Seraphina clung to his arm and giggled that I’d clearly gone insane.
I reached down and untied a simple braided string bracelet from my wrist.
I had worn it for six years, since the day I set down my own name to marry him — a small, private token of everything I’d agreed to hide.
I snapped it, and let the pieces fall to the floor beside my daughter’s fear, and I felt six years of silence break with it.
Then I walked to the utility room under the stairs, lifted a loose floorboard I’d pried up in secret years before, and took out a black encrypted phone that no one in that house had ever seen.
Chapter 4 — Done Hiding
I dialed a number I’d kept in memory for six years and never once let myself call.
It answered on the first ring.
“Mrs.
Crawford.”