Chapter 1 - The Drawing Celeste Tried to Destroy
The first thing I saw when I opened the study door was paper falling like confetti.
Not party confetti.
Pieces of Hadley’s drawing.
Celeste stood over my six-year-old granddaughter with a pair of silver scissors in one hand, cutting furiously through a sheet covered in bright blocks of red, blue, yellow, and purple.
Hadley reached toward it.
Celeste sliced straight through the center.
“A USELESS WRETCH LIKE YOU SHOULD JUST GIVE UP.”
Hadley recoiled so quickly that she lost her balance and dropped safely onto the marble floor.
That was when I came through the doorway.
“Hadley!”
I crossed the room and dropped beside her.
She wasn’t hurt. Frightened, yes. Her small hands were shaking against her cream-colored dress, but there was no sign Celeste had struck her.
I looked at the shredded paper scattered around us.
Then at Celeste.
“WHO DID THIS TO YOU?”
Hadley’s eyes filled.
She didn’t point at the scissors.
She pointed directly at Celeste.
“She…” Her voice broke. “She took Mike away.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Mike was eight.
Hadley’s older brother.
My grandson.
And until that sentence, I had believed he was upstairs.
I stood slowly.
Celeste rolled her eyes.
“She’s talking nonsense; it’s nothing.”
Nothing.
My granddaughter was trembling on the floor.
My grandson was missing.
And Celeste wanted me to believe it was nothing.
Before I could reach her, Blaine stepped forward.
Celeste’s younger brother had been standing near the bookshelves, watching far too quietly.
He placed himself directly between us.
“Back off, old man.”
He advanced.
I did not.
When Blaine came another step, I drove one hard right hand into his chest.
He flew backward into the large bookshelf.
CRASH.
Books cascaded down around him as he dropped beneath them, dazed but conscious.
Celeste screamed and lunged toward me.
Hadley was safely behind my back.
I turned and drove one front kick into Celeste’s stomach.
She flew backward into my large walnut desk.
The wood split with a violent crack.
The desk lamp toppled.
Papers scattered across the marble.
Celeste landed amid the broken wood, conscious but stunned.
I immediately moved back in front of Hadley.
No second punch.
No second kick.
I wanted an answer.
I strode toward Celeste.
“WHERE DID YOU TAKE MY GRANDSON?”
She didn’t answer.
But she did something more important.
Her eyes moved past me.
Toward the closed interior door on the far side of my study.
Only for a second.
Then back.
Most people would have missed it.
I didn’t.
May you like
And when I turned toward that door, Celeste finally looked afraid.
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