Chapter 1
“LISTEN! JUST LISTEN!”
My daughter’s scream cut through the backyard louder than the music.
One second earlier, my housewarming party had been perfect.
String lights glowing over the pool.
Neighbors laughing.
Glasses clinking.
Drea standing beside me in a white dress, smiling like she already owned the place.
Then ten-year-old Calla marched straight to the party speaker and yanked the power cord from the wall.
The music died in the middle of a beat.
Everyone groaned.
Drea’s face changed first.
Not because of the music.
Because her eyes shot past Calla, down the yard, toward the locked pool house.
“CALLA!” Drea snapped. “Plug that back in right now!”
But Calla didn’t move.
She held the cord in one fist.
Her cheeks were wet.
Her whole body was shaking.
“Listen,” she said again. “Please.”
I set my drink on the nearest table.
“Calla, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
For one heartbeat, the backyard was silent.
Then it came.
Knock.
Knock.
A soft sound from the far end of the yard.
Every guest turned.
My skin went cold.
The pool house had been locked since I bought the property.
Drea told me the pump system was unstable.
She said nobody should go near it.
Calla was already running.
“Calla!” I shouted.
She grabbed a smooth river rock from the landscaping without slowing down.
Drea moved faster than I had ever seen her move.
“It’s the pool pump,” she said. “It rattles when the music stops.”
Too quick.
Too smooth.
Too rehearsed.
Calla reached the pool house and hit the door three times with her knuckles.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The yard froze.
Then from inside came the answer.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Calla turned toward us, sobbing.
“Pool pumps don’t knock back!”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
I walked toward the pool house.
“Calla,” I said carefully. “Knock twice.”
She did.
Two knocks answered immediately.
Drea lunged.
“Don’t break that door!”
I caught her with one arm and held her back.
For the first time since I met her, she looked terrified.
Not angry.
Terrified.
I looked at my daughter.
“Break it.”
Calla swung the rock.
The frosted glass cracked.
She hit it again.
The pane caved inward.
I pulled her back before she cut herself, reached through the broken opening, and found the latch.
The door opened.
The smell hit first.
Dust.
Bleach.
Fear.
Then a woman stepped into the dim light, blinking hard like the string lights hurt her eyes.
My breath left my body.
“Elise?”
My ex-wife.
Calla’s mother.
The woman everyone said had abandoned us two years ago.
The woman who supposedly moved two states away and stopped answering our daughter’s calls.
She looked thinner.
Pale.
Weak.
But alive.
Calla screamed, “Mom!”
Elise dropped to her knees and caught her.
I turned slowly.
Drea stood by the pool, shaking.
May you like
I held out my hand.
“Give me the key, Drea.”
