The Weight in the Water

Seeing my daughter behind bars did something to me I still can't fully describe. I dropped to the grass and grabbed the cage door, but a heavy padlock held it shut. Winnie was sobbing now, pressing her face to the mesh.

"Hold on, I'm getting you out," I told her, and spotted a pair of bolt cutters abandoned near the shed. I ran, grabbed them, ran back, and threw my whole weight into the handles until the lock sheared with a crack that felt like it echoed off every fence on the street.

I pulled her into my arms. She wrapped herself around my neck so tight I could barely breathe, and Mrs. Dunmore stood at the fence line with both hands over her mouth, crying without a sound.

"I've got you. We're leaving right now," I said into her hair, already turning toward the side gate.

That's when Winnie went rigid.

Her grip on my collar tightened until it hurt. Slowly, she turned her head toward the pool, and I felt her whole body shrink against me.

"Daddy," she whispered, in a voice that had gone somewhere very far away. "Please don't look."

I looked anyway.

Beneath the algae-clouded surface, three heavy black bags sat motionless in the murk. A fourth, weighted down at the shallow end, had torn slightly against the tile — and through the tear, pale and still, floated a human hand.