No more lies, p.1
NO MORE LIES, page 1
Contents
What’s coming next from Willow Rose?
Prologue
Prologue
Prologue
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part II
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Part III
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Epilogue
Epilogue
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
Books by the Author
Copyright
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Prologue
Prologue
Lulu cradled her two-week-old daughter against her chest, the baby's weight a perfect anchor in her arms. The nursery welcomed them with its gentle shadows, a nightlight casting soft patterns that danced across walls adorned with woodland creatures. She felt the steady rhythm of her daughter's breathing, each tiny exhale warm against her collarbone. These midnight moments had quickly become sacred—just the two of them existing in a bubble of quiet while the rest of the world slept on, unaware of the miracle in her arms.
"Time to sleep, little one," she whispered, her lips brushing against the downy fuzz on her daughter's head.
The nursery smelled of baby powder and the lavender oil she'd dabbed on the light fixtures—a trick her mother had taught her to help soothe a newborn. Moonlight filtered through gauzy curtains, adding another layer of dreamlike quality to the room. Lulu had spent months preparing this space, selecting each element with careful consideration: the soft cream walls, the gentle curve of the crib rails, the plush carpet that muffled her footsteps.
She moved toward the crib with practiced care, her sock-covered feet silent on the carpet. The mobile above the crib—delicate felt animals suspended on invisible threads—stirred slightly as she approached.
Lulu lowered her daughter into the crib with the delicate precision of someone handling the most fragile treasure. The baby's rosebud lips parted slightly in sleep, a tiny sigh escaping. Her eyelashes—impossibly long and dark against her pale cheeks—fluttered but didn't open. Lulu sometimes found herself counting those eyelashes, marveling at their perfect formation, as if each one represented a wish or a prayer for her child's future.
"Look at you," Lulu murmured, her finger tracing the curve of her daughter's cheek. The skin beneath her fingertip was softer than anything she'd ever touched—softer than velvet, than silk, than the petals of the roses her husband had brought home when they'd first returned from the hospital. "How did I make something so perfect?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered, but felt deeply in the chambers of her heart. The enormity of what she'd created—this tiny human with the button nose and miniature fingernails and lungs that filled with air and expelled it in perfect rhythm—often left her breathless. Before, she'd known love in various forms: for her parents, her husband, her friends. But this love was different, cellular, as if it had been encoded into her DNA, waiting to be activated by this specific child.
She reached for the light cotton blanket folded at the foot of the crib, shaking it out with a gentle snap before letting it float down to cover her daughter's body. Not too tight, not too loose—she'd practiced this movement countless times, perfecting it. The pediatrician's warnings about SIDS echoed in her mind as they did each night, a background anxiety that never entirely disappeared.
The baby monitor sat on the dresser, its green light blinking steadily. Lulu checked it, making sure the volume was turned up. She picked it up, tested it, and heard the soft amplification of her own breathing come through the handheld receiver. Technology that allowed her to be simultaneously apart from and connected to her child—a modern miracle that nonetheless felt insufficient against her instinct never to leave her daughter's side.
"I'll hear you if you need me," she promised, setting the monitor back down. "Always."
She leaned over the crib once more, inhaling the scent that was uniquely her daughter's—a smell she couldn't describe but would recognize anywhere, among thousands. A primal recognition. Her body bent of its own accord, lips finding their way to her daughter's forehead. The kiss she pressed there was barely more than a breath, but it contained everything: protection, devotion, fierce love, terrifying vulnerability.
The forest animals on the wall—foxes and rabbits, bears and deer—seemed to stand sentinel, watching over the sleeping infant with painted eyes that Lulu had explicitly chosen for their gentleness. The entire room was a cocoon she had created, a barrier against the harshness of the outside world. Here, in this space, nothing bad could touch her child.
She backed away from the crib reluctantly, her eyes never leaving her daughter's sleeping form. Each step toward the door felt like moving against a current, her body resisting the separation. At the doorway, she paused, her hand on the light switch. The scene before her—her daughter asleep in the soft glow of the nightlight, chest rising and falling beneath the blanket—imprinted itself on her memory, another snapshot in the album of moments she was already collecting.
"Goodnight, my love," she whispered. "See you soon."
She left the door cracked open exactly three inches—enough to hear, enough to peek in, not enough to let in too much light from the hallway. Her fingers lingered on the doorframe for a moment longer, a final connection before she forced herself to turn away.
The hallway felt colder somehow, less enchanted. She carried the baby monitor with her, its plastic warm from her grip. Her husband had gone to bed hours ago, exhausted from work. She understood his fatigue but missed the early days when they'd both been home, taking turns with the baby, discovering their new reality together.
Their bedroom was dark except for the digital clock on the nightstand, its red numbers cutting through the darkness—11:43 p.m. Her husband's form was a mountain beneath the covers, his breathing deep and steady. He didn't stir as she placed the baby monitor on her nightstand, its green light adding another pinprick of illumination to the darkness.
Lulu slipped out of her robe and hung it on the hook behind the door. The sheets were cool as she slid beneath them, her body immediately recognizing the familiar contours of their mattress. Her husband murmured something unintelligible in his sleep, his arm reaching for her automatically. She curled into him, fitting herself against the warm landscape of his body.
"She's asleep," she whispered, though he couldn't hear her. Saying it aloud made it more real somehow, a small victory in the continuous marathon of new parenthood.
Through the monitor, she could hear the faint sounds of her daughter's breathing, a rhythmic counterpoint to her husband's deeper respiration. The dual soundtrack lulled her, her eyelids growing heavy. Her body was tired—bone-deep exhausted in the way that only new mothers understand—but her mind was still half in the nursery, hovering protectively over the crib.
As sleep began to claim her, Lulu's last conscious thought was of gratitude—for the perfect child sleeping down the hall, for the husband breathing beside her, for the home that held them all safely within its walls. Everything that mattered in her world was here, protected, secure.
Prologue
The smell reached Lulu first—acrid, wrong, a chemical intrusion that dragged her from the depths of sleep. Her eyes snapped open to darkness that seemed different somehow, thicker. For three suspended seconds, her mind couldn't connect the pieces—the strange smell, the distant crackling sound, the unusual heat pressing against her skin. Then understanding hit her like a physical blow. Smoke. Fire. Her baby.
"Honey," she gasped, reaching blindly for her husband. Her hand connected with his shoulder, and she shook him hard. "Hal, wake up!"
Her throat tightened against the smoke that was already filtering into the room, curling under the door in gray tendrils that looked almost alive. The baby monitor on her nightstand emitted nothing but static, the green light still blinking placidly as though nothing was wrong. The disconnect between that steady light and the growing chaos around her sent a spike of terror through her chest.
"What?" Hal’s voice was thick with sleep, confused. "What's happening?"
"Fire," she managed, the word scraping against her throat. "I smell smoke. The house is on fire."
As if to confirm her words, the smoke detector in the hallway finally shrieked to life, its piercing wail slicing through the night. Hal bolted upright, instantly alert. The room around them was changing by the second, the darkness taking on a hazy quality as smoke continued to seep in, forming an ominous cloud near the ceiling.
"The baby," Lulu said, already scrambling out of bed, her feet tangling in the sheets. "We need to get the baby."
The floor felt unnaturally warm beneath her feet as she stumbled toward the door. The air in the room had become noticeably hotter, making each breath shallow and painful. Panic rose in her chest, a physical pressure that threatened to paralyze her. She fought against it, focusing only on the distance between herself and her daughter.
Hal reached the door first, wrapping his hand around the doorknob only to jerk it back with a hiss. "It's hot," he warned, grabbing a discarded T-shirt from the floor to protect his hand as he tried again. The knob turned, but the door wouldn't open, as if something was pressing against it from the other side.
"It's stuck," he said, his voice tight with strain. "Stand back."
Lulu retreated a step, clutching the baby monitor to her chest like a talisman. The static had grown louder, occasionally broken by sounds she couldn't identify—cracks and pops that might have been the fire or might have been interference. There was no sound of crying, no indication that her daughter had awakened, and she didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified by that silence.
Hal threw his shoulder against the door, once, twice. The wood groaned but held. The smoke was thickening around them, making it difficult to see across the room now. Lulu pulled the neck of her nightgown over her mouth and nose, trying to filter the air she breathed. Her eyes stung, tears running freely down her cheeks.
"Again," she urged, her voice breaking. "Please, Harold."
He backed up a few steps and charged the door with his full weight. This time, something splintered, and the door gave way with a sudden surrender that sent him stumbling into the hallway. What Lulu saw beyond him turned her blood to ice.
The hallway was transformed, unrecognizable. Flames licked up the walls, consuming the family photos that had hung there just hours earlier. The carpet had become a river of fire, tongues of yellow and orange reaching toward their bedroom door as if they'd been waiting for it to open. The heat was immediate and shocking, a wall of scorching air that forced her back.
And there, on the other side of that inferno, was the nursery door. Unreachable. A barrier of flames separated Lulu from her child, growing higher and more impenetrable with each passing second.
"My baby!" she screamed, the words tearing from her throat raw and primal. The smoke swallowed the sound, but she screamed again anyway, as if volume alone could carry her across the flames.
Without conscious thought, Lulu lunged forward, toward the fire, toward her baby. The instinct was beyond reason—a physical imperative that overrode all logic and self-preservation. Her body knew only that her child was on the other side of those flames, and nothing else mattered.
She made it two steps before Hal's arms caught her, locking around her waist and pulling her back into their bedroom. She fought him immediately, her body twisting and bucking against his restraint. Her nails dug into his forearms, drawing blood that neither of them noticed.
"Let me go!" she shrieked. "My baby! Our baby is in there!"
"We can't get through," he shouted, his voice breaking. "Lulu, we can't get through! We'll die!"
"I don't care!" The words erupted from some primal place inside her, absolute truth. In that moment, she didn't care. Death was preferable to standing helplessly while flames devoured her child. "Let me go to her!"
The fire had now spread to their bedroom doorframe, igniting the wood with hungry crackling. The heat was unbearable, pressing against her exposed skin like a physical weight. Breathing was becoming difficult; each inhalation seared her lungs.
Hal's grip didn't loosen. Instead, he began dragging her backward, toward their bedroom window. She fought harder, her feet scrabbling for purchase on the floor, her body twisting with desperate strength she hadn't known she possessed.
"No! No! She needs me! She's alone! She's scared!" Each word was punctuated by a sob that tore at her raw throat. The static on the baby monitor had changed quality, becoming interspersed with a roaring sound that might have been the fire reaching the nursery. "Please, Hal. Please."
She couldn't see his face clearly through the smoke and tears, but she felt the shudder that ran through his body, the tremor in the arms that restrained her. He was crying too, his breath coming in harsh gasps against her hair.
"We can't reach her that way," he said, his voice strangled. "The firefighters—they'll come in from outside. They'll get to her. We have to get out so they can save her."
Some part of Lulu—some distant, rational corner of her mind—registered the logic in his words. But that part was drowned out by the roaring maternal instinct that demanded she reach her child, protect her baby regardless of the cost.
"She's all alone," Lulu repeated, the words dissolving into a keening wail that didn't sound human even to her own ears.
The window behind them shattered—whether from the heat or from Hal's hand, she couldn't tell. Fresh air rushed in, creating a sudden draft that caused the flames at their doorway to surge higher for one terrifying moment before retreating slightly. The smoke began to be pulled out of the broken window, offering momentary relief that did nothing to ease the agony in Lulu's chest.
Hal's grip shifted, becoming more secure as he positioned them near the window. Outside, Lulu could hear distant sirens, their wail a faint echo of her own internal screaming. Help was coming, but not fast enough.
Never fast enough.
"They'll save her," Hal repeated, the words sounding hollow even as he said them. His arms were like iron around her waist, restraining her even as his body shielded her from the worst of the heat. "They'll get her out. We have to let them do their job."
Lulu's struggles weakened, not from acceptance but from the smoke inhalation that was making her dizzy, her limbs heavy. The contradiction tore at her—to save her child, she had to abandon her child. To reach her daughter, she had to turn away from her daughter. Every cell in her body rejected this impossible choice.
"I can't leave her," she whispered, the fight momentarily leaving her body as a wave of dizziness washed over her. "I promised I'd always hear her if she needed me."
The baby monitor in her hand emitted one final burst of static before going silent, its small screen flickering and dying as the batteries gave out or the base station in the nursery succumbed to the fire. The loss of even that tenuous connection felt like another small death.
The smoke parted briefly, giving Lulu one last, clear view of the hallway and the nursery door beyond—still standing but now outlined in flickering orange light that seeped through the edges. A daughter on one side, a mother on the other, and between them, an impossible distance made of fire and destruction.
Hal pulled her toward the window as the ceiling near their door began to crack, raining burning debris onto the floor. The choice was being made for her, second by second, as the path to her child became not just dangerous but impossible.
"Please," Lulu whispered, no longer sure who she was begging—Hal, the fire, God, the universe. "Please."
But the fire answered only with its hungry roar, consuming everything in its path with indifferent destruction, creating an impassable barrier between a mother and the child she would have died to protect.
