Chapter 1

The moment my father suddenly had a heart attack and stopped breathing, I didn't call 911.

I'd just been laid off from a major tech company, and I desperately needed his eight-thousand-a-month pension to keep me going.

So I gritted my teeth, bought an oversized freezer, and stuffed his body inside.

For three whole years, that pension got me through the hard times, and I found a new job.

Then, the day before Thanksgiving this year, I was eating takeout in the living room when my phone suddenly rang.

I pressed the answer button, and my dad's laughter came through from the other end:

"My dear daughter, tomorrow's Thanksgiving. You've been working so hard, all alone in another city."

"I signed up for a tour group, and it happens to be coming through your area tomorrow. Let Dad take you out to eat!"

I looked back at the freezer humming behind me.

The chopsticks dropped from my hand, and all the blood in my body froze.

My mind went blank, and I fumbled and ended the call outright.

That voice just now—it had to be my father…

I scrambled and crawled toward the freezer.

With trembling hands, I lifted the lid.

My dad was still lying inside.

I slumped onto the floor.

A hallucination.

It had to be a hallucination, from all the overtime lately wearing me down.

Or some scammer pulling a nasty prank.

I forced myself up off the ground.

The phone screen lit up again.

The same unknown number as before.

I completely fell apart, snatched up the phone, and jammed the hang-up button over and over.

I don't know how many times I hung up before a text message popped up.

"My dear daughter, what's wrong? Why won't you answer Daddy's calls?"

Staring at that line of text on the screen.

A wave of nameless fury shot straight to the top of my skull.

I picked up the phone and typed back through gritted teeth.

"Who the hell are you? Why are you impersonating my dad?"

"If you dare send me another message to harass me, I'll call the police and have you arrested right now!"

After I sent it, I turned around and dropped the number straight into my block list.

Once all that was done, I rushed into the bathroom.

I kept repeating it silently to myself.

Toby Dickerson is dead.

Toby Dickerson is really dead.

Three years ago, I watched with my own eyes as he took his last breath.

After my shower, I collapsed onto the bed, exhausted, and quickly fell into a heavy sleep.

I had a nightmare.

I went back to that suffocating night three years ago.

My mother died early, and my father raised me all on his own.

The moment I graduated college and got a job, he couldn't wait to move in with me.

Other people's fathers come to take care of their daughters.

My father came to bleed me dry.

He got an eight-thousand-a-month pension, but he wouldn't part with a single cent of it.

Rent, utilities, groceries, cooking—all of it came out of my paycheck.

He blew all his money on those old ladies at the square-dancing group.

One day it was a gold necklace for one lady, the next it was taking another out to a restaurant.

Out there he played the big shot, but back home he made me reimburse him for so much as a bottle of soy sauce.

The breaking point came the night I was laid off.

I came home soaked in the pouring rain.

I pushed open the door, and my father met me with a torrent of abuse.

"You brat, why are you home so late?"

"Are you trying to starve me to death?! Get in there and cook, now!"

Years of bottled-up resentment erupted all at once.

"I got fired!"

"I'm broke! You get eight thousand a month—can't you buy yourself something to eat?"

Toby froze for a moment, then flew into a rage.

He grabbed the teacup off the table and hurled it at me.

"I raised you all these years—what's wrong with eating a few meals on your dime?"

"You useless piece of trash, you can't even hold on to a job!"

We had a fight more vicious than any before.

As we screamed at each other, Toby suddenly clutched his chest, his face going deathly pale, and crumpled to the floor.

"Medicine… get me my medicine…"

He reached his hand out to me.

The pill bottle was sitting right there on the TV cabinet.

All I had to do was walk over and hand it to him, and he'd live.

But I didn't move.

I watched coldly as he struggled on the floor.

Watched as the life drained completely out of him.

In that moment, I felt only one thing.

Relief.