Chapter 1 - Crawl FasterAmelia’s palms slapped the moving treadmill belt.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
The eight-year-old girl was on both hands and both knees, fighting to crawl forward while the belt dragged her backward beneath her.
Her arms were trembling.
Her knees moved in short, desperate motions.
Every time she slowed, the treadmill carried her several inches toward the back.
“Crawl faster!”
Bernice stood beside the machine with one hand resting on the control rail.
At sixty-nine, she still carried herself like a woman accustomed to being obeyed before she finished speaking. Her gray-blond hair was perfectly arranged. Her cream blouse had not developed a single wrinkle.
Her granddaughter was sobbing.
Bernice looked mildly annoyed.
“It hurts…” Amelia whispered.
Her fingers spread against the moving belt.
She tried to push forward again.
“Please let me get off…”
Bernice’s jaw hardened.
“Stand up!”
Amelia looked up.
“Grandma—”
“RUN!”
The shout made Amelia flinch.
Her arms nearly gave way.
She caught herself, crying harder.
Across the enormous private fitness room, sunlight poured through floor-to-ceiling glass and reflected off polished mirrors.
It was a beautiful room.
That somehow made what was happening inside it worse.
Bernice leaned closer.
“You want your father to come home and find out you’re still weak?”
Amelia shook her head quickly.
“No.”
“Then prove you’re not.”
“I’m trying.”
“You always say that.”
Amelia crawled harder.
Her breathing became quicker, but the support positioned across her shoulders and upper torso remained loose enough that nothing interfered with her airway.
She was simply exhausted.
And terrified.
Bernice’s mouth curved into the smallest contemptuous smile.
“Your mother used to say she was trying too.”
Amelia froze.
The treadmill pulled her backward.
Bernice immediately snapped, “Move.”
Amelia started crawling again.
“What does Mommy have to do with this?”
For the first time, something changed in Bernice’s face.
Only for a second.
But Amelia saw it.
Fear.
Then it disappeared.
“Nothing.”
“You keep talking about her.”
“Because she filled your head with nonsense before she died.”
Amelia’s lower lip trembled.
“My mommy didn’t lie.”
Bernice’s eyes became cold.
“You were five years old when she died. You don’t remember enough to know what she did.”
“I remember her blue box.”
Bernice went completely still.
Amelia noticed.
So did someone else.
At the distant doorway, Sofia had just entered the hall carrying folded towels.
The household worker stopped.
At first she couldn’t understand what she was seeing.
Then she recognized Amelia.
Her eyes widened.
She immediately stepped backward behind the wall.
Inside the fitness room, Bernice moved closer to her granddaughter.
“What blue box?”
Amelia looked down.
“I don’t know.”
“You just said you remember it.”
“I don’t.”
“Amelia.”
The girl crawled harder.
“I forgot.”
Bernice stared at her.
Sofia slowly set the towels on a console table.
Her fingers were shaking.
She pulled out her phone.
The screen faced her.
The rear camera pointed through the doorway.
She began recording.
A wide shot captured everything.
The treadmill.
Amelia crawling.
Bernice.
The moving belt.
Bernice’s face.
Sofia held her breath.
“Where did your mother put the key?” Bernice demanded.
“I don’t know!”
“You were with her that last week.”
“I was little!”
“Think.”
“I can’t!”
Bernice reached for the treadmill controls.
The speed increased slightly.
Amelia whimpered.
“Grandma, please.”
“Where is the key?”
“I don’t know!”
Sofia’s fear hardened into something else.
Determination.
She stopped recording.
Her thumb moved rapidly across the phone.
Send to Damien.
She pressed it.
Several miles away, Damien was driving his luxury SUV back from a meeting.
His phone chimed.
He glanced at the notification mounted beside the dashboard.
SOFIA — VIDEO
He frowned.
Sofia almost never messaged him during working hours.
He activated his turn signal.
Pulled safely onto the shoulder.
Stopped.
Then picked up the phone.
The video opened.
For two seconds, Damien did not understand what he was looking at.
Then he saw Amelia’s face.
His breath stopped.
“No…”
He leaned closer.
His daughter was crying.
Crawling.
His mother was standing beside her.
Then the phone speaker played Bernice’s voice.
“Where did your mother put the key?”
Damien’s eyes narrowed.
“What key?”
The video continued.
Amelia begged.
Bernice demanded an answer.
Damien watched until Sofia’s recording ended.
His eyes were wet.
His jaw had locked so tightly that a muscle jumped beside his cheek.
He lowered the phone.
For several seconds, he simply stared through the windshield.
Then he whispered one word.
“Mom.”
Not with affection.
With disbelief.
Damien turned the SUV around.
Twenty-three minutes later, the mansion gates appeared ahead.
He drove straight toward them.
Braked.
Stopped.
The iron gates began opening.
But Damien didn’t immediately move.
He looked at the house where he had grown up.
The house where his wife had once lived.
The house where his daughter had been left with the woman he trusted more than anyone.
Then he looked again at Sofia’s frozen video thumbnail.
Behind Amelia and Bernice, reflected faintly in one of the fitness-room mirrors, was something Damien had not noticed the first time.
A small blue object sat on the counter behind his mother.
Damien enlarged the image.
His blood went cold.
He recognized it.
It had belonged to his wife.
And he had buried it with her three years ago.
May you like
Or at least—
he had believed he had.
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