THE TWO-FINGER SIGNAL

## chapter 01 - Emma, Now

Rain struck the kitchen windows hard enough to sound like thrown gravel.

Laura Hale lay on her side beside the island, one cheek against the dark oak floor. Her left knee throbbed where it had hit the marble edge. When she tried to draw breath, pain caught beneath her ribs and held there.

Across the room, Victor stood with his hands at his sides.

He was not shouting anymore.

That frightened her more.

Emma had backed herself against the wall beside the old landline phone. At eleven, she was still small enough to disappear inside Victor’s shadow, but her eyes were fixed on her mother.

Laura lifted two fingers.

It was the signal they had practiced only once.

Not in front of Victor. Never in front of Victor.

Two fingers meant: Do not argue. Do not ask. Get help now.

“Emma…” Laura managed.

Victor turned his head.

Laura forced the rest past her shaking breath.

“Emma, now.”

Her daughter bit her lower lip, pushed away from the wall, and ran.

Victor moved at the same instant.

Emma reached the phone first. The receiver came off the cradle with a hard plastic click. Her fingers hit the buttons so quickly Laura could not hear each number separately.

Victor crossed the kitchen in three heavy strides.

“Give me that!”

Emma turned.

The small canister in her hand looked almost ridiculous against him. Red cap. Blue body. A grocery-store self-defense spray Laura had bought three months earlier and hidden in the lining of Emma’s backpack.

Victor stopped for half a second.

That half second saved them.

“Back off!” Emma shouted.

Victor lunged.

Emma pressed the nozzle.

The spray struck him across the eyes and nose. Victor made a sound Laura had never heard from him—high, startled, almost animal. He clapped both hands over his face and stumbled backward.

“Agh! Oh—God!”

His hip hit the island. Then his shoulder. A barstool crashed sideways, and Victor went down hard enough to rattle the pendant lights.

Emma remained beside the phone, both hands wrapped around the little canister.

She was crying now.

Laura wanted to crawl to her, but her arms would not hold her weight.

“Good girl, Em,” she whispered.

The receiver swung from its cord against the wall.

From its speaker came a woman’s calm, urgent voice.

“911. I can hear you. Officers are on the way.”

Victor rolled onto one knee.

Laura’s relief vanished.

He still could not open his eyes, but one hand reached toward the counter. His fingers closed around the handle of a heavy carving knife.

“Emma,” Laura said.

Her daughter saw it.

For one terrible moment, none of them moved.

Then red and blue light washed across the rain-streaked windows.

Victor released the knife.

He dropped flat onto the floor and began moaning.

By the time Deputy Nolan Graves entered the kitchen, Victor looked less like an attacker than a wounded man surrounded by two frightened people who had hurt him.

Nolan was broad, gray at the temples, and soaked through the shoulders of his uniform. He took in the overturned stool, the swinging phone, Laura on the floor, Emma clutching the spray, and Victor covering his eyes.

His gaze settled on Emma.

“Put that down, sweetheart.”

Emma did not move.

Laura found enough strength to lift her head.

“He attacked us.”

Victor groaned.

“She told the girl to spray me.”

Nolan looked at Laura.

His expression changed in a way she recognized.

Not disbelief exactly.

Calculation.

Victor Kane owned the largest restoration company in Bellwether County. He donated generators after storms, paid for the sheriff’s campaign dinners, and knew which deputy had a son applying to college.

Nolan had hunted with him twice.

“Laura,” the deputy said carefully, “I need you to stay still.”

“He hit me.”

Victor coughed and spat onto the floor.

“She came at me with a knife.”

The knife lay three feet from his hand.

Nolan saw it.

So did Laura.

Victor turned his ruined eyes toward the sound of the deputy’s voice.

“My wife has been unstable all week,” he said. “Emma was terrified. Laura ordered her to attack me.”

Emma’s face went white.

“That’s not true.”

“Emma,” Laura said softly. “Don’t argue.”

Nolan crouched near the knife without touching it.

A second deputy entered, followed by paramedics. Questions filled the room. Who had touched what? Who had been drinking? Where was the child standing? Why was there pepper spray in the house?

Laura tried to answer.

Victor answered faster.

He spoke through tears, his voice broken with pain and concern.

“She needs help. Please don’t arrest her. She’s my wife.”

It was a perfect performance.

Laura knew because she had watched him rehearse pieces of it for years.

As the paramedics lifted her onto a stretcher, Nolan stepped into the hallway with Victor.

Laura heard only part of their conversation.

“…county attorney…”

“…child endangerment…”

“…temporary placement…”

Emma ran beside the stretcher.