Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Flooded House
The rain had been falling for thirty-two hours when six-year-old Lily Moretti stopped hugging her stuffed rabbit and pointed through the living-room window.
“Mommy,” she said. “There’s a little girl in that house.”
Claire Moretti looked up from the emergency alert glowing on her phone.
“What house, sweetheart?”
“The dark one.”
Claire followed Lily’s finger and felt the blood drain from her face.
Across the flooded lower field, beyond what had once been a narrow county road, stood an old two-story farmhouse with black siding and a sagging roof. Water had swallowed the porch steps and climbed halfway up the first-floor windows. The place had been empty for years. Dominic owned the surrounding property because his attorneys had bought it as part of a land package, but even the grounds crew refused to go near the house.
There was a child in the upstairs window.
A pale face.
Long brown hair.
Two little hands pressed to the glass.
And in her arms was a white stuffed rabbit.
Almost exactly like Lily’s.
Claire moved closer to the window.
“Oh my God.”
Dominic Moretti came in from the hallway already talking into a phone.
“No one drives through the south road. I don’t care what the trucks are carrying. Leave them where they are.”
He ended the call when he saw Claire’s expression.
“What?”
She pointed.
Dominic looked out.
The feared head of the Moretti organization had spent twenty years reading danger faster than other men read street signs. He could spot a tailing car in traffic, a lie in a boardroom, a pistol hidden under a winter coat.
But for several seconds he simply stared.
The little girl across the water lifted one hand.
She waved.
Lily waved back.
“Hi!” Lily shouted through the closed glass.
The child in the farmhouse disappeared.
Dominic was already moving.
“Marco!”
His security chief entered from the foyer.
“Boss?”
“Get the rescue boat.”
Claire turned sharply. “Dominic, the sheriff said the current is too strong.”
“I heard him.”
“So you’re going to ignore him?”
“No. I’m going to call him while Marco gets the boat.”
That answer surprised her.
A few years earlier, Dominic would not have called anyone.
He would have decided that law, weather, and physics were all problems meant for less determined men.
Fatherhood had not made him gentle.
It had made him aware that consequences had faces.
Lily pressed closer to the glass.
“She’s back.”
The child had returned.
This time she was knocking on the window.
Not waving.
Knocking.
Three times.
Pause.
Three more.
Dominic’s phone was already at his ear.
“Yes, Sheriff, I see her too.”
Claire crouched beside Lily.
“Sweetheart, stay back from the glass.”
“Why?”
“Because the wind is strong.”
Lily took one obedient step backward but kept staring.
“She has Snowball.”
Claire looked down at the rabbit in Lily’s arms.
Snowball was white, long-eared, and slightly lopsided from years of being slept on. One ear had a stitched blue heart from the time Lily tore it on a cabinet handle.
The rabbit across the water had the same floppy ears.
Even from this distance, Claire could see something dark stitched on one side.
Dominic lowered his phone.
“County rescue is ten minutes out.”
Marco appeared.
“Inflatable is ready.”
“Good.”
Claire saw Dominic reaching for his coat.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You are not getting in that water.”
“There’s a child over there.”
“And there are trained rescuers coming.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Dominic.”
The little girl knocked again.
Then she turned her head suddenly toward something behind her.
Her expression changed.
Even from across the flood, Claire could see fear.
The girl backed away from the window.
A second figure moved in the darkness of the room.
An adult.
Lily whispered, “Someone’s with her.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“What did you see?”
“A man.”
Claire had seen it too.
Only a shape.
Tall.
Dark.
Gone almost instantly.
Dominic called the sheriff again.
“There may be an adult in the house.”
A pause.
“I don’t know.”
Another pause.
“No, I’m not waiting on my porch if she’s in danger.”
He hung up.
Claire grabbed his arm.
“If you go, you go with the rescue team.”
He met her eyes.
That was the compromise marriage had taught them.
Not obedience.
Not permission.
Information.
Partnership.
“I’ll wait for the first county boat.”
Claire nodded once.
The next eight minutes felt longer than the entire storm.
Rain hammered the windows.
The river that had once run half a mile away had become a dark moving lake.
Lily stood between her parents, clutching Snowball.
Then she said something so quietly Claire almost missed it.
“She said my name.”
Dominic looked down.
“What?”
“The girl.”
“She couldn’t have. The window is closed.”
Lily frowned.
“I know.”
“What do you mean she said your name?”
“When she was knocking, she mouthed it.”
Claire felt a chill unrelated to the storm.
“Are you sure?”
Lily nodded.
“She said, ‘Lily.’”
Dominic stared at the farmhouse.
County rescue lights appeared at the end of the upper drive.
He moved immediately.
“Claire, take Lily upstairs.”
“No,” Lily said.
Both parents turned.
“I have to stay.”
“You have to stay safe,” Dominic replied.
“She might come back to the window.”
“Then Mommy can tell me.”
Lily hugged the rabbit harder.
“What if she thinks I left her?”
Dominic stopped.
The question reached somewhere violence never could.
He crouched.
“You didn’t leave her.”
“But she can see me.”
Dominic looked toward the flood.
Then back at his daughter.
“Stay inside with Mom. Stay away from the glass. I’ll bring her back if I can.”
Lily’s eyes filled.
“Promise?”
Dominic hated promises involving things he could not control.
“I promise I’ll try.”
That was enough.
The county boat launched from the highest part of the lawn.
Dominic climbed aboard with Sheriff Nolan and two rescue officers. Marco followed.
Water tore through the submerged road hard enough to spin branches sideways.
The farmhouse looked worse up close.
Boards had peeled from the siding. The lower floor was underwater. A porch chair drifted past the chimney.
“Upstairs window!” Dominic shouted.
The boat came alongside beneath it.
Sheriff Nolan cupped his hands around his mouth.
“County Rescue! Is anyone inside?”
Nothing.
Dominic saw movement.
A small face appeared.
The girl.
She held the rabbit against her chest.
“Open the window!” Nolan called.
The girl shook her head.
“Why not?”
Her mouth moved.
Dominic could not hear over the rain.
The boat edged closer.
“What did she say?” Marco asked.
Dominic stared.
The girl mouthed the words again.
He read them this time.
He is downstairs.
Nolan saw it too.
His hand moved toward his radio.
Then a crash sounded from inside the house.
The girl vanished.
Dominic grabbed the window ledge.
“Hold the boat!”
“Dominic—”
He pulled himself upward.
The window was locked.
He struck it once with the emergency tool from the boat.
Glass fractured inward.
Nolan cursed.
Dominic cleared the lower edge and climbed through.
The upstairs bedroom smelled of wet wood, mold, and cold air.
A blanket lay on the floor.
An empty juice box.
A child’s sneaker.
No girl.
“Hey!” Dominic shouted. “It’s all right. I’m here to help.”
Something moved beneath the bed.
He knelt.
Two blue eyes stared back.
The girl was curled against the wall, rabbit clutched to her chest.
“My name is Dominic.”
She shook her head violently.
“I’m Lily’s dad.”
That changed everything.
The girl stopped moving.
“You know Lily?”
Her lips trembled.
“He said you’d come.”
“Who?”
She looked toward the bedroom door.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Slow.
Heavy.
Dominic rose.
Marco was climbing through the broken window behind him.
“Boss.”
Dominic held up a hand.
The footsteps stopped outside the room.
Nobody breathed.
Then a man’s voice came through the door.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Dominic recognized it.
And suddenly the flooded house was no longer a rescue scene.
It was a trap.
May you like
“Victor?” Dominic said.
The bedroom door began to open.
