Chapter 1

The waves slowly crawled up the beach, barely touching the toes of the four-year-old blonde girl in a yellow bathing suit. The girl shrieked with delight as the water tickled her feet. She giggled, splashing around in the shallow water.

A couple of feet away sat her mother and auntie, both in their early twenties. Both watched her with smiles on their faces. Her mother was one of the most beautiful woman the girl had ever seen with long dark hair that she let her play with. The girl loved making her mother laugh because the sound was as pretty as bells. Daddy always said that one day she’d laugh like that, so, whenever she was alone, she liked to practice.

When Auntie laugh, she didn’t hear the sound of bells like when her mommy did. Instead, she heard something colder, something she didn’t like. She loved her Auntie, but sometimes, she was scared, especially when the little girl would mention her mother. Sometimes she thought Auntie didn’t like Mommy. When she asked though, her auntie always told her she loved Mommy.

The little girl ran to where her mother stood after hearing her call. In her mother’s hands was a big yellow towel with pretty flowers on it. While her mommy rubbed her down, trying to dry her off, the girl looked at her stomach. She remembered the other night when Mommy and Daddy set her down and told her they might be having another baby and how would she feel about it?

“Did you tell Auntie about the baby?” she blurted, wanting to know.

“Baby?” Auntie repeated.

“Uh, now, sweetie, you know we’re not sure about that just yet,” her mother said, her neck growing a pinkish color.

“But I might be a big sister!”

“A big sister,” Auntie echoed. “Isn’t that nice. When did these developments come in, Gwen?”

Mommy shrugged, wrapping the towel tightly around the girl. “You know Keith and I’ve been planning on having another baby since Meredith was born. We think we’re finally ready to have another one.”

“Finally ready? Gwen, you weren’t ready to have Meredith,” Auntie retorted.

Mommy gave Auntie a look. “Not now, Kim. Not here. We’ll talk about this later.”

“No, let’s talk about this now,” Auntie demanded, her ice cold blue eyes blazing. The little girl, Meredith, moved closer to her mother. She hated it when Auntie was like this, so cold and mean, so ruthless. “Have you thought about Meredith? About what it might be like for her to have siblings now? She’s four, Gwen, she’s quite used to being an only child.”

“Of course we’ve considered her feelings!” Mommy cried. Gazing down at Meredith, she said, “Honey, why don’t you run inside? Daddy’ll be waiting. Tell him we’ll be in soon.”

Meredith nodded, glancing back between the two. Auntie didn’t look very happy about the news of the new baby. Why not? It was great news! Now she would have a little brother or sister she could play with! What fun!

When she got into the house, just like Mommy had promised, Daddy was there. He swept her up like she weighed just a feather and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. After he twirled her around in the air, earning shrieks and giggles, he asked her how the beach was and where was Mommy?

“The beach was so fun, Daddy! Mommy and Auntie will be in soon. Daddy, why doesn’t Auntie like the new baby?” Meredith asked.
“What? Now why do you say that?” Daddy asked, carrying her into her room.

“Well, I asked Mommy if she told Auntie about the baby, and Auntie got so mad. They’re fighting right now. I don’t like it when they fight Daddy. It scares me,” she said as her father helped her change into her pajamas.

“I don’t either, baby. But, what you’ve got to understand about Auntie is that she likes things her own way. She doesn’t like the thought of Mommy having another baby because that means all the attention will be on Mommy and she doesn’t like that.” Daddy explained.

“That’s silly,” Meredith said, yawning as she did.

“I think someone’s tired,” her daddy grinned.

“Just a little,” she sighed. “Will you sing me a song?”

“As long as you lay down in bed.”

“As long as you carry me.”

Her daddy laughed. If there was any other sound in the world she liked more than her mother’s laugh, it was daddy’s. It was always loud and his eyes sparkled all the time and made her feel good.

In one easy motion, he picked her up and brought her to her bed. He tucked her on in and sang her a song his old band sang.

She was asleep after the first verse.

After she was asleep, Keith stayed and just watched his little angel sleeping. Hard to image that only four years ago in the middle of the water wall Gwen had given birth to her. It had been a wonderful four years of marriage and child rearing. He wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, not even all the riches he could dream of because Gwen and Meredith were the only riches in the world. And the new baby, he added silently, getting up from his post in his daughters room in the beach house.

He turned to leave when the sound of something scraping caught his attention. He stopped in the middle of the room and looked around, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Slowly, he moved towards the window. When he did, the scraping noise stopped. Puzzled, Keith turned around and started for the other side of the room. After flicking off the light, allowing Meredith’s nightlight to glow to life, he stayed in the room, making sure to be out of the glow of the nightlight and that the door was open an inch or so.

Several minutes went by before the scraping noise started up again. It was definite that it was coming from the window. After a bit, the window was lifted up from the other side, and a dark figure slipped, very ineloquently, into the room, muttering curses as they went. They stopped to collect themselves. Keith stared at him, taking in all the details he would need to tell the police. It was a man, about 6’4, maybe two hundred pounds. His face Keith was unclear on, for he was clad all in black along with a black ski mask.

Anger welled inside Keith, but he made no move towards the other man, waiting to see what would happen. The intruder turned towards Meredith’s bed. Muttering something under his breath, he headed for her. Keith picked up the big beach towel Meredith had been wearing. It was still damp, but that was alright. Damper was better. It made it heavier.

Moving quietly, stealthily behind the other man, he quickly wrapped the towel around his head from behind.

“Gwen!” He shouted. “Gwen! Call the police!”

The other man struggled under his grip, but Keith kept a firm hold on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his daughter stir. Not wanting her to see this, he steered the man cloaked in black out of the room.

“Gwen!” he shouted again.

Under his grip, the man continued to struggle, throwing punches left and right. He tried to kick behind him once or twice, but to no avail.

“Oh my god!” Someone gasped behind him.

“Hurry!” Keith shouted. “Call the police!”

Keith cursed as the other man began to slip under his grip. Somehow, he heard the sound of someone punching in numbers on a phone. That thought was comforting in a small way. Right now he needed to figure out how to keep this guy from running.

He pushed the intruder to where the couch was set up, pushing him down on his face. Keith sat on the man’s back, trying to keep him still. Suddenly, the other man overpowered him and pushed him back against the coffee table.

Jumping to his feet, the man in black tore off the towel. His ski mask came off as he did, showing a bald head. Keith lifted his leg, hoping to trip the man. Screams came from somewhere in the house, but Keith couldn’t bring his attention to them, concentrating on what was in front of him.

The other man only stumbled over his foot, twirling around, facing Keith. Keith’s leg lifted up and he kicked the other man in the stomach. The bald man grabbed his ankle and began twisting it. Keith cried out in pain.

The sound of glass shattering brought him out of his pain. The other man let go of his ankle, falling to his knees. Gwen stood behind him, her hands poised in midair, spread apart as though they’d been holding something. When Keith’s eyes lowered, he saw that the lamp that had been sitting on the in table was now scattered in pieces around the intruder. Keith gave the man one final kick before getting to his feet.

“Mommy?” Meredith’s voice, filled with sleep asked.

Gwen whipped around to face the young girl. She quickly rushed to her side, whispering comforting words. Suggesting Meredith go back to bed, Gwen carried her, not into the room Meredith had come from, but rather her and Keith’s room.

After Keith managed to catch his breath, he found rope and duck tape and quickly, but efficiently, tied up the unconscious man.

“What in the world!” Kim gasped, stepping into the beach house.

“You just missed all the excitement,” Keith stood up.

“What happened here?”

Keith went on to tell her. Gwen walked into the room, chewing on her thumbnail as he told the story. The sound of sirens went on in the air a little bit after Keith had finished the story. Repeating himself for the officers, explaining in detail what happened.

The man was taken into custody. He would later be identified as Craig Duke, fresh out of his sentence several years earlier, from his attempted rape to Gwen and assault to his lawyer. After hearing the name no one had mentioned in four years, Gwen swept up her baby from the bed, just wanting to hold her. That night, after the police left, they headed back for their home in Gloria, Galveston no longer feeling safe. But what they didn’t, couldn’t know, was of the several other attempts made in the following years of Meredith’s young life.