Chapter 1: You’re Not Taking Our Dinner
The serving tray scraped violently across the outdoor dinner table.
Plates rattled.
A glass shifted dangerously close to the edge.
Daniel Mercer tightened his grip on the opposite side of the large metal tray and pulled it back.
“Put that down. You’re not taking our dinner.”
Linda Carver refused to let go.
She leaned across the table, her sharply shaped eyebrows drawn together, her pearl earrings moving slightly with the force of her motion.
“Then stop pretending this is a private event. She shouldn’t even be here.”
Daniel looked past Linda.
His twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, Emma, sat quietly at the other end of the table.
She was an adult woman. She had driven herself to his house that afternoon, brought a bottle of wine for dinner, and spent the last two hours helping him sort through moving boxes in the garage.
There was nothing secret about her being there.
There was nothing improper about dinner.
And yet Linda had walked into his backyard as though she had been appointed guardian of the neighborhood.
Daniel released the tray.
Then he stepped around the table.
He positioned himself between Linda and Emma.
“She’s twenty-two, she’s my family, and this is my yard.”
Linda’s mouth tightened into a thin smile.
Then she pointed toward the open garage fifteen feet behind Daniel.
“Funny. Then why was she inside that garage before dinner?”
Daniel turned.
Emma did too.
Her expression changed immediately.
Not fear.
Something closer to recognition.
Daniel noticed it.
He had been irritated a moment earlier.
Now he was suspicious.
He took several deliberate steps toward the garage.
“What exactly are you accusing her of?”
Linda followed at a distance.
Her confidence returned.
“I’m saying she knows something about those boxes that you don’t.”
Daniel stopped.
The garage stood open behind him.
Cardboard boxes filled the space.
Some were sealed with packing tape. Others contained wrapped household belongings Daniel had been preparing to move into storage after deciding to downsize.
He slowly turned back toward Linda.
His eyes narrowed.
“Then why were you looking through them yesterday?”
Linda froze.
The change was immediate.
The confidence disappeared from her face.
For a second, nobody moved.
Emma looked from Linda to her grandfather.
Daniel didn’t need to say anything else.
He had just discovered the question that mattered.
And Linda had just revealed that she wasn’t nearly as informed as she wanted him to believe.
