Chapter 1
Silvio did not ask the question twice.
He turned away from Grant and Lucinda and walked directly toward his children.
That choice surprised everyone who knew him.
Ten years earlier, five years earlier, maybe even five months earlier, Silvio Marchetti would have stayed until somebody answered him.
But Ethan could barely stand.
Baby Mia had stopped crying.
Silvio knew enough about infants to understand that silence was not reassuring.
“Carlo,” he told one of his bodyguards. “Call 911.”
Lucinda pushed herself upright against the bench.
“Oh, for God’s sake. They were in there a few minutes.”
Silvio looked at her.
Ethan heard it too.
“No,” the boy whispered.
Silvio crouched.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
“I asked Aunt Lucy for a sandwich.”
His breathing was still too fast.
“She said I was spoiled. Then Uncle Grant put us in the car.”
Grant wiped blood from his mouth.
“That kid exaggerates everything.”
Silvio rose.
A bodyguard stepped between them before he could move.
Not to protect Grant.
To protect Silvio from making another mistake.
Sirens reached the estate several minutes later.
Paramedics examined both children beneath the covered entrance before transporting them to Northern Westchester Hospital for evaluation.
Mia’s temperature was elevated but falling.
Ethan was dehydrated, dizzy, and nauseated.
Neither child appeared to have suffered permanent injury.
The doctor used the phrase “fortunate timing.”
Silvio hated it.
Fortune had nothing to do with a six-year-old holding a baby upright in an overheated SUV.
A sheriff’s deputy arrived at the hospital and began asking questions.
Whose vehicle?
Silvio’s.
Who had custody of the children?
Silvio.
Who possessed the key?
Lucinda.
Why were they inside?
Nobody yet knew.
When the deputy asked Ethan, the boy repeated the same story.
“I said I was hungry.”
Then he added something he had not said in the courtyard.
“Uncle Grant told Aunt Lucy not to open it yet.”
Silvio looked at him.
“Not yet?”
Ethan nodded.
“He said they needed more time.”
Across the room, Silvio’s attorney, Mara Bennett, stopped writing.
“More time for what?” she asked.
Ethan hugged his knees.
“I don’t know.”
Silvio remembered Grant’s first words.
They’re still alive?
May you like
The hot car had not been an impulsive punishment.
Something had been waiting on the other side of it.
