the cold room.
Thin artificial-looking frost clung to Ayla’s hair and eyelashes from the moisture and cold air.
“How long were you in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s Melanie?”
Ayla pointed toward the stairs.
Kiara’s face hardened.
Then came the footsteps.
Melanie appeared.
For half a second, surprise crossed her face.
Then anger replaced it.
“What are you doing?”
Kiara stood between her and Ayla.
“What am I doing?”
“That girl was being disciplined.”
“You put an eleven-year-old child inside a freezer.”
“For five minutes.”
Ayla looked up.
“It was longer.”
Melanie glared at her.
“Be quiet.”
Kiara moved Ayla farther behind her.
“You’re done talking to her like that.”
Melanie actually laughed.
“You work for me.”
“I work in this house.”
“I sign your checks.”
“No. Grant does.”
The smile disappeared.
Melanie approached.
“You seem confused about your place.”
Kiara did not move.
“My place is between you and that child.”
Melanie slapped her.
The sound cracked through the hallway.
Kiara’s head turned.
Ayla gasped.
Melanie breathed hard.
Then Kiara slowly faced her again.
There was no fear in her expression now.
Only certainty.
“You just made this easier.”
She reached into the pocket of her uniform.
Melanie’s confidence flickered.
Kiara raised her phone.
A video was paused on the screen.
Melanie was standing beside a black Mercedes behind a downtown hotel.
Her arms were wrapped around a man.
His mouth was against hers.
Melanie went pale.
Ayla stared at the screen.
Kiara looked directly into Melanie’s eyes.
“Touch me again,” she said, “and your husband gets this video.”
For the first time that night, Melanie looked terrified.
Then Ayla noticed something else.
The man kissing Melanie was wearing the same silver watch she had seen in the photograph on her father’s office wall.
A photograph of Grant standing beside his company’s chief financial officer.
May you like
Spencer Voss.
And suddenly Ayla understood that Melanie’s secret was much bigger than an affair.
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