Chapter 1 - The House Where They Started SingingSix hours before anyone expected him home, Dominic Romano walked through the front doors of his Long Island mansion with another man’s blood drying on his cuff and a loaded gun beneath his coat.
He expected silence.
For fourteen months, silence had become the language of the house.
Silence at breakfast.
Silence in the corridors.
Silence when his three daughters passed him like frightened little ghosts.
Not Olivia, six.
Not Sophie, five.
Not Nora, barely three.
None of them had spoken since the afternoon their mother, Isabelle Romano, was murdered outside a preschool in Garden City.
Doctors had called it traumatic mutism.
Psychologists called it a protective response.
Dominic called it his failure.
He had hired the best specialists money could buy.
He had brought in therapists from Manhattan.
He had flown the girls to Colorado, California, even Italy.
He bought Olivia a horse.
Sophie received an entire room filled with books.
Nora got a puppy that slept beside her every night.
Nothing worked.
Then Dominic heard singing.
He stopped halfway across the marble foyer.
The sound was faint.
Fragile.
Almost impossible.
“You are my sunshine…”
Dominic's breathing stopped.
He knew that song.
Isabelle used to sing it every night.
He followed the sound toward the kitchen, every instinct screaming that it was impossible.
Then he saw them.
His daughters stood around the kitchen island.
Olivia was smiling.
Sophie was clapping softly.
Nora was standing beside Grace Bennett, the quiet housekeeper who had been working in the mansion for barely two months.
They were singing.
Really singing.
Dominic's briefcase slipped from his fingers.
It struck the marble floor with a heavy crack.
The girls froze.
The singing died instantly.
Nora ran behind Grace.
Olivia's smile disappeared.
Sophie stared at Dominic as though he were a stranger.
Dominic felt something twist inside his chest.
His daughters had not spoken to him in fourteen months.
But they had spoken to Grace.
“What the hell is this?” he asked.
Grace did not move.
She was thirty-two, plain-looking, usually invisible beneath gray uniforms and quiet expressions.
Dominic had barely noticed her before.
Now she stood between him and his children like a wall.
“They remembered the song,” Grace said.
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
Dominic narrowed his eyes.
“Who taught them?”
Grace looked at Nora.
The little girl was gripping the back of Grace's skirt.
“Isabelle,” Grace said.
Dominic stared at her.
“My wife?”
Grace nodded.
“She taught them before she died.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
That was impossible.
He had never heard Isabelle mention it.
Sophie suddenly tugged Grace's sleeve.
Grace looked down.
Sophie whispered something.
Grace's face changed.
The color drained from it.
Dominic stepped closer.
“What did she say?”
Grace hesitated.
Then Sophie looked directly at her father for the first time in months.
“The man who killed Mommy is still here.”
Dominic's hand went instinctively toward his coat.
Grace's eyes flashed toward the movement.
“Don't.”
The single word stopped him.
Dominic slowly removed his hand.
“Tell me exactly what she said.”
Grace swallowed.
“She said Mommy told them not to trust the man with the silver watch.”
Dominic glanced at the three girls.
All three were staring toward the library.
“The picture,” Olivia whispered.
Dominic followed them.
Isabelle's portrait hung above the fireplace.
She was laughing in the photograph.
Sunlight behind her.
Her wedding ring visible.
Dominic had looked at that photograph thousands of times.
He had never noticed anything strange.
Until Olivia pointed.
“There.”
A tiny reflection appeared in the window behind Isabelle.
Someone standing outside.
A man.
Only part of his face was visible.
But around his wrist was something unmistakable.
A silver watch.
Dominic walked toward the photograph.
His pulse accelerated.
“What is this?”
Grace stepped closer.
“Your wife left that there on purpose.”
Dominic looked at her.
“How would you know?”
Grace did not answer.
Instead, Sophie pointed toward the library.
“She hid the other one.”
“The other what?”
“The book.”
Dominic turned.
At that exact moment, the lights went out.
The mansion fell into darkness.
A second later, a door slammed upstairs.
Dominic pulled his gun.
Grace immediately shoved the girls behind the kitchen island.
Footsteps crossed the second-floor hallway.
Slow.
Measured.
Then stopped.
Dominic stared up the staircase.
Someone was in his house.
Someone who knew the power had gone out.
Someone who had not panicked.
His phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
One message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE GIRLS SILENT.
Dominic looked at Grace.
She was staring at his phone.
And for the first time since he had hired her, fear appeared in her eyes.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Dominic whispered, “You know who sent this.”
Grace said nothing.
Then Nora emerged from behind her.
She pointed toward the dark library.
And whispered her first sentence in fourteen months.
“Daddy…”
May you like
Dominic turned.
“He's waiting for you.”
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