Chapter 1 - WHO DID THIS TO MY DAUGHTER?
Daniel Mercer had spent nineteen years imagining every terrible phone call a father might receive.
A car accident.
Alcohol poisoning.
A dorm fire.
A stranger saying your daughter is safe, but you need to come now.
He had never imagined arriving at an emergency room after midnight and finding Lily unable to tell him what happened.
Rainwater still ran from the shoulders of his dark jacket when he entered Trauma Room Four.
Lily lay beneath a white hospital blanket, blonde hair tangled around her face, one cheek swollen badly enough to distort the features Daniel had known since the morning she was born. Her jaw had been stabilized and heavily bandaged. An IV ran into her left arm. Monitors cast green and blue light against the darkened room.
Her eyes found him immediately.
That almost destroyed him.
“Hey, baby.”
Daniel reached the bed before the nurse could stop him.
Lily’s fingers moved weakly.
He caught her hand.
“I’m here.”
Dr. Maya Hayes stood several feet away in blue scrubs, holding imaging films against the light.
Her expression told Daniel the truth before she spoke.
“Mr. Mercer, your daughter has multiple severe fractures in her jaw.”
Daniel tightened his grip on the bed rail.
The room seemed to tilt.
“How?”
“We’re still determining the full pattern.”
“How does somebody get fractures like that?”
Dr. Hayes chose her words carefully.
“Blunt-force trauma would be consistent with what we’re seeing.”
Daniel stared at her.
Then at Lily.
Her eyes filled.
His fear turned instantly into rage.
“Who did this to my daughter?”
Dr. Hayes lowered the film.
“We don’t know yet.”
The nurse in the corner, Allison Reed, had gone very still.
Daniel noticed.
“What?”
Allison glanced at Dr. Hayes.
Dr. Hayes asked, “What is it?”
The nurse hesitated.
“When EMS brought her in, campus security said she was found near the science building.”
Daniel looked back at Lily.
Her eyelids tightened.
Reaction.
He saw it.
“Science building?”
Dr. Hayes nodded.
“Apparently near a loading access road.”
Daniel’s eyes moved to a blue plastic evidence bag sitting on the chair beside Lily’s backpack.
Inside was a university hoodie.
Dark stains from mud and rain.
He grabbed the bag with shaking hands.
“Who called the ambulance?”
“Campus security.”
“Then show me the cameras. Now.”
Lily made a small sound.
Not speech.
Pain.
Daniel immediately leaned closer.
“What?”
Her hand rose.
Slowly.
Weakly.
She pointed toward the door.
Everyone turned.
Allison stepped forward holding her phone.
“I think you need to see this.”
On the screen was a security image sent from the university’s night supervisor.
A timestamp.
Science Annex rear walkway.
11:38 p.m.
Lily was visible near the wall.
And standing over her was a man wearing a university security jacket.
His head was turned.
His face mostly hidden.
But Daniel recognized something else.
The man’s posture.
The broad shoulders.
The distinctive silver watch on his wrist.
Daniel went completely still.
Because he had seen that watch before.
At dinner.
Inside his own house.
May you like
Lily’s fingers tightened around his.
And Daniel understood that the person who hurt his daughter might not be a stranger.
