Chapter 1 - TWENTY-ONE CALLS
At 2:07 in the morning, Emma Keller’s phone rang for the twenty-first time.
She had counted.
Not because she wanted to.
Because the screen kept lighting the bedroom blue every few seconds, vibrating against the nightstand hard enough to sound violent in the dark.
Ryan Keller.
Her husband’s younger brother.
Again.
Emma sat up.
Daniel was already awake beside her.
He had been awake since the sixth call.
“Don’t answer.”
Emma looked at him.
“What?”
Daniel’s voice was low.
Too low.
“Don’t answer him.”
The phone stopped.
Two seconds later, it started again.
Emma reached for it.
Daniel caught her wrist.
“DON’T GO.”
His grip was not painful.
It was terrified.
Emma stared at him.
“Your brother called me twenty-one times!”
“I know.”
“Then something happened.”
Daniel did not let go.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Emma pulled free.
“Daniel, your mother lives alone. What if she fell?”
The phone rang again.
Emma answered on speaker.
“Ryan?”
His breathing exploded through the phone.
“GET TO MOM’S HOUSE! NOW!”
Emma was already climbing out of bed.
“Is someone hurt?!”
Silence.
Not connection failure.
Not confusion.
Ryan was there.
Breathing.
Thinking.
Daniel’s face changed.
He swung his feet onto the floor.
“Ryan.”
No response.
Daniel stepped toward the phone.
“Ryan, what happened?”
Emma grabbed jeans from the chair.
Then Ryan said:
“Just get here.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you.”
Emma froze.
There was something wrong with that sentence.
Not Mom needs you.
I need you.
Daniel heard it too.
He snatched the phone closer.
“RYAN—WHAT DID YOU DO?!”
Ryan breathed heavily.
For three seconds, nobody spoke.
Then he blurted:
“Emma just needs to say she was driving!”
Emma stopped moving.
Daniel went white.
The room seemed to shrink.
Emma turned slowly toward the phone.
“…Driving what?”
Ryan said nothing.
Then sirens rose outside.
Close.
Too close.
Red and blue light began flashing across the bedroom walls.
Emma’s stomach dropped.
Daniel moved to the window.
“No.”
Emma ran.
Barefoot.
Down the hall.
Down the stairs.
She threw open the front door.
Cold night air hit her.
The Keller family mansion stood four houses down the private road, its front drive flooded with emergency lights.
Police cars.
An ambulance.
And beyond them—
a black sedan.
Destroyed across the front.
Its windshield cracked.
One headlight hanging.
The hood folded upward.
Emma knew that car.
Ryan’s.
May you like
She lifted the phone with shaking hands.
“RYAN—WHO DID YOU HIT?!”
