PART 1

For one whole year, I kept my daughter’s room exactly the way she had left it.

I dusted her shelves, washed the blankets she never came home to use, and called the detective so many times he knew my voice before I said my name. I tried not to hate the lake. I tried not to hate the water. I tried not to hate the Saturday morning that had taken Sophie away from me.

And through all of it, my husband, Mark, grieved beside me.

At least, that was what I believed.

He cried at the right moments. He avoided the lake. He packed away Sophie’s fishing vest like a broken father who could not bear the sight of it. But there was one thing he never let go of.

An old red tackle box.

He guarded it like it held the last piece of our daughter.

I should have wondered why.