Chapter 1

The screaming started first.

A high, thin sound cutting through the quiet afternoon at the Cole family lake house.

I was on the porch, heavily pregnant with Noah, trying to find a comfortable position in the wicker chair.

Ethan, my husband, was down by the dock, supposedly fixing a loose board. Olivia Hayes, his ex, was inside with her daughter, Daisy.

Then Olivia burst out of the house, her face a mask of terror.

"Daisy! Daisy's gone!"

Ethan dropped his hammer. He ran towards her.

I pushed myself up, my belly tight, a sudden cold fear gripping me.

We searched. The woods behind the house, the overgrown path to the road.

Ethan found her.

Floating near the old, half-rotted pier at the far end of the lake.

Olivia' s wail was animalistic.

She clawed at Ethan, then she turned to me.

I was standing by the water's edge, my hand on my stomach, watching them pull Daisy' s small, still body from the water.

Olivia' s eyes, wild and red, fixed on me.

"You!" she shrieked, her voice cracking.

"You did this!"

I recoiled. "What? No, Olivia, I was on the porch."

"She was jealous!" Olivia screamed, pointing a shaking finger at me. "She saw Daisy as a rival for Ethan's attention! She let her drown!"

Ethan looked from Olivia' s distorted face to mine.

His expression, usually soft when he looked at me, hardened.

"Sarah?" he said, his voice low, dangerous.

"Ethan, no. I wouldn't. I couldn't," I pleaded.

Olivia kept screaming, a torrent of accusations, painting me as a monster.

He looked at Daisy, limp in his arms. Then he looked at me.

His eyes were cold. He believed her.

He took a step towards me.

"You were supposed to be watching her too," he said, his voice flat, devoid of any warmth I once knew.

"I thought she was with Olivia," I whispered, my world tilting.

Olivia lunged. Ethan didn't stop her.

Her nails raked my arm. "Murderer!"

Ethan pulled her back, but his grip was almost gentle with her.

He looked at me, his face a stranger' s.

"Get in the house, Sarah."

It wasn't a request. It was an order.

The love I thought we shared, the future I imagined with him and Noah, shattered like glass on stone.

He chose Olivia' s word over mine. Over everything.

The local police came. Olivia gave her hysterical, tearful account.

She implied I was distracted, negligent, maybe even malicious.

Ethan stood by her side, his arm around her shaking shoulders.

He didn't look at me once.

They questioned me. I told them the truth. I was on the porch. I thought Daisy was safe with her mother.

But Olivia' s grief was a powerful performance.

My quiet, shocked denials sounded weak against her dramatic despair.

The influence of the Cole family name hung heavy in the air. The officers were deferential to Ethan.

No one was charged, not officially. But the accusation stuck to me, a suffocating shroud.

Daisy' s death was an accident, a terrible, tragic accident.

But in Ethan' s eyes, and Olivia' s, I was already condemned.