Chapter 1 - THE VOICE IN THE BALLROOM
“Hannah… please save me.”
The child’s voice came from inside the wall.
Hannah Cole froze with a silver tray in her hands.
Around her, two hundred of the richest people in Manhattan were laughing beneath crystal chandeliers, drinking champagne inside Daniel Mercer’s forty-million-dollar mansion.
Then the voice came again.
Closer.
Weaker.
“Hannah… I’m scared.”
The tray slipped from her hands.
Glass shattered across the marble floor.
Every head turned.
“Hannah?” Daniel Mercer called from across the ballroom. “What happened?”
Hannah didn’t answer.
She walked straight toward the west wall.
Her face had gone white.
Celeste Mercer, Daniel’s elegant second wife, suddenly stopped smiling.
“Hannah,” Celeste said sharply. “Clean that mess up.”
Hannah pressed her ear against the wall.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Someone was moving behind the drywall.
“Oh my God,” Hannah whispered.
Celeste grabbed her arm.
“There are pipes back there.”
Hannah looked at her.
“Pipes don’t cry.”
The ballroom went silent.
Then the voice came a third time.
“Please.”
Hannah ripped her arm away.
She grabbed a brass fire poker from beside the fireplace.
“Hannah!” Daniel shouted.
She swung.
CRACK!
The poker punched through the wall.
Guests screamed.
Celeste lunged forward.
“STOP HER!”
Hannah swung again.
And again.
Chunks of expensive plaster crashed onto the floor.
A dark hole appeared.
Then a tiny hand reached through it.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Hannah tore away the broken drywall with her bare hands.
Inside the narrow space sat a little boy.
Maybe seven.
His black tuxedo was covered in dust.
His cheeks were hollow.
His lips were cracked.
There were bruises around both wrists.
Daniel stared at him.
The champagne glass fell from his hand.
“No…”
The boy slowly lifted his face.
Daniel stumbled backward like someone had hit him in the chest.
“Noah?”
Celeste screamed.
“DON’T LOOK AT HIM!”
Everyone turned toward her.
Celeste’s face had lost every drop of color.
“He wasn’t supposed to be here!”
Daniel’s eyes snapped toward his wife.
“What did you just say?”
Celeste froze.
The boy crawled toward Hannah.
Hannah reached into the hole and pulled him out.
The second his shoes touched the ballroom floor, Daniel dropped to his knees.
Three years earlier, Daniel Mercer had buried his only son.
He had stood beside a tiny white coffin while Celeste held his hand and told him Noah had died after complications from emergency surgery.
Daniel had mourned until grief nearly killed him.
And now his dead son was standing six feet away.
Alive.
Daniel’s voice broke.
“Noah?”
The child stared at him.
Then tears filled his eyes.
“Dad?”
Daniel crossed the distance in two steps.
He grabbed his son and crushed him against his chest.
Noah began sobbing.
Daniel buried his face in the boy’s dusty hair.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“They told me you died.”
“I know.”
Daniel pulled back.
“Who?”
Noah looked over his father’s shoulder.
Straight at Celeste.
Celeste took one step backward.
Then another.
“Noah,” she said softly. “Sweetheart, you’re confused.”
The boy’s entire body began shaking.
“She said you didn’t want me anymore.”
Daniel turned slowly.
“What?”
Celeste raised both hands.
“Daniel, listen to me. That child is traumatized. We don’t know what—”
“My son knows me.”
“You haven’t seen him in three years!”
Daniel stood.
His voice shook the room.
“Because you told me he was DEAD!”
Celeste flinched.
Noah suddenly reached inside his jacket.
He pulled out a tiny black device.
A voice recorder.
A red light blinked on the front.
Daniel stared at it.
“What is that?”
Noah wiped his face with his sleeve.
“I record things.”
“What things?”
Noah looked at Celeste.
“Secrets.”
Celeste stopped breathing.
Noah pressed PLAY.
Static filled the ballroom.
Then Celeste’s voice came through the speaker.
Cold.
Clear.
Terrifying.
“If Daniel ever finds the boy, we lose everything.”
Nobody moved.
Another man’s voice answered.
“Then make sure he never finds him.”
Daniel slowly turned toward Celeste.
But Noah whispered something that made his father’s blood run cold.
“That’s not the worst recording, Dad.”
May you like
And before Daniel could ask what he meant—
Every light in the mansion went out.
