“Daddy… my back hurts so much I can’t sleep. Mommy told me I didn’t have the right to tell you.”

Aaron carefully placed the suitcase, as if the slightest noise might startle it, and approached step by step, measured.

When he knelt in front of her, Sophie shuddered, and that simple gesture triggered a jolt of alarm throughout her body.

“What hurts, darling?” he asked.

Her fingers twisted the hem of her pajama top, stretching the fabric until her knuckles turned white.

“My back,” she whispered. “It hurts all the time. Mom said it was an accident. She said I shouldn’t tell you. She said you’d get angry… and bad things would happen.”