Chapter 3 - Sarah never came home that night.Or the next.
Or the next.
Police found her car abandoned three miles from the hospital.
The driver's door was open.
Her phone was gone.
Her purse remained inside.
There was no blood.
No note.
No sign of an accident.
Just absence.
For Ethan, absence was worse than evidence.
He knew what it meant when people disappeared.
His father had taught him that.
So had the business world.
There were only two kinds of disappearances.
Those caused by fear.
And those caused by someone powerful enough to make fear permanent.
Lily didn't understand.
She sat at Ethan's kitchen table coloring a picture of a family.
A mother.
A child.
And a tall man beside them.
Ethan stared at the drawing.
“Who's that?”
“You.”
“I don't have hair like that.”
“I drew you handsome.”
“I'm flattered.”
Lily smiled.
Then her expression changed.
“Is Mom coming back?”
Ethan looked at her.
He hated lying.
But he hated frightening children more.
“She’s trying.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I think it's because of my dad.”
Ethan froze.
“What do you know about your father?”
Lily shrugged.
“Mom says he died.”
“Do you remember him?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see pictures?”
“A few.”
“Do you know his name?”
She nodded.
“Daniel.”
Ethan's heart stopped.
Daniel.
He had known that name.
Eleven years ago.
His father's youngest business partner.
Daniel Carter.
A brilliant accountant.
A man who vanished after exposing a billion-dollar embezzlement scheme inside Mercer's company.
Ethan had been twenty-eight.
He remembered the night perfectly.
His father screaming.
Daniel begging.
A gunshot.
A broken glass table.
Then silence.
Daniel had supposedly fled the country.
Ethan had believed that story for eleven years.
But Daniel Carter had a daughter.
Lily.
And Sarah had just accused Ethan's family of hunting her.
Ethan walked into his study.
He shut the door.
Then opened the safe beneath his desk.
Inside was a file.
The only thing his father had left him that Ethan had never understood.
A photograph.
Daniel Carter.
Standing beside Ethan's father.
Ethan turned the photo over.
There was handwriting on the back.
If they ever come for the girl, protect her.
His hands went numb.
The safe door remained open.
He searched beneath the documents.
Another envelope.
His father's handwriting.
Ethan opened it.
Inside was a single sentence.
Your father did not betray Daniel. I did.
Ethan stared at the words.
Then the front door opened.
He spun around.
A security guard shouted from downstairs.
“Sir!”
Ethan ran.
Lily stood halfway down the staircase.
Someone had entered the house.
A man in a black coat stood inside the foyer.
He looked up.
And smiled.
He had a scar across his cheek.
The exact scar Lily had described.
Ethan stepped between him and the child.
“Who are you?”
The man reached inside his coat.
Security rushed forward.
Before they could reach him, the man tossed something onto the floor.
A small envelope.
Then he turned and disappeared through the open doorway.
Ethan grabbed the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Lily.
Taken that morning.
Standing outside school.
On the back were five words.
You can't protect her forever.
Ethan looked toward Lily.
She was trembling.
Then she whispered something that made his blood run cold.
“I've seen him before.”
“Where?”
“At my dad's funeral.”
Ethan stared at her.
“Lily...”
May you like
She looked up at him.
“That man was standing next to my mother.”
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