Chapter 3
The next morning, Daniel did something I'll never forget.
He called Richard.
I stood in the kitchen doorway, listening. I heard him say the words "I'm sorry if May caused any embarrassment last night."
I felt my blood go cold.
When he hung up, I was standing right behind him.
"You apologized?" I said. "To him?"
"I'm keeping us close," Daniel said, not meeting my eyes. "If something really happened, I can't find out from the outside. I need access. I need Richard to trust me."
"Trust you? Our daughter has a bite mark on her arm and you're worried about trust?"
"I'm worried about proving it!" he snapped. Then he ran a hand over his face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But think about it. We go to the police now with what? A four-year-old's word and a scar that could be anything. They'll laugh us out of the station. Richard Hale owns half this city."
He was right, and I hated it.
That night, May woke up screaming.
I ran to her room. She was sitting up in bed, tears streaming down her face, arms wrapped around herself.
"No bite," she was whimpering. "No bite, no bite, no bite."
I held her. I rocked her. I whispered that she was safe, that Mommy and Daddy were here, that nobody would ever hurt her again.
It took twenty minutes to calm her down.
When I carried her back to our bed, Daniel was sitting up, watching. His face was pale.
"She has nightmares," I said quietly. "She's had them for months. I thought it was the dark. I thought it was monsters under the bed."
Daniel reached out and touched May's hair. She was asleep now, her cheek against my shoulder.
"I was at the office today," he said. "I asked around. Quietly. About the Christmas party. About the kids."
I held my breath.
"One of the secretaries has a boy. Same age as May. He was at that party. She said he came home different. Wouldn't talk about it. Wouldn't go near the Hales' house again. She thought he'd just had a tantrum. But when I mentioned Vanessa's name, she went quiet."
"Daniel—"
"And there's more. The housekeeper. Maria. She lived on the estate with her son, Leo. She left suddenly in March. Nobody knows where she went. One day she was there, the next day she was gone. Richard told everyone she moved back to her home country."
"Did she?"
Daniel shook his head. "Her social media says she's still in the state. Two hours from here. An apartment in Riverside."
I looked at him. "We need to talk to her."
"Tomorrow," he said. "I'll take the day off. We'll go together."
That night, I lay awake with May between us. I watched her chest rise and fall. I thought about the six months I'd missed. The nightmares I'd explained away. The scar I'd never questioned.
Somewhere in the dark, Daniel reached for my hand.
May you like
"We're going to fix this," he said.
I squeezed his hand. But I couldn't shake the feeling that we were walking into something much bigger than we understood.
