Chapter 1 - The Silver Locket
I stared blindly at the small, faded object resting in the filthy palm of the homeless woman.
It was a tiny, hand-stitched blue rabbit holding a tarnished silver locket.
My heart completely stopped beating inside my chest.
I had personally placed that exact rabbit inside a closed white casket two years ago.
It was buried with my first daughter, Lily, who tragically perished in a horrific house fire.
My five-year-old daughter, Emily, reached her tiny hands through the heavy iron gates.
She had not spoken a single word since the night of that terrible fire.
Yet she looked directly at this unkempt stranger and clearly whispered the word daddy again.
Victoria came running down the long gravel driveway behind me.
She grabbed my arm with fingers that felt like absolute ice.
She told the security guard to draw his weapon and arrest the trespassing woman immediately.
I raised my hand to stop the guard from moving any closer to the gate.
I asked the homeless woman where she found a toy that had been buried six feet underground.
The woman slowly lifted her head, pushing matted brown hair out of her hollow eyes.
She did not look crazy or confused at all.
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She looked at me with a sharp, calculating intelligence that sent a violent chill down my spine.
She told me that graves are very easy to dig up when the caskets are completely empty.
