Chapter 1 - THE CHAIN IN THE RAIN
Rain was coming down so hard I almost missed Emma.
The kennel sat beyond the rear garden, half-hidden by sheets of water and the dark outline of the cedar trees.
I had parked crooked across the gravel drive after receiving a fourteen-second voicemail from Nora, the weekend housekeeper.
Mr. Ramirez, something is wrong. Please come home.
Then the call disconnected.
I had been ninety minutes away at a contract meeting.
I made the drive in fifty-seven.
My shoes sank into mud as I ran around the side of the house.
“Emma!”
Lightning split the sky.
Then I saw the chain.
One end looped around the heavy iron post beside the old dog kennel.
The other passed through a padded belt around my four-year-old daughter’s waist.
Emma was slumped against the kennel wall.
Soaked.
Shivering.
Her pink dress had turned dark with rainwater.
“Daddy’s here!”
Her eyelids fluttered.
“Daddy?”
I dropped to my knees.
She was burning with fever and freezing from the rain at the same time.
“Who did this?”
Footsteps sounded behind me.
Diana Harrington walked across the lawn holding an umbrella.
Perfect hair.
Dry coat.
No urgency.
No panic.
“Sick or not,” she said, “she must be starved and punished.”
For one second, my mind stopped processing language.
“What?”
“She was warned.”
I grabbed the bolt cutters Nora had left beside the garden shed.
The brass lock was thick.
I positioned the jaws.
Diana sighed.
“Robert, don’t undermine me again.”
Again?
I squeezed.
Metal groaned.
Emma whimpered.
“One more second, sweetheart.”
The lock crushed.
The chain dropped.
Emma pitched forward.
I caught her.
She felt frighteningly light.
Her arms went around my neck without strength.
I pulled off my suit jacket and wrapped it around her.
“Daddy…”
“I’ve got you.”
Diana stepped closer.
“Relax. She’s not going to drop dead that easily.”
That sentence broke something in me.
I stood.
Kept Emma against my chest.
Then I hit Diana.
My fist caught her across the face.
She fell backward into the wet grass and mud.
I heard Emma gasp.
That sound cut through the rage immediately.
I had just rescued my daughter from one frightening adult and become another frightening adult in front of her.
I would have to answer for that.
But not before I got her inside.
“You chained a sick four-year-old child outside in the rain?”
Diana pushed herself onto one elbow.
“She needed consequences.”
“For what?”
“She knows.”
“I don’t.”
“She went where she was forbidden.”
“Where?”
Diana looked toward the old garden cottage.
Not the kennel.
The cottage had belonged to my late wife, Natalie.
After Natalie died from leukemia two years earlier, I locked most of her things inside and stopped going there.
Emma occasionally asked about it.
I always said later.
Later had apparently arrived without me.
I looked at Diana.
“What happened in Natalie’s cottage?”
“Robert, get Emma inside before you make this even more dramatic.”
I called 911.
Diana’s expression finally changed.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“This is a family matter.”
“No.”
Nora appeared beneath the covered patio.
She was crying.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ramirez.”
“What happened?”
Diana snapped:
“Go inside.”
Nora stopped.
I stared at her.
“Stay.”
Diana looked at me with pure fury.
Emma moved weakly against my chest.
Then her fingers tightened around my wet shirt.
“Daddy…”
“Yes?”
“She wanted Mommy’s key.”
The rain seemed to disappear.
“What key?”
Emma’s eyes went toward Diana.
Fear.
Diana went very still.
I looked back at the garden cottage.
“What did she find?”
Emma whispered:
“I hid it.”
Diana stood.
“Robert, do not listen to a feverish four-year-old.”
I turned toward her.
“Where is the key supposed to go?”
She said nothing.
Sirens sounded beyond the gates.
Emma closed her eyes.
May you like
And the first thing I understood was not what Diana wanted.
It was that she had been willing to chain a sick child outside until she got it.
