First Chapter: The Five Year Lie
“The questions mount in this techno-thriller lite that doesn’t require any heavy lifting but will have readers wondering who’s watching their doorbell cams.” — Library Journal
"Tension that grabs you from the first page. You won't be able to look away." — Kylie Scott, New York Times bestselling author
“She adds just enough love and longing into the mix to please her romance-minded fans without scaring off the hardcore thriller addicts.” — Kirkus Reviews
Ariel
“Oh, Ariel! Have you signed up for the picnic yet?” This question is lobbed at me even before I can extract my son from his bike seat.
Even so, I take my sweet time removing Buzz’s helmet and hoisting him down to the ground. When I finally turn around and acknowledge Maddy—one of the preschool’s pushiest PTO mothers—she offers me a clipboard with a dangling pen disguised as a daisy.
Reluctantly, I take it from her. GRADUATION DAY PICNIC SIGN-UP SHEET! it reads. PLEASE TAKE ONE SLOT FOR YOU, AND ONE SLOT FOR YOUR PARTNER!
That’s a lot of exclamation points for a Monday morning. The list of jobs is numbered from one to thirty-six. That’s two for each of the eighteen kids in Buzz’s class. The choices range from baking two dozen cookies to running the sack race.
The whole thing makes me feel salty. First of all—since when do preschoolers graduate? And then there’s the careful use of the word partner. Some of Buzz’s classmates have two mommies or two daddies. So that was thoughtful—but only up to a point.
“What if I don’t have a partner?” I ask Maddy. “Am I still supposed to take two slots?”
“Oh.” Her smile fades by one or two notches, and her eyes reflect genuine puzzlement, as if the existence of single mothers has never occurred to her. “Just do the best you can.”
So I scan the list. The easiest options—napkins, compostable paper plates, and drinking water—have already been nabbed. I scribble my name beside the request for ten watermelons and a chef’s knife to cut them up. Then I note the date—three weeks from now. Somebody’s an overachiever. I hand back the
clipboard.
She glances at it, and I brace myself to hear her say something about my half-hearted volunteerism. “Pro tip,” she says instead. “You can use folded cardboard to make a guard for the knife. That’s how I avoid slicing the lining of my bag.” She pats the Tory Burch tote under her arm and smiles.
“Good idea,” I say with the closest thing I can muster to a smile. Then I take Buzz’s hand and walk him into the old brick
building.
In Buzz’s classroom, several children are already ransacking the dress-up box, pulling out velvet cloaks and outlandish hats. Buzz pastes himself to my thigh, though, and doesn’t move to join them. He always takes a couple of minutes to warm up to the chaos of preschool.
“He’s a quiet child,” my mother, Imogen, always says. “Watchful.”
Just like his father, I’m always tempted to add. But I never talk about Buzz’s dad.
Buzz likes school, though, so I just ruffle his hair and wait him out. And sure enough, after he watches the action for a minute, his grip on my hand loosens.
His teacher—the wise and kind Miss Betty—approaches us. “Good morning, Buzz. I have some new hats to try on today. And I got the sand table out this morning. See?” She points toward a quiet corner of the room.
My son’s eyes shift to the sand table, and he drops my hand.
I lean over and plant a kiss onto his sweet-smelling head. “See you after lunch.”
He flashes me a quick smile before heading over to the sand table.
“There we go,” Betty says. “Good weekend?”
“Absolutely. We helped my mother with some gardening. There was lots of whistling. Sorry.” Buzz is the only kid in his preschool class who can whistle, and he does it constantly. Sometimes it’s tuneful. Sometimes it’s not.
Betty’s eyes crinkle in the corners when she smiles. “I don’t think he even knows when he’s doing it,” she says. “And there are worse habits. Enjoy the day.”
I take one more glance at my child. He’s already holding a tiny rake and smoothing the sand, his lips pursed in a whistle.
Sometimes when I look at him, I just ache.
After drop-off, I pedal slowly toward the office. It’s a warm spring day, and let’s be honest—no one is going to fire me from my lowly job in the family empire for being a couple minutes late.
Seagulls screech overhead as I navigate the twisty brick streets. I never imagined I’d live in New England forever. I always assumed I’d be off making art in Dublin or Prague. Or at least Brooklyn.
Then life happened. Namely Buzz. But there are worse places than Portland, Maine, especially with ample babysitting and a free place to live.
My setup is just about as cushy as a single mother could ever expect. I work part-time for my family’s tech company. That paycheck, combined with my trust fund, keeps me flush with enough cash to afford all the things that privileged four-year-olds enjoy—private preschool, day camps in the summer, and trips to
the children’s museum.
It also allows me to spend three afternoons a week pursuing my real passion in the studio—creating blown glass.
Even as I walk my bike into the office building, my mind shifts to a series of flasks I’ve been making. Their sides are flattened and blocky. Like the facets of jewels. I’m experimenting with an ombre effect, where the bottom of the vessel is made from colored glass that slowly gives way to clear at the neck . . .
“Careful, Ariel.”
I lift my head and find Hester, my uncle’s assistant, right in my path. She’s an attractive middle-aged woman with a sleek gray pixie cut and a noticeable addiction to wrap dresses.
She’s also grumpy as hell. My uncle and I are both a little afraid of her. “Sorry,” I say quickly.
Scowling, she trots up the open stairway to the second floor, which is the nerve center of Chime Co.
It takes me a moment to lock my bike to the rack under the stairs before I follow her up to the second floor, where I step into a vast office space that’s already mostly full of computer programmers,
managers and support staff.
This is Chime Co., the largest tech company in Maine and the number two manufacturer of doorbell cameras in the country. Years ago, my father and his brother founded the company in my uncle’s basement. But now there are hundreds of employees—so many that Uncle Ray just bought the office building so that we could expand to two more floors.
I’m the office manager. My hours are flexible, and the work isn’t very taxing. I don’t mind it, but I’ll never be Chime Co.’s employee of the month, either.
Case in point—the conference room is already filling up with programmers for the Monday meeting, but there’s no way I’m going in there without coffee. So I head for the coffee counter on the far wall.
Skilled programmers are always in short supply, and must be wooed by perks like good coffee and snacks. The job of stocking these goodies falls to me, which means the coffee is excellent, and there’s a bevy of complements in the mini fridge, including hipster choices like oat milk and flavored creams.
I make myself a latte before heading into the meeting. The only open seat in the conference room is next to Hester, who gives me a fresh scowl as I sit down.
In return, I beam at her. She hates that.
At the head of the table, my uncle is already opening the meeting. Without breaking his cadence, he nods hello to me, his expression friendly, in spite of my tardiness.
It’s a cushy job. I’ll own my privilege.
I dig into my shoulder bag for my planner and a pen. Usually the content of these meetings has little to do with me, but we’re in the middle of an office move, so I have to at least feign attention.
Then, as one of the programmers launches into a lengthy update, my phone chimes loudly with a text.
Oops.
I could ignore it and pretend that intrusion came from someone else’s phone. As one does. But I never ignore texts when Buzz is at school. Emergencies are rare, but there was a stomach bug last year and—even worse—a head lice incident this fall.
Lord in heaven, let it not be lice again.
Under Hester’s judgmental gaze, I pull out my phone and check the message.
But it’s not the school. In fact, the name on the screen stops me in my tracks.
Drew Miller.
I blink. But when my vision clears, his picture is still there—a photo I took of the two of us at sunset in Fort Allen Park. And when I read the text message, I stop breathing.
There’s trouble. I need to see you. Meet me in one hour under the candelabra tree. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.
That message would rattle me coming from anyone. But coming from Drew, it’s heart-stopping.
Because Drew Miller, the only man I ever loved, and the father of my child, is dead.