Chapter 1 - The pool
My name is Nathan Cole.
I was forty-one years old when I found my ten-year-old daughter locked inside a metal enclosure in her mother’s backyard.
The enclosure had not originally been meant for children.
It was an old dog run built by the previous owner.
Six feet high.
Galvanized metal panels.
Concrete strip along the fence.
A gate wide enough for a large dog.
When Laura bought the house four years earlier, she had talked about removing it.
Then she used it for garden equipment.
Rakes.
Empty flowerpots.
A folded lawn chair.
Two bags of mulch.
I had never seen the gate locked.
Not once.
Until that Thursday.
Judith Harris, the seventy-two-year-old woman who lived behind Laura, was standing twenty feet away when I entered the backyard.
She wore gardening gloves and one slipper.
I noticed the missing shoe only because the situation was so unreal that my brain started collecting useless details.
“Nathan!”
“Where’s Laura?”
“I don’t know.”
Emily gripped the bars.
“Daddy!”
Everything else disappeared.
I crossed the dry grass.
Dropped beside the gate.
The lock was cheap but closed tightly through the latch.
Emily’s cheeks were wet.
Her hair stuck to her face.
Her pink hoodie had dirt along one sleeve.
“Emily, sweetheart, it’s Dad. I’m getting you out!”
Judith had already brought heavy pliers from her garage.
I jammed them against the lock.
First try slipped.
Second bit into metal.
Emily flinched at the sound.
“It’s okay.”
I squeezed until my hands hurt.
The shackle bent.
Then snapped.
I ripped the gate open.
Emily practically fell into me.
I caught her.
She climbed against my chest like she was six instead of ten.
“Daddy… don’t leave me here.”
“I’m not.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
Her breathing came in short bursts.
I held the back of her head.
Looked over her shoulder.
No visible blood.
No obvious major injury.
A red mark around one wrist.
Dirt on both knees.
I stood carefully.
That was when Emily changed.
Her whole body stiffened.
She grabbed the front of my dark T-shirt.
I followed her gaze.
The swimming pool.
Laura’s pool had been neglected since late summer.
Pump problem.
Too much rain.
The water was cloudy green, opaque in the deeper end.
But not completely opaque.
Near the center I could see shapes.
Dark.
Large.
Three, maybe four.
Contractor-bag size.
One seemed weighted against the bottom.
I took one step toward the pool.
Emily nearly screamed.
“Daddy, please don’t look at the pool. Please just take me away.”
I stopped.
Turned toward her.
“Okay.”
But my eyes moved back.
The shapes were still there.
Judith whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Emily buried her face in my shoulder.
Then she spoke into my ear.
May you like
So quietly I almost did not hear.
“Mommy tried to stop him.”
