Chapter 1 - The Midnight Call
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Past midnight, Ruth Delaney heard a woman’s voice hissing from behind the door at the end of the hall. A moment later came the faint sound of a hand striking weakly against a bed frame—the only cry for help available to a girl who had never possessed a voice.
Ruth pushed the door open.
Celeste Vance, Wesley Cain’s fiancée, was leaning over Wesley’s younger sister. Her voice was sweet, but there was something cold and venomous beneath it.
“Go ahead, Norah,” Celeste whispered, smoothing a stray lock of hair from the girl's forehead with terrifying mock affection. “Make your little signs. Show your little phone. Nobody is listening to you. You can’t make a sound, so who would ever believe a word you say?”
In Celeste’s manicured hand was Norah’s vital heart medication bottle. She had just placed it back on the bedside table, but the label was turned backward—facing away from the bed, the exact opposite of how Ruth had carefully arranged it earlier that evening after giving Norah her proper evening dose.
Norah was curled inward on the mattress, clutching her chest. Her lips were rapidly turning a faint, terrifying shade of blue. Her wide, dark eyes were fixed on Ruth, communicating an absolute panic her throat could never put into words.
Ruth’s blood ran cold. She stepped silently backward into the shadows of the hallway and reached into her apron pocket for her phone.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled up the speed dial for the private line—the number given only to key members of the household staff for extreme emergencies.
The line rang twice before a deep, authoritative voice answered.
“Speak,” Wesley Cain growled.
“Mr. Cain,” Ruth whispered, her voice tight with suppressed horror. “It’s Ruth. You need to come home right now. Miss Celeste is in Norah’s room. She... she’s changing your sister's medication. Norah can’t breathe.”
On the other end of the line, the background noise of the harbor abruptly ceased. A terrifying, heavy silence fell over the call.
“Is she still in the room?” Wesley asked, his tone so flat and icy it chilled Ruth to the bone.
May you like
“Yes,” Ruth breathed. “Please, hurry.”
“Five minutes,” Wesley said. “Don't let her leave.”
