Chapter 2 - What the Dark Was Hiding
Cora was sitting on the bare concrete floor of that shed, her spine against the cinderblock, her clothes worn down to almost nothing.
Danny — my five-year-old — was folded against her chest, gnawing on a heel of stale bread she'd washed under the outdoor tap.
My son. Hungry. In the dark. Twenty feet from a catered party inside my own home.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't make my legs move. I just stood at that broken window while five years of sacrifice turned to ash between my fingers.
Then the back door of the house banged open.
Sabrina's voice sliced across the yard.
"Cora. We're out of ice. Quit sitting on your rear and bring some in. Now."
Cora flinched like she'd been slapped. She eased Danny off her lap, got up slow, and breathed, "Stay here, baby. Not a sound."
She walked out of that shed like a woman who'd learned years ago that fighting back only cost her more.
I stepped out of the shadows.
She saw me and stopped. Every drop of color left her face.
"Daniel," she whispered. "How — how long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough," I said.
Her eyes flooded. And then she said something that dropped the temperature in my chest to zero.
"Daniel, please. Before you go in there — there's something you don't know. About the money. About all of it. Your mother has been—"
The back door opened again.
May you like
Diane stepped out onto the landing.
And the second she saw my face, she went still as stone.
