Chapter 1 - Thirty MinutesSadie’s knees struck the basement floor hard enough to make her cry out.
Dolores did not loosen her grip.
Her fingers remained twisted in the back of the eleven-year-old girl’s long hair as she dragged her across the polished concrete toward the stainless-steel walk-in freezer.
“Grandma, please!”
Sadie clawed at the floor, trying to get her feet beneath her.
“I swear I won’t do it again!”
Dolores stopped beside the freezer door.
The cold blue light spilling through its narrow window cut across her elegant clothes and sharpened every line in her face.
Her narrowed eyes showed no hesitation.
“Thirty minutes.”
Sadie stared at her.
Dolores leaned closer.
“Try it again, and I’ll leave you in here for good.”
She pulled open the heavy door.
“Please!”
Sadie caught the metal frame with both hands.
“I didn’t tell Grandpa anything!”
That sentence changed Dolores’s expression.
For one second, the anger disappeared.
Fear replaced it.
Then her face hardened again.
“That’s exactly why you’re going to learn to keep your mouth shut.”
She shoved Sadie forward.
The freezer door slammed.
Darkness surrounded Sadie for half a second before the overhead light flickered on.
She spun around and pounded both palms against the door.
“Grandma!”
Outside, footsteps retreated.
“Grandma!”
No answer.
Sadie pressed her face near the door.
Her breath came faster.
She had never known exactly how long Dolores left her in places when she was being punished.
Five minutes in the linen closet.
Ten minutes in the pantry.
Once, almost an hour in her bedroom after Dolores removed the doorknob.
But the freezer was different.
Sadie wrapped both arms around herself.
Cold air moved against her sweater.
She had seen Dolores furious before.
She had never seen her frightened.
Not until Sadie mentioned Grandpa.
The thought made her heart beat harder.
It had started that morning.
Sadie had been looking for colored pencils in the upstairs study. Dolores sometimes kept stationery supplies in a drawer beside the writing desk.
The drawer had been locked.
But the small brass key had been lying beside Dolores’s perfume bottle.
Sadie knew she should not touch it.
She also knew Dolores had taken three letters addressed to Sadie and refused to tell her where they came from.
One envelope had carried the name of her late mother’s attorney.
That was why Sadie had opened the drawer.
Inside, she had found photographs.
Dolores with a man Sadie had seen visiting the mansion twice.
Gavin Sloane.
He always told Leonard he was there to discuss property.
In one photograph, Gavin had his arm around Dolores.
Under the photographs was a folder.
Sadie had opened it.
She had seen Leonard’s name.
The mansion’s address.
Numbers with more zeroes than Sadie could understand.
And something else.
A signature.
Her grandfather’s signature.
Except Sadie had watched Leonard sign birthday cards her entire life.
Something about this one looked wrong.
Then Dolores had entered the room.
Sadie had barely managed to put the folder back.
Dolores knew anyway.
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
“What did you take?”
“Nothing!”
Dolores had searched her pockets.
Then her room.
Then her backpack.
She had found nothing because Sadie truly had taken nothing.
That seemed to make Dolores more frightened.
By afternoon, fear had transformed into punishment.
Now Sadie’s teeth were chattering.
She struck the door again.
“Grandma…”
Her voice sounded smaller.
Time became impossible to measure.
She walked in circles at first.
Then she stopped because her legs were trembling.
She hugged herself and tried to remember what her mother used to say whenever Sadie was scared.
Count five things you can see.
Four things you can touch.
Three things you can hear.
But all Sadie could hear was the machinery.
And eventually, even that seemed distant.
She pounded again.
“Let me out…”
Her palms barely made a sound.
Outside the freezer, Maribel Ortiz came down the basement stairs carrying a laundry basket against her hip.
She nearly walked past.
Then she stopped.
Tap.
Tap.
Maribel frowned.
“Hello?”
Tap.
She set the basket down.
The sound came from the freezer.
Maribel’s face changed.
She rushed forward and pulled the door open.
Sadie nearly fell into her arms.
“Oh my God.”
Maribel caught her.
“Sadie?”
The girl was shaking so badly she could barely stand.
A thin artificial-looking dusting of frost clung to strands of hair around her forehead from the cold air circulating inside.
“Who put you in there?”
Sadie’s lips moved.
Before she could answer, heels struck the concrete behind them.
Dolores.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Maribel turned.
“What am I doing?”
She wrapped one arm around Sadie.
“What did you do?”
“Move away from her.”
“She was locked in a freezer!”
“She was being disciplined.”
Maribel stared at Dolores as though she had spoken another language.
“You could have hurt her.”
Dolores stepped closer.
“I said move.”
“No.”
The answer was quiet.
Firm.
Dolores’s face tightened.
“You work for me.”
“I work in this house.”
Maribel pulled Sadie closer.
“I do not help you hurt a child.”
Dolores slapped her.
Maribel’s head turned with the impact.
Sadie gasped.
For a second, nobody moved.
Then Maribel slowly faced Dolores again.
There was no fear in her eyes now.
She reached into the pocket of her uniform.
Dolores smiled coldly.
“What are you going to do? Call the police?”
Maribel unlocked her phone.
“No.”
She turned the screen around.
“I’m going to show Leonard this.”
Dolores looked.
The color vanished from her face.
On the screen was a video.
Dolores.
Gavin Sloane.
Standing beside the mansion’s rear guesthouse four nights earlier.
His hands around her waist.
Her arms around his neck.
Then a kiss that left no room for misunderstanding.
Dolores stared at Maribel.
“Where did you get that?”
“I recorded it.”
“You spying little—”
“Touch me again,” Maribel said, “and Mr. Leonard gets this video.”
A voice came from the basement doorway.
“You mean this video?”
Everyone froze.
Leonard stood at the bottom of the stairs.
At seventy, he still had the posture of a man accustomed to entering boardrooms and watching people straighten their backs.
His charcoal jacket was still buttoned.
He had apparently just returned home.
His eyes moved first to Maribel.
Then to the phone.
Then to Sadie.
His granddaughter was shaking in Maribel’s arms.
Leonard’s face changed.
Not dramatically.
That made it worse.
“What happened?”
Dolores stepped forward.
“Leonard, this is being made to look—”
He raised one hand.
Dolores stopped.
Leonard walked toward Sadie.
“Sweetheart?”
Sadie tried to speak.
Her jaw trembled.
Leonard touched her cheek.
It was frighteningly cold.
His eyes moved to the open freezer.
Then back to his wife.
“Was she in there?”
Dolores said nothing.
“Dolores.”
“She needed discipline.”
Leonard looked at her for a long moment.
“How long?”
“She exaggerates everything.”
“How long?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
Maribel’s mouth fell open.
Sadie whispered, “She said thirty.”
Leonard closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, the suspicion was gone.
Something colder had replaced it.
He removed his coat and wrapped it around Sadie.
Then he looked at Maribel.
“Call an ambulance.”
Dolores stepped toward him.
“Leonard, don't turn this into some ridiculous spectacle.”
He looked at her.
“You locked my granddaughter in an industrial freezer.”
“She was snooping through my private things!”
Leonard went completely still.
Sadie looked up.
Dolores realized too late what she had said.
Leonard’s voice dropped.
“What private things?”
Nobody answered.
Then Maribel’s phone vibrated.
She glanced at the screen.
A message preview had appeared because the video was still open.
It was not a message to Maribel.
It was visible inside the recorded footage, on the phone Gavin had briefly held up to Dolores before kissing her.
Maribel paused the video.
Zoomed in.
Leonard leaned toward the screen.
The words were blurry.
But readable.
FRIDAY. ONCE THE DEED RECORDS, THERE’S NO GOING BACK.
Leonard slowly lifted his eyes toward Dolores.
May you like
“What deed?”
And for the first time that night, Dolores had no answer.
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