Chapter 1 - GET UP.
The first thing Bridget remembered was the sound.
Not her father shouting.
Not the party music.
Not even her brother’s face.
Wood.
A sharp, ugly crack above her head, like a tree splitting in a storm.
Then there was nothing under her.
One second, Bridget’s left hand was wrapped around the wooden balcony railing on the second floor of her father’s villa. Cold night air brushed against her bare shoulders. Behind her, music spilled through the open French doors, glasses clinked, and people laughed the way wealthy people laughed at parties where nobody wanted to admit they were bored.
The next second, the railing moved.
It didn’t bend slowly.
It gave way.
Bridget had just enough time to realize she was falling.
Then the stone patio slammed into her.
Decorative string lights shattered underneath and beside her. Tiny bulbs burst against the ground. Somebody screamed. The music stopped so abruptly that the silence afterward felt louder than the impact.
Bridget opened her eyes.
She could see the second-floor balcony above her.
A section of railing was missing.
And standing at the broken edge was her brother.
He wasn’t running.
He wasn’t calling for help.
He wasn’t shouting her name.
He stood there in his pale linen shirt, looking down.
For one strange second, Bridget thought his expression was shock.
Then she saw his eyes.
Calculating.
That was the word she would use later, although she hated herself for it.
Not guilty.
Not murderous.
She didn’t know enough to say either of those things.
But he looked like a man trying to understand what the next thirty seconds were going to cost him.
Bridget tried to move.
Her arms answered.
Her legs didn’t.
Panic arrived so fast she nearly choked on it.
“Dad.”
Her voice barely came out.
People were moving around her now. Shoes scraping. Someone saying not to touch her. Someone else asking where the ambulance was. The air smelled like spilled wine, crushed flowers, and hot electrical wire from the broken lights.
Then her father stepped into view.
Black tuxedo.
White shirt.
Perfect bow tie.
Not one hair out of place.
He stood directly over his daughter while she lay twisted among shattered bulbs.
Bridget looked up at him.
“Dad, I can’t—”
His face hardened.
“Get up.”
She stared.
He leaned closer.
His voice dropped to a furious whisper.
“You’ve embarrassed this family enough.”
For a moment, Bridget honestly thought she had misunderstood him.
She had fallen from his balcony.
She couldn’t feel her legs.
And he was worried about embarrassment.
“I can’t move.”
“You’ve had everybody staring at you all night.”
“I can’t move my legs.”
“Lower your voice.”
That sentence hurt almost as much as the fall.
Because Bridget knew that voice.
She had heard it at fourteen when she cried at the dinner table after her father compared her grades to her brother’s.
She had heard it at twenty-two when she objected to a waiter being blamed for a mistake that wasn’t his.
She had heard it two hours earlier when a temporary catering worker tried to enter through the front hall carrying trays and her father quietly told the young man, “Staff uses the side entrance.”
Lower your voice.
Meaning: Your discomfort is less important than my reputation.
Her father reached down.
Bridget flinched.
Then another figure dropped beside her.
A woman in an EMT uniform.
Fast hands.
Calm face.
Medical bag hitting the stone with a heavy thud.
“Don’t move,” the paramedic said.
“I can’t.”
“That’s okay. Don’t try.”
Her father stepped forward.
“She’s being dramatic.”
The paramedic didn’t even look at him.
“Ma’am, can you tell me your name?”
“Bridget.”
“Bridget, I’m going to check you. Keep your head still.”
Her father reached toward the paramedic’s shoulder.
It happened quickly.
His hand came down.
The paramedic slapped it away.
Hard.
The sound cracked across the patio.
Several guests froze.
Bridget had never seen anyone touch her father like that.
Not employees.
Not relatives.
Not attorneys.
Not even her brother.
The paramedic finally looked up.
“Sir, step back or I’ll have the police remove you.”
His face changed.
Not much.
That was the terrifying part.
Her father had spent his whole adult life in rooms where people apologized when he interrupted them. He wasn’t used to being ordered anywhere.
Especially not by somebody wearing a uniform he would normally consider service staff.
“You’re in my home,” he said.
“And she’s my patient.”
The paramedic turned back to Bridget.
A penlight clicked on.
Bright white light crossed one eye, then the other.
“Follow the light.”
Bridget did.
“Do you know where you are?”
“My father’s house.”
“What happened?”
“I fell.”
The paramedic paused.
Sirens were closer now.
Bridget heard shoes coming across the patio.
Her brother.
He had finally come downstairs.
His shirt was darker under the arms from sweat.
The paramedic looked at him.
Then at the broken balcony.
Then at Bridget.
Something in her expression shifted.
Not fear.
Suspicion.
“Bridget,” she said quietly, “how did you really fall?”
Bridget opened her mouth.
She saw the railing in her mind.
She saw her brother standing at the broken edge.
Then something else came back.
A flash.
Not from the fall.
From maybe twenty minutes earlier.
A yellow strap across the balcony doorway.
A small temporary warning sign.
She remembered seeing it.
She remembered asking why it was there.
And she remembered her brother pulling it aside.
Bridget stared up at him.
“What happened to the yellow tape?”
Her brother stopped walking.
Her father’s face changed too.
Only for a second.
But Bridget saw it.
The paramedic saw it.
Her brother swallowed.
“What yellow tape?”
Then, from somewhere inside the villa, the security system gave a soft electronic chime.
Her brother looked toward the house.
And Bridget suddenly remembered what she had seen through the glass just before the paramedic reached her.
Her brother.
At the security keypad.
Pressing buttons.
May you like
Fast.
Too fast for a man calling 911.
