The sound of glass cracking was the first warning that something terrible was happening inside my house.
I was halfway through the front entrance when I heard it.
A violent crash.
A girl screaming.
Then my son's voice, louder and more frightened than I'd ever heard it.
โSTOP!โ
I dropped my briefcase beside the marble staircase and ran toward the living room.
My name is James Whitmore. I was forty-six years old that afternoon, the owner of a successful Connecticut property-development company, and a man who had spent the previous two years convincing himself that his family was finally learning how to be happy again.
I had a beautiful home.
Two children.
A thriving business.
And a second wife whom I believed had rescued us from the darkest period of our lives.
Within the next ten seconds, I would discover how little I understood about the woman I'd married.
Our living room occupied the western side of the house, overlooking an enormous landscaped garden surrounded by old maple trees. It had floor-to-ceiling windows, pale limestone walls, designer furniture, and a long contemporary fireplace beneath an enormous television.
That television now had a spiderweb crack spreading across its entire screen.
A black remote control lay on the marble floor.
My sixteen-year-old son, Ethan, stood several feet away, breathing heavily.
He was tall and athletic, with closely cropped black hair and the same brown eyes his mother had possessed. He wore a gray athletic jersey with white stripes across the shoulders and black shorts.
His hands were shaking.
Across from him stood my fourteen-year-old daughter, Nia.
Her shoulder-length curly black hair framed a frightened face. She wore a pink T-shirt and faded blue jeans, and she was clutching several sheets of paper against her chest as though someone might take them away.
Then I saw Vanessa.
My wife.
Thirty-eight years old.
Beautiful, elegant, always composed in public.
She wore a fitted camel-brown dress, delicate gold jewelry, and her black hair in a perfectly arranged low bun.
But there was nothing composed about her expression.
Her right hand was extended toward Nia.
And as I entered the room, Vanessa shoved my daughter backward.
Nia stumbled against the edge of the sofa.
โDON'T YOU DARE SHOW HIM THAT!โ Vanessa screamed.
I froze.
For a fraction of a second, I couldn't understand what I was seeing.