Chapter 1

The call came at dusk. The voice on the other end was a stranger' s, a paramedic, calm and professional, but his words shattered my world into a million pieces.

"Is this David Miller? There' s been an accident. Your daughter, Lily... you need to come to Oceanville General Hospital. Now."

The drive was a blur of red lights and the frantic honking of my own horn. My hands shook on the steering wheel, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I prayed. I begged any god who would listen. Please, let her be okay. Please.

I burst through the emergency room doors and found my estranged wife, Sarah, standing near the reception desk. She was on her phone, her back to me. Her voice was sharp, annoyed.

"I told you, I' m handling it. Just give me some time."

She hung up and finally turned, her face a mask of irritation that only slightly faltered when she saw me.

"David. You' re here."

"Sarah, where is she? How is she?" I grabbed her arms, my voice cracking.

She pulled away, smoothing the wrinkles I' d made on her expensive blazer. "They' re working on her. A car hit her."

Her tone was cold, detached, as if she were discussing a difficult case file, not our five-year-old daughter. A wave of anger mixed with my terror.

"What do you mean, 'a car hit her' ? Where were you? She was with you!"

"Don' t you dare blame me, David," she snapped, her voice low and venomous. "She ran into the street. You know how she is, always so... difficult. I couldn't stop her."

The cruelty of her words sucked the air from my lungs. Difficult? Lily was a ray of sunshine, a bundle of laughter and joy. She was everything good in my life.

My eyes scanned the chaotic waiting room, searching for an escape from Sarah' s coldness, and then I saw it. In a shadowed corner, a man stood waiting. It was Mark Thompson. Her step-brother. He caught my eye, then quickly looked away. A moment later, I saw Sarah discreetly walk over to him. She thought I wasn't looking. She reached out and he took her hand, squeezing it.

A sick feeling rose in my gut. What was he doing here? And why were they acting like that?

A doctor in blue scrubs approached us, his face grim. The sight of him made my blood run cold.

"Mr. and Mrs. Miller?"

"Yes," I choked out.

"Your daughter, Lily... she suffered a severe head trauma. We did everything we could, but the damage was too extensive. She was calling for you, Mr. Miller. She kept asking for her daddy."

The words didn't register at first. They were just sounds, empty of meaning.

"I' m so sorry," the doctor said, his voice gentle. "We' ve lost her."

Lost her. The two words echoed in the sudden, silent void of my mind. The world tilted on its axis. My legs gave out and I stumbled back against a wall, sliding down to the floor. The sounds of the ER faded into a dull roar.

My mother, Eleanor, arrived then. She saw me on the floor, saw the look on the doctor' s face, and a gut-wrenching sob escaped her lips. She rushed to my side, wrapping her frail arms around me as we both broke down, our shared grief a physical weight crushing us into the cold linoleum.

Lily' s small, lifeless body was taken to the hospital morgue. I followed the gurney down the sterile, silent corridors, a hollowed-out shell of a man. My mother walked beside me, her hand gripping my arm, her tears a constant, quiet stream.

I needed Sarah. No matter how broken we were, she was still Lily' s mother. We needed to be together in this nightmare. I pulled out my phone, my fingers fumbling with the screen.

She answered on the second ring.

"What is it now, David? I' m in the middle of something important."

Her voice was impatient, distant.

"They... they took her to the morgue, Sarah," I whispered, my voice raw. "You need to come. Please."

There was a pause, a heavy sigh. "I can' t. I have work. I' ll deal with it tomorrow."

Click.

She hung up.

I stared at my phone in disbelief. Deal with it? Like it was an errand to be run. My mother looked at me, her eyes filled with a pain so deep it mirrored my own.

Numbly, I unlocked my phone, my thumb scrolling aimlessly through social media, a desperate, mindless search for a distraction that didn't exist. And then I saw it. A picture, posted just thirty minutes ago. It was from a colleague of Sarah' s. A group of lawyers celebrating a victory at an expensive downtown restaurant.

And in the center of the photo, raising a glass of champagne, were Sarah and Mark. They were smiling. Laughing. His arm was wrapped possessively around her waist.

My daughter was lying on a cold metal slab in the morgue, and her mother was celebrating. The phone slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the floor. The sound was like a gunshot in the silent hallway.