I knew I shouldn’t, but right now my daughter was missing. I had no choice. Slowly at first, I turned page by page, lured in by her bubbly handwriting, noting several torn edges where entries had been ripped out. Giving those missing pages only a single thought, I started reading her most recent musings. The carefree letters turned jagged. The words were dashed across the page in an angry flurry. I could tell by the harsh lines and deep ink.

Then I read an entry. A message intended for me.

“Ollie,” I tried to yell, but my voice tiptoed out in a whisper. The television blared on. “Ollie!” His name exploded from my mouth. Oliver’s footsteps blended with the electronic pulse of the Doctor Who theme song. When he stampeded into the room, I held out the open journal in front of his pissed-off face.

“What?”

“Just read.”

Oliver’s face blanched with dread as our daughter’s message sank in. “Oh my God. Do you think she knows? This is bad, Felicity. Really bad.”

Yet Oliver didn’t even know the half of what I had done. If Vera had somehow found out the whole truth of it…I couldn’t let my worry go there.

“What do we do?” My voice cracked open as the questions tumbled out. “Do you think she ran away because of…this? Because of me?” I thrust the journal up, as if that made my point any clearer than the terror in my voice.

Oliver’s arms reached around me, pulled me in. “I don’t know, honey.”

From the very beginning of our relationship Oliver always knew how to temper my flareups. It was one of the many things I loved about him. But this time there was no tempering. Only scorching fire.

“Do you think she went to the police? Could that be where she went?” I searched my husband’s face for answers, but he said nothing. There was nothing to say. Everything would come out soon enough.

Or maybe not everything. There was still so much hidden.

Then somewhere buried in the ocean of my thoughts, a fear rose to the surface. This was only the first journal entry I had read. There were hundreds more. What if I discovered something worse in here? As I reread that last entry, I realized Vera’s journal was an omen…

Every buried secret was about to be disinterred.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Felicity

OCTOBER

I found out something horrible about Mom. I don’t know if I should tell the police or not. For the first time in my life I’m scared of her. She’s a monster, but she’s my mom. I hate that I love her. The worst part is that I think my whole family is protecting her, which makes them just as guilty.