Chapter 1 - The Voice in the KitchenFor fourteen months after their mother was murdered, my three daughters never spoke.
Not once.
Not when they woke from nightmares.
Not when doctors asked them their names.
Not when I held them in my arms and begged them to say one word.
Not even “Daddy.”
For fourteen months, my house had been silent.
Not peaceful.
Silent.
There was a difference.
Peace had warmth in it.
Silence had teeth.
Every morning, I woke to the same three empty voices. Olivia was eleven. Sophie was eight. Nora was five. Three girls who had once fought over cereal bowls, argued over cartoons, and screamed whenever I came home with gifts.
After Isabelle died, they became ghosts.
Their mother had been murdered outside a preschool in Garden City on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
One gunshot.
One witness who remembered nothing useful.
One camera that mysteriously stopped recording exactly four minutes before the shooting.
And one killer who disappeared.
The police called it a targeted murder.
The newspapers called it a tragedy.
I called it a declaration of war.
I had spent fourteen months looking for the man who took Isabelle from us.
I had threatened people.
Bought information.
Broken men who deserved to be broken.
And buried others who lied to me.
My reputation made doors open.
It also made people lie faster.
Six hours earlier, I had been in Brooklyn meeting a man who had finally promised me a name.
He never got to finish the sentence.
Now blood was drying on my cuff.
My loaded gun sat beneath my coat.
I entered my Long Island mansion expecting another night of silence.
Then I heard singing.
I stopped in the foyer.
At first, I thought it was the television.
Then I heard a child laugh.
I had forgotten what that sound felt like.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
I followed it.
The kitchen door was open.
Olivia sat on the marble island, swinging her legs.
Sophie wore an oversized apron decorated with cartoon strawberries.
And Nora sat on Grace Bennett's shoulders, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
They were singing.
“You are my sunshine…”
I froze.
My hand instinctively moved toward the gun beneath my coat.
Not because of Grace.
Because my brain couldn't understand what my eyes were seeing.
My daughters.
My daughters were singing.
After fourteen months.
The briefcase slipped from my hand.
It struck the marble floor.
The sound cracked through the room.
Everything stopped.
Olivia looked at me.
Sophie looked at me.
Nora's smile vanished.
She slid down from Grace's shoulders and immediately hid behind her.
My chest tightened.
I had been shot twice in my life.
Neither wound had hurt like that.
“What's this?” I asked.
My voice came out colder than I intended.
Grace slowly crouched beside Nora.
She didn't look afraid.
She looked… guilty.
Sophie reached for Grace's hand.
The little girl leaned close.
She whispered.
Grace's face changed.
White.
Completely white.
I stepped forward.
“What did she say?”
Grace didn't answer.
“Nobody leaves this room.”
Olivia's eyes widened.
Grace finally looked at me.
“She said the man who killed their mother…”
She stopped.
Swallowed.
“…is still inside this house.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt.
For one long second, nobody moved.
Then Olivia slid off the island.
She walked toward me.
My oldest daughter had not voluntarily come near me in months.
Now she stopped less than a foot away.
She looked up at me.
And whispered her first words in fourteen months.
“Daddy…”
My knees almost gave out.
I crouched immediately.
“I'm here.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
She grabbed the front of my shirt.
Then she whispered five words that turned my blood to ice.
“He knows you came home.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
Olivia looked past me.
Toward the hallway.
Her small hand tightened around my shirt.
“He's watching us.”
My body went rigid.
I turned slowly.
The hallway was empty.
But something was wrong.
A door at the far end of the house was slightly open.
The door to the security room.
I had locked it before leaving that morning.
I knew because only three people had access.
Me.
My head of security.
And the person who killed my wife.
I reached beneath my coat.
My fingers wrapped around the gun.
Grace stepped between me and the girls.
“Don't.”
I looked at her.
She shook her head.
“Not here.”
“Move.”
“Your daughters just started talking again.”
Her eyes were fixed on the hallway.
“Don't turn their first words into another nightmare.”
She was right.
I hated that she was right.
I took the girls upstairs.
Or tried to.
Halfway up the stairs, Olivia stopped.
She looked back.
Grace remained in the kitchen.
Olivia whispered something.
“What?”
She pointed.
At the wall.
There was a framed photograph of Isabelle.
I looked at it.
Then back at Olivia.
She was crying.
“That picture wasn't there yesterday.”
I stared.
The frame had been moved.
Only a few inches.
But behind it was something I had never noticed before.
A tiny black camera.
Hidden inside the wall.
I pulled the frame down.
The lens stared back at me.
A red light blinked.
Someone was watching.
Right now.
I ripped the camera from the wall.
Then I heard my phone ring.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Nobody spoke.
Only breathing.
Then a man's voice whispered:
“You should have stayed in Brooklyn.”
The call ended.
My security system immediately screamed.
Every door in the mansion locked.
Every light turned off.
And somewhere below us…
a child screamed.
It was Nora.
I ran downstairs.
Grace was gone.
May you like
So was Olivia.
And the kitchen door was swinging slowly in the darkness.
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