THE GIRL IN THE FIRE

A Novel

SARAH K STEPHENS

Copyright © 2024 by Sarah K. Stephens

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For my students

Every day you prove our future is in good hands

The Girl in the Fire

Sarah K. Stephens

Prologue

“I was supposed to get married today.”

This statement had no effect on Damien’s attacker. They took a step closer, the weapon balanced carefully in their grip. Its sharp edges gleamed.

Water whispered around the rocks in the river below. Damien could only take one, maybe two steps back before he’d tumble over the cliff edge. He didn’t have to look to know the drop-off was at least fifty feet.

Enough to kill someone.

Enough to kill Damien. He realized the knife could just be insurance to push him over the edge, a way to do the job but avoid more bloodshed. There’d been so much of that already.

“It didn’t have to end this way.” There was a catch in his opponent’s voice. They weren’t certain they wanted him dead.

Or maybe that was just his own wishful thinking.

He’d been wrong before. About so many things.

Damien took a half-step back. The ground crumbled into soft pellets that fell into the water and rocks below.

They lunged and the knife’s edge rushed past his skin, catching Damien’s wrist. A bite, like a bee sting, ran up his left arm. The blood came a second later, a small correction mark across his body. In his life before all this—only four days ago—he’d been a teacher, marking exams with his red pen.

Now he was so many things. A pursuer, an investigator. A danger. A victim.

A criminal.

All of them, he’d done for Grace. Because he loved her, and Grace was missing. She was in trouble. She needed him.

But was he willing to die to keep her secrets?

Damien brought his feet together, as close to the edge as he could go.

He needed to go forward or fall back. Either way would hurt him. Maybe—most definitely—kill him.

He took a deep breath.

The two of them locked eyes. A moment passed and some new thought gentled his attacker’s face.

Maybe, Damien hoped. Just maybe, there was another option.

He hadn’t even finished the thought when the knife sliced through him.

1

Damien

“We’re going to be late,” Damien called from the hallway. Grace stood in front of the mirror, pouting as she applied a deep burgundy shade of lipstick.

He came up behind his fiancée and wrapped his arms around Grace’s waist. She wore a silky black and white dress that clung to her tall frame and narrow hips. He wore a slim black suit, white shirt, and black tie. He’d asked ahead of time what she’d be wearing so he could match his outfit to hers. Grace often teased him for wanting to show off their coupledom that way. ‘Everyone there will know we’re together,’ she’d gently chided, but Damien didn’t care. He liked being a unit, facing the world together.

Tonight, Grace pulled her blonde hair into a sleek high ponytail, and Damien bent his head to kiss the nape of her neck. He moved the thin strand of pearls Grace wore so often, letting his lips touch her skin at the curve where her collarbones swept into her shoulder. On their third date, she’d told him how the pearls were the first real piece of jewelry she bought herself when she was making her way in New York.

She smelled amazing, and he told her so.

“Stop distracting me.” She caught his eye in the mirror and smiled. “Two minutes, I promise.”

Damien gave her another nuzzle, relishing the way his stubble brushed her delicate skin and reddened it for a moment, and backed away into their apartment.

He glanced out the window at the street below. The rain had stopped. The asphalt glistened under the streetlights, which had only come on now. Damien loved the way the daylight held out in the summer months. It was almost eight o’clock, and they were late for their rehearsal dinner party. Schedules were tight for their wedding party guests, and so it’d required them scheduling the dinner a few days in advance of the wedding, and separate to the actual rehearsal, which was set for the day before the ceremony.

“Your mother will be appalled that we aren’t there thirty minutes early.” Damien kept his eyes on the street, where traffic had slowed to a crawl. He wondered if there was an accident at the intersection up ahead. So often Broadway clogged with pedestrians and commuter traffic, even well after the workday was over.

“What was that?” Grace came out of the bathroom, fixing an earring. She bent to slip on her heels. “All ready, as promised.” She grabbed her purse from the kitchen counter.

“I was just talking about your mother, and how she expects everyone to arrive incredibly early because she does.” Damien grabbed their umbrella from the metal stand in the corner.

“Somehow I missed those genes.” Grace laughed. Her eye caught on something on the counter. “Did the mail come?”

“I got it on my way in from the gym. And don’t forget, we have the appointment for the wedding license tomorrow at 2pm.”

“Anything interesting?” Grace thumbed through the stack of envelopes and flyers.

He opened the door into their hallway. Mr. and Mrs. Treviano were shaking off their umbrella as they stepped into their apartment across from Damien and Grace’s. Damien gave a wave hello, which morphed into Mrs. T giving him a long explanation for why they needed to avoid Fifth Avenue because of the ongoing construction. By the time he was finished taking instructions on how to get to his own party, Grace was pulling the door closed and reaching for his hand.

“Sorry to steal him, Mrs. T, but we need to get going.” She offered their neighbors a warm smile and a wave of her own. “Can’t keep our guests waiting.”

“Do you remember what it felt like to be that young, Terry?” Mrs. Treviano asked her husband.

Damien walked down the carpeted hallway, holding his fiancée’s hand, and thinking that nothing in the world could make him feel better than he did in this moment.

Later, he’d remember catching a glimpse of the kitchen counter as Grace shut the door. On its edge sat the large manila envelope, addressed to Grace Dupree, with no return address. He’d brought it up from their mailbox earlier that day, thinking it was a credit card application or some other form of junk mail. Watching the door close, he’d noticed the envelope flap was ripped open.

Gaping on the counter like a wound.

But Damien wouldn’t think of the letter that way until after Grace went missing. Not until after the police invaded his life, and the wedding was canceled, and the threats began.

2

Before

LEANNE

She didn’t know why she always told Tasha she wanted to do their run at 5pm. Somewhere she’d convinced herself that 5pm was the end of the day, and therefore the coolest, but each time she and Tasha set out to do their five miles for cross-country training she found herself under the blazing sun, running through the background of the mini-industrial park a block away from the high school.

Tasha could have spoken up, but one of the reasons Leanne liked her so much was her friend’s ability to be impervious to pretty much anything. Nasty comments from girls at lunch about her spiked hair and chain necklaces? Didn’t matter to Tasha. A teacher ignoring her raised hand and calling on one of the boys in the class instead? No big deal. A best friend who insisted on taking her through hellish runs on the dry, baked pavement of September? Fine. Absolutely fine.

Being around Tasha reminded Leanne that life was tolerable.

“Let’s take the bike trail back.” Tasha’s face was pale against her dark hair, even though it was easily eighty-five degrees on the asphalt. They passed the metal columns of the grain supply store and the small house converted into a music store with rooms for music lessons upstairs. Tasha had worked there a few days a week before she decided to do cross-country with Leanne instead of orchestra in the Fall.

Leanne knew she wouldn’t even need to ask her best friend about joining with her on the team. They’d met over chicken patties and well-used copies of Ethan Frome in the cafeteria last spring, the only two students in a bustling room of at least a hundred other high-schoolers reading actual books, and had been fast friends ever since. Leanne told Tasha over lunch one day towards the end of that junior year how she was going to try out for the team, and that she thought the schedule would be intense and keep her away from home at trainings and meets more evenings and weekends. Tasha signed up the next day.

Leanne felt her face flushing from the heat and exertion. They were pacing at an eight-minute mile, which was a personal best for both of them on a longer training run.

The two teenagers turned right onto the rails to trails that cut through town, and the shade provided by the trees lining the trail was like a wave of water, instantly cooling.

“What did Mr. MacDougal want?” Tasha asked as they passed bunches of tiger lilies growing alongside the trail.

Leanne knew she’d have to explain everything to Tasha eventually. Leave it to her discerning friend to ask her when they wouldn’t have to sit face-to-face. It was always easier to talk to someone when you were side by side.

“He wants me to apply for early acceptance to Harvard.” A gnat flew into her mouth as she talked, and Leanne coughed.

Tasha turned to look at her. Neither of them broke their stride.

“That’s great news.” Tasha paused. “No, that’s really, really great news.” Leanne could hear the excitement growing in Tasha’s voice.

“He said he’ll write a letter of recommendation for me.”

They were approaching the last crossing before they arrived back at the parking lot behind the high school. The trail crossed Route 62, which was one of the busiest roads in town.

“I don’t know, though. I can’t really afford an Ivy League school.”

“But there are scholarships. And work-study.”

There was a car stopped at the crossing. In the heat, it was difficult to see its exact shape. The edges blurred in the waves of heat rising off the pavement.

“I don’t know,” Leanne repeated. She looked ahead again and saw the color of the car. Dark red. She was closer now and could see it was a red pickup truck.

“Leanne!” Her father’s voice cut a sharp line across the open space of the intersection.

Her parents were tracking her through her phone again.

Unconsciously, she snapped at the waistband of her running shorts where she slipped her phone when she was on a run. She wished she could just throw it away, into the gully of lilies by the trail. Or smash it with her foot until it made a satisfying crunch. But she’d tried that before, and the fallout had nearly killed her. So she followed the rules and kept it with her whenever she wasn’t at home.

Her father shouted her name again. The truck horn honked once. Twice.

Leanne and Tasha were nearly there, but Leanne couldn’t find her voice to reply. She tried to think through the options, why he was here, right now. She was close enough to see that the passenger seat was empty. Which meant that, whatever it was, it wasn’t serious enough to bring her mother out, too.

Had Mr. MacDougal called the house to talk about Leanne’s applications? He’d suggested it, but Leanne was persistent in saying she’d talk to them herself. She thought she’d put him off the idea of calling, but maybe Leanne had been wrong.

They were at the intersection now. No other cars had come through in the time her father had been waiting at the traffic light, but Leanne noticed a semi-truck moving in the distance. Another thirty seconds, and it would be right behind her father’s truck.

If she could just make up an excuse, she could have a little more time. She could walk home later, maybe when he’d already be asleep. He got up early. Very early these days.

Her mother slept late.

“I need to talk to you.” Her father’s tone was slightly kinder.

The two young women stood next to the truck. Her father looked sunburnt. He’d forgotten his sunglasses and was squinting in the sunshine.

“Hi, Dad,” Leanne said. “We’re almost done with our run.”

Leanne heard the rumble of the air brakes on the semi-truck. It was pulling up behind them. The light was red but would turn green soon.

“Hi, Mr. Crosby,” Tasha called out. “I’m Tasha. It’s nice to meet you, finally.”

Leanne’s dad looked between the two of them. Tasha held his gaze, Leanne noticed. Finally, her father replied, “Yes, of course. Tasha. It’s good to put a face to a name.”

“What are you doing out here?” Tasha asked. “We still have another mile to go.”

The pressure building in Leanne’s chest released slightly. Tasha wouldn’t let her go home yet, not if she could help it.

Her father looked in the rearview mirror. “I was just driving through.” Leanne noticed beads of sweat had begun to drip down her father’s forehead. One skimmed along his ear and clung to his jaw, before leaving a darkened splotch on his navy shirt.

“Leanne was going to show me some stretches after our run. I hope that’s okay. I really need the help.”

The light turned green.

“Well, I was going to give Lulu a ride home.” Leanne winced. She hated that nickname. It reminded her of everything that was wrong with her family.

The semi-truck driver behind them honked the horn, once. Politely.

“I appreciate you letting her stay a little longer with me.” Tasha smiled at him.

Two honks followed, angrier this time from the semi.

“Okay then, looks like I’ve gotta run.” Leanne’s dad gave them a strange sort of salute and drove on. The semi-truck moved ahead and blocked her view of her father’s truck. By the time the semi had passed, there was no sign of the red convertible.

Tasha and Leanne ran across. It was quiet again on the trail. The large brick hulk of the high school appeared as they crested a slight hill.

All that Leanne could hear was the blood pumping in her ears mixed with their footsteps, pounding the asphalt in unison.

Suddenly, Tasha stumbled on a pebble. Leanne reached out to catch her, and their two hands locked together for a moment. Tasha looked up intently, so calm, into Leanne’s eyes. “You have to get out of here.”

And Leanne knew she was right.

3

Damien

They were one of the last to arrive. They’d scheduled Norabon, the swankiest French fusion restaurant in their neighborhood, months ago. The dining room was all red velvets and deep purples. Grace hated pretentious all-white kitchens—she said it felt like eating in a hospital cafeteria—and Damien preferred moody lighting and dark accents.

Tonight, for their rehearsal dinner, it would be a larger group than Damien was used to. They were expecting Grace’s mother, Chloe, Damien’s Aunt Sandra and Uncle Mike, Damien’s brother, Tim, and four other bridesmaids and groomsmen. Damien had several friends from childhood and college, and Grace was closest with two women from the yoga studio she attended and two others from the apartment building where she used to live. Damien was hoping he’d remember the names for all the bridesmaids. Grace had made him flash cards at one point, but he’d protested and stuffed them in his sock drawer.

Grace’s mother met them at the door, throwing her cigarette into the gutter and waving away the smoke as Damien and Grace stepped out of the Uber. Damien caught the valet’s sideways glance at Chloe. She stood next to a sign demanding ‘No Smoking’ in bright gold letters.

“Hello darling,” Chloe cooed at her daughter. Damien reached down and squeezed Grace’s hand. He wanted to remind her what they told each other at home, almost every day since their engagement last Fall: Getting married was easy. Staying sane around their families would be the hard part.

Grace squeezed his hand back, and then ducked down to offer Chloe an obligatory kiss on the cheek, which Chloe expected from her daughter, but never reciprocated. Grace was easily six inches taller than her mother. Chloe often joked that Grace must have been a changeling, because the two of them looked nothing alike. Grace was all sharp angles and honey hues, whereas her mother rimmed her dark eyes in liquid eyeliner (Grace had tried it once for Damien, but he thought it made her look too sad) and let her dark curls tumble over her petite shoulders. As usual, Chloe wore a black turtleneck that hugged her figure and slim, dark pants. Chloe stuck to her sartorial style like a uniform, rarely opting for any color brighter than a violet and a neckline lower than her collarbones. Her arms were always covered. When Damien asked Grace about it once, she’d demurred. “It’s her vanity,” she’d explained. “My mother thinks aging skin is rude to display in public.” Damien had given a silent thanks that his future mother-in-law’s vanity hadn’t transferred to his fiancée. Grace was beautiful in an effortless way, avoiding makeup except for work meetings and special occasions, and she preferred basic tees and jeans if she could get away with it.

“Everyone else is here. You’re late.” Chloe turned to Damien. “Hello, handsome.”

“Hi Mom,” Damien replied. Chloe bristled underneath his brief hug hello. She’d never told him he could call her ‘Mom,’ which was why he’d done it. A small part of him knew it was petty, but he didn’t like the way she talked to Grace sometimes, especially considering Grace took care of so many things for her mother.

Grace and Chloe headed inside the restaurant. Damien followed a few paces behind, buttoning his suit jacket as he stepped into the cool air of the dining room.

They were escorted to a separate room at the back of the restaurant. Damien heard his brother’s voice before he saw him, despite the rumble of customers enjoying swanky meals filling the place.

Grace’s cool hands touched his. “He’s drunk,” she whispered in Damien’s ear.

It was a quick code between the two of them. They’d divide and conquer tonight, just like they would for the rest of their lives.

Damien clapped his hands as he stood at the head of the table. His uncle’s gray head turned from the conversation he was having with his wife and looked up at Damien gently. His groomsmen stood at the side of the room, awkwardly trying to make conversation with Grace’s friends. In the center, Damien’s brother raised a nearly empty tumbler of what was more than likely whiskey. “The man of the hour!” Tim gave an unsteady bow.

Grace slipped over to the side and sat next to Uncle Mike. She’d say hello to her friends later. Right now, the priority was on taking back control of the evening.

Damien chided himself for not forcing them out the door earlier. They could have stopped this if they’d arrived before Tim. They both knew tonight was going to be difficult for him. Despite a lifestyle of organic juice bars, artisan coffee, and personal trainer-led workouts, Tim was still a party boy at heart and, when that heart was hurt or—even worse—insulted, he would become predictably unpredictable. And drunk.

Mike offered Grace a gentle touch on the shoulder and turned his attention back to his two nephews. Worry lines creased his forehead.

“We’re all gathered now.” Tim took a final sip of his drink. He snapped his fingers at the waiter who’d appeared in the doorway to the room. “Another Jack over here. Make it a double.” He turned his attention back to their dinner guests. “We are all gathered now to celebrate the happy couple! Everyone raise a glass!”

“It’s too early for toasts, Tim.” Damien tried to play it off with a soft laugh. “Let’s all order first. What looks good, everyone?”

But Tim wasn’t appeased. He continued, “Oh, just one toast, to get us started!” Damien looked at his brother, and the crooked smile he’d known since they were children appeared menacing as they stared each other down across the long table. Tim was still angry.

No, Damien corrected himself. Tim was furious.

He hadn’t forgiven Damien or Grace, even though he promised them both he would.

“A toast, to Damien and Grace. To the victor go the spoils, dear brother. She’s all yours.” Tim took a bow.

Everyone around them stared as though they’d just witnessed a car crash.

A white-hot anger rose up Damien’s throat, but he swallowed it down when he looked at Grace’s face. If looks could kill, Tim would be dead.

Chloe let out a chuckle. “This is going to be a fabulous wedding!”

4

Damien

“I’m not some piece of property.” Grace shoved her chair back and stood up. She pointed her finger at Tim’s face. He seemed more amused than frightened by Grace’s response. Damien noticed the slightest tremble in Grace’s shoulders when she spoke, but she kept her voice steady as she unleashed her anger on her future brother-in-law.

“I never said you were property,” Tim countered. “Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge, right? To the happy couple!” He raised his glass again, appearing only somewhat surprised when he realized there was nothing left to sip in it.

Damien glanced around. Their guests tentatively echoed Tim’s gesture and glasses around the room lifted. A soft murmur rose of their well-wishes, but it lacked enthusiasm.

Grace wasn’t finished.

“We’d only been on three dates,” she explained, looking around the room. Damien tried to move from the head of the table towards his fiancée. He wanted to be closer to her. Something about the way she held her shoulders seemed dangerous. There’d been a few times in the past where confrontations between Grace and other people could have escalated, but Damien had always been there to calm her. His mother-in-law stood in his way, watching the events unfold with rapt attention. He’d have to shove her to the side to get next to Grace.

He’d do it if he had to.

Grace continued, raising three fingers on her right hand. “Three. We weren’t exclusive.” She turned back to Tim. “You were seeing other women.”

“Ah, well,” Tim cleared his throat, “that’s not really…” He trailed off.

Grace settled her shoulders, took a deep breath, and scanned the room again. Damien straightened his own posture and stood still, relief rushing in.

Grace’s mother must have recognized the same signals in her daughter, because she sat down and released a sigh of what Damien would describe as disappointment.

“And today is my wedding rehearsal dinner. Our wedding rehearsal dinner.” Grace cast her eyes over to Damien and offered him a gentle smile. “We should be celebrating, not fighting. Don’t you agree, Tim?”

Tim shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to have become bored of the mess he’d made and was peering towards the doorway, likely looking for a waiter and a fresh drink.

“Nobody starts any new relationship without a past. I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t have a life before I met Damien, and he’s not going to pretend that either. What we’re focusing on tonight…” Grace paused.

Damien had been watching her hands as she spoke. She’d picked up a flute of champagne someone had placed in front of her when they first arrived. She was so graceful, even under pressure. But now he looked up to see Grace was forcing back tears.

He’d only seen Grace cry once, after they’d watched the film Thelma and Louise. She couldn’t get over the fact that the two women chose to die in the end.

“What we’re focusing on tonight is our future. Our future life together.” Grace raised her glass and looked at Damien from across the room. “To us.”

She raised her glass, and cheers erupted around them. Glasses were raised again, in earnest this time. A wolf-whistle came from the direction of one of Damien’s college friends.

Grace moved around her mother and caught Damien’s hand in hers. Her palms felt clammy, but her cheek was cool as he leaned down to kiss her.

Waiters had begun to bring in appetizers on trays. The savory smell of garlic and basil floated over the air.

Tim left the room, Damien assumed to go to the bar for a quicker refill.

It seemed the crisis had passed.

The evening moved along as he and Grace had hoped. His aunt and uncle chatted amiably with their friends. Damien caught one of Grace’s bridesmaids—Alice, he thought; he should have read those flash cards—flirting heavily with his childhood friend, Troy.

Grace tended to her mother as much as Chloe expected her to.

At one point during dinner he looked across the table at Grace and was almost overwhelmed with happiness.

Afterwards, he’d wonder what Grace had been thinking throughout the night.

If she’d been planning her escape even as she spoke about their future. If she’d had to trick herself into believing, if only for that moment, that their wedding would actually happen.

5

Damien

Damien felt like he’d been run over by a truck. Or like he’d been in a bar fight, though granted he’d never even come close to that in his life. Not yet.

His joints cracked as he rolled over. His brain pulsed inside his skull at the soft murmur of street noise from the window in their bedroom. The fan they turned on at night for white noise blared like a siren, and Damien would have shut it off if he’d had the will to move his arms or legs.

Had he really drunk that much last night? There was the glass of champagne for the first toast, and then there’d been the later exclamations of joy from his friends and Grace’s where everyone raised a glass. Damien didn’t have a chance to enjoy the food while he socialized with their guests, so much of the champagne, and later the whiskey he’d imbibed had been on an empty stomach. He tried to remember arriving home last night. Getting ready for bed. But his mind turned up a blank for anything after the last toast of the evening, which he’d made by hoisting the finger of Lagavulin Grace put into his hand and toasting his bride-to-be.

Damien blinked at the time on the clock by Grace’s side of the bed. It blazed out in tall green numbers: 7.30am. Too early for either of them to be up on a day off. Damien was off for the summer from teaching eighth grade, and Grace had requested leave from work for the week before the wedding, knowing their days would be packed with planning and preparations. Damien stretched his arm across the bed, wincing as the muscles in his shoulder extended.

The sheets were cool. He lifted his head and called Grace’s name but heard only the same ambient sounds of their apartment in return.

Thinking perhaps Grace had seen the sorry state of him and gone for emergency coffees and bagels, Damien eased his feet onto the floor and sat up. The room tipped as he did so, and he felt he might be sick. Turning to the side table, he saw a glass of water and a blister packet of ibuprofen by his phone and charger. A warmth spread through his chest.

Damien reached for the glass of water, but nausea caught him unawares and he promptly threw up in the wastebasket Grace had thoughtfully set next to his side of the bed. Damien lay down again, his head buzzing as he tried to remember more from the night before, and the returning coolness of the sheets were a relief on his hot skin.

Fear prodded the back of Damien’s mind as he closed his eyes and willed the room to stop spinning. Fear that he would be ill for the wedding. Fear that Grace would be angry at him for not being able to help today.

Fear… of something else. A dark lurking sensation. He couldn’t put a name to it before he drifted into a light sleep.

When he woke again, someone was holding his hand and a cool cloth had been placed on his forehead. It felt wondrous.

The pressure from the figure seated at the foot of the bed was comforting, and Damien leaned into them.

“How long have I been asleep?” He expected Grace’s soft lilt in response and squeezed the hand clasping his own.

But something was wrong. The hand he felt was bony, the skin loose. Rings pushed into his skin from each finger.

Grace only wore her engagement ring. She wasn’t a woman who enjoyed wearing much jewelry and assuming she’d wear a ring with a stone in it had been one of their first disagreements.

“It’s too showy,” she’d told Damien when he pointed out the ring in the window of Tiffany’s. It was one he’d had his eye on since he spotted it on his morning coffee run weeks before. Emerald cut with small baguettes on each side. A platinum band. It matched Grace’s classic style perfectly.

“That’s the point,” he’d told her. “For the world to see how much I love you.”

Grace had walked away from him, leaving Damien in front of the store window staring at her long, straight back. He followed her silently with his eyes as she wound her way through the crowd until her figure blended into the background, into nothing. Later, she’d explained that their love wasn’t for show. It was for them. What the rest of the world thought didn’t matter.

They’d eventually come to a compromise. A slim gold band for Grace, with one to match it for their wedding day. Their day-to-day life would be quietly loving. But Damien had requested a wedding that was a celebration, for both them and their families. Grace had acquiesced when he’d explained how much his aunt and uncle had always looked forward to his wedding day.

Nothing in the newspaper or online, though. Grace insisted. Friends and family only.

And Damien hadn’t cared, because he was getting what he wanted. A joyful day, a celebration. And Grace’s promise to love him forever.

But this wasn’t Grace’s hand he was holding. The rings were jagged, full of gemstones and intricate settings. His fiancée’s hand was stronger, smoother.

Damien blinked and looked at the person at his bedside.

“Hello dear,” said Mrs. Treviano, their neighbor from across the hall. “Grace said you were ill. What do you need?”

“Grace?” Damien’s mouth was cottony and his dry lips cracked as he spoke. He breathed as deeply as he could.

“She had to leave, and she was so sorry she couldn’t sit with you,” Mrs. Treviano continued.

“Leave?” Damien managed another word. The corners of his mouth hurt when he licked them.

Mrs. Treviano brought a glass of water to his mouth. “There, there. Take a sip.” She dabbed a handkerchief at his mouth. “Grace said she’d call later, when she landed.”

Damien tried to sit up, but his neighbor gently pushed him back down. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “She’ll be fine, and back before you know it.”

They were getting married in three days. Where would Grace have gone without telling him?

As though reading his thoughts, Mrs. Treviano added, “It’s always so stressful when a parent is sick. But Grace said she’d be at her mother’s in Ohio within a few hours, and she’d be able to get everything sorted out before the wedding. Her mother might still be able to come if all goes well.”

Damien’s thoughts blared like a foghorn inside his head. Mother. In Ohio.

He grabbed his phone and dialed Chloe, Grace’s mother. Who lived in New York City.

Chloe picked up on the first ring, and without Damien saying a word, she asked the question Damien was trying to ignore himself.

“Is she gone?”

6

Leanne

“Is the chicken breast ready yet?” Leanne’s mother, Marian, poked at the white forms in the frying pan. Tuesday was Leanne’s night to make dinner, but Marian would still buzz around the kitchen keeping an eye on what her daughter was doing. Adding, mixing, shifting the ingredients.

It was the worst night of the week for Leanne, aside from every other night.

“I just need to season them,” she told her mother. Leanne opened the spice drawer and selected parsley, thyme, and oregano. She considered adding red pepper flakes—enough to hopefully make the chicken inedible—but she’d done that once before, and after watching her father’s frantic sips of water and her mother’s silent rage while they ate, she’d backed off and explained it away as an honest mistake. She wouldn’t be able to do that again.

The electronic keypad beeped as her father put in his code to unlock the front door. He’d installed it a few months ago, for ‘security reasons’, he’d said. It was just an added benefit that he’d get messages on his phone for each time someone entered the house. Leanne and her mother had their own codes, so he could track each of their comings and goings.

Using the keypad made Leanne’s skin crawl.

The front door opened with a soft whoosh, and then crashed loudly as the wind outside blew it shut. There was a thunderstorm growling into life outside. Leanne caught the shine of heat lightning in the distance through the kitchen window.

If the power went out again, she wouldn’t be able to finish dinner. Her father would make them sit together around the table by candlelight and talk about their days and play Monopoly. Everyone would conspire to let her mother win. On the surface, it would seem so wholesome and safe to anyone watching.

Leanne sent a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that the thunder would crash down, but the lightning would stay away from their home. She needed the power to stay on.

“Is dinner ready?” Her father came into the kitchen like his own storm cloud, all mussed hair and damp suit hanging off him in the humidity. He kissed Marian on the cheek and gave Leanne an assessing look.

She was in her running clothes still. Tasha and Leanne had met up again after school for a training run.

Tasha had an idea she’d wanted to discuss with Leanne, but as Leanne listened she recognized even the thought of it was making her tremble with a mixture of joy and trepidation. Leanne had no clue if they could pull it off. Or if she even wanted them to.

Leanne would have to start applying to colleges soon if she wanted a chance of getting into one of the Ivy Leagues. Or any other school, for that matter. She’d done very well on her SATs—she’d taken them at the high school on a Saturday when her parents thought she was training with Tasha in the weight room. The results were emailed to her, so no need to worry about intercepting scores in the mail before her parents saw them. And her grade point average was a 3.9. One B in freshman geometry, which Mr. MacDougal assured her was helpful because it demonstrated Leanne had grown over the last four years.

If Leanne followed Tasha’s plan, her days would be full of new things, new places and new people.

Maybe even a new name if she wanted one.

Leanne felt her father’s heavy hand on the back of her head. She winced as he rested it against her skull.

“How much longer? I’m hungry,” Gene said.

“Just a few minutes,” Leanne replied.

Her mother uncorked a bottle of wine and poured a generous glass for herself and Gene. It would be the first of three or four glasses for Marian that evening.

Leanne glanced down at the meat burning in the pan. The potatoes were baking in the oven, steaming hot in their little dresses of tin foil. She wanted to grab one with her bare hands and throw it at someone. There were four in the oven, one for each of them and an extra for Gene’s packed lunch tomorrow.

Enough to do some damage.

“Dinner’s ready,” her mother sang out. Marian took Gene’s hand from Leanne’s head and wrapped it in her own. She thought she saw her father flinch as Marian tightened her grip, guiding him towards the table and away from her daughter.

7

Damien

Chloe’s apartment was two blocks away from Grace and Damien’s, on the other side of Broadway. It was a studio, but Chloe had decorated it in a way that made it seem expansive and lush, with bright pillows strewn over the furniture and floor and large pots bursting with flowering plants in any spare space. Her kitchen was used primarily for storage, since Grace’s mother preferred to eat out and order in, and Damien sat at the counter now, staring at the cup of chamomile tea in his hand Chloe had forced upon him when he showed up at her door.

“You’re still ill,” she observed. Her hands fidgeted with the delicate gold chain around her neck. As usual, she wore almost all black. A cashmere crew-neck sweater and twill slacks.

“I’m fine,” Damien said, although he wasn’t. He was glad to be sitting down. His head ached despite the four ibuprofen he’d taken back at the apartment. Nausea still rankled his stomach. “Where’s Grace?”

He’d called her cell phone every few minutes since hanging up with Chloe. Mrs. Treviano protested when he got out of bed, threatening to get Mr. Treviano from their apartment to come and hold Damien down, but Damien insisted. Grace was missing, he’d told her, ignoring his neighbor’s confused expression as he left the apartment. He couldn’t believe it himself.

Chloe took a sip from her tea. Her nail polish was a nude pink, and her fingernails ringed the cup like small seashells. She was trying to hide it, but her hands were shaking.

Chloe didn’t answer him.

“You said on the phone she was gone. Why would she leave?” Speaking the words out loud brought a rush of panic through Damien’s chest. Grace wasn’t answering her phone. No one seemed to know where she was.

What if she had been in an accident? What if someone had hurt her?

They should start calling the hospitals. Isn’t that what they did in the movies when someone was missing? Call the hospitals looking for accident victims. People attacked on the street and treated in the Emergency Room.

Damien suggested this to Chloe. She finally spoke.

“Grace is fine. She hasn’t been in an accident.” Chloe stood up and moved to look out the window. It had started to rain outside.

Relief rushed to replace Damien’s panic. “So you’ve heard from her?” A slice of jealousy cut through his relief just then. Why would Grace call Chloe but not return any of his calls or texts?

“No, I haven’t. But I’m sure she’s okay.” Chloe turned to look at him. “I knew something like this would happen.”

Damien’s confusion mixed with a rising distrust. What was Chloe talking about?

“You knew Grace would run away?” He paused, considering. Despair caught in his throat. He thought about the wedding plans, the large celebration they were having. How he’d encouraged—would Grace describe it as forced?—his ideas for a large wedding party, a full weekend of events and food and family. But he’d only wanted to make this time of their life momentous. Had he ignored Grace’s need for something simpler?

“Was she unhappy?” He forced the words out, ashamed of himself suddenly. “Did she say something to you?”

Chloe shook her head. “No, no.” She came and sat next to Damien at the counter and took his hand in hers. Her fingers were cold despite holding her warm cup of tea just moments ago. “Grace loves you very much. She was happy.”

“Then I don’t understand,” Damien said.

“Did anything happen out of the ordinary yesterday?” Chloe gave him a searching look. “Anything at all.”

He pushed down his rising anger. He needed to stay calm, not put Chloe off. But there was no doubt she was avoiding his questions by trying to distract him with her own.

“You mean beyond my brother making a scene at the rehearsal dinner?”

“Yes, besides that,” Chloe responded coolly.

“No, nothing that comes to mind.” Besides him waking up with a hangover he couldn’t explain, Damien thought.

Chloe must have read his mind, because she said, “Except for you waking up seriously ill this morning.”

“I’m fine,” he repeated. He was sweating at his hairline. His stomach roiled. He wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Nothing at all?” Chloe prodded.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” Damien couldn’t control himself any longer. They were losing precious time.

Chloe gave him a look of compassion, but Damien also detected an undercurrent of pity.

“We need to go back to your apartment,” she told him.

“Okay,” was all he could manage. “But first, tell me what’s…”

Chloe interrupted him. “I will. After we get back to your apartment. I need to see things for myself.”

“See what?” Damien asked dumbly.

“The clues Grace left,” Chloe replied.

8

Damien

The walk back to his apartment took an eternity. Chloe wanted to take a taxi, but Damien foolishly insisted on walking the few blocks, even though he was still feeling nauseous and dizzy. He’d never been hungover like this before.

Damien passed the newsstand and glimpsed the headlines. War and fraud and sickness. A food cart selling hot nuts and pretzels wafted its scent across the air, mixed with that of the commuters pressed into each other as they crossed Broadway. Car horns honked angrily and a dog yelped at some unseen attraction.

Damien checked his phone. He dialed Grace again. Nothing.

Chloe looped her arm through his as they turned onto his block and made their way to the awning of his apartment building. He wasn’t sure if she was looking for support from him, or if she was trying to guide him through. Damien considered calling his aunt and uncle to see if Grace had been in touch with them, but he couldn’t bring himself to consider the possibility that she would avoid him and yet reach out to Damien’s family. He hadn’t called his brother either.

Grace’s mother and Damien nodded a hello at the doorman and stood silently in the elevator as it whisked them up to the fifth floor. They entered Damien and Grace’s apartment to another silence. The windows were closed, the ceiling fan was off. Mrs. Treviano had made the bed and let herself out.

Chloe hung her purse on a hook by the door and surveyed Damien and Grace’s life.

“All right, we’re here. Tell me what’s going on.” Damien’s voice cracked and he went to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. The cup he’d used earlier at his bedside was washed and upside down in the dish drainer. Mrs. Treviano was anything if not thorough.

“What’s this?” Chloe asked, ignoring his demand. She held up the mail from yesterday, which neither he nor Grace had sorted through yet.

But that wasn’t true, he realized, because the large manila envelope on top was ripped along its seal. Grace must have opened it at some point.

And then a vague memory from last night crept in, of him pulling the door behind him as they headed to their rehearsal dinner and of the torn envelope yawning open as their apartment door closed.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

Chloe examined the envelope, which Damien noticed now had no return address. “It’s postmarked from Youngstown, Ohio,” she said as though thinking out loud.

Chloe reached inside and slipped out a single sheet of paper with a neon Post-it affixed to the front. She looked at the paper for a maddening length of time, processing what it said and saying nothing to Damien.

Eventually, his patience wore out. Damien snatched at the paper, and although Chloe tried to stuff if back into the envelope and step away from him, he caught the edge and stepped around the kitchen island. Chloe didn’t protest this time.

It took several heartbeats for Damien to process what he was seeing. It was a photocopy of the front page of a newspaper, The Vindicator. The date in the top right corner was from ten years ago.

Next, Damien saw the photograph of Grace, but younger. Her face had the soft edges of a teenager, and her hair was darker. It looked like a school photo given the way she was posed and smiling.

Damien read the caption.

Leanne Crosby, 17, a senior at Canfield High School, died Sunday night in a fire at her family’s home.

It was only then that Damien comprehended the headline at the top of the page.

Teen Dies in House Fire

Damien read on.

Gene and Marian Crosby, parents of Leanne, say they are devastated by the events of last night. “We’ve lost everything. Our daughter. Our home.”

One further inset was included in the article, showing Gene and Marian. They were strangers to Damien. Gene was middle-aged, with a jaw carved of marble and a thick head of curly dark hair. Marian was sturdy but fierce-looking, with a heart-shaped face and her hair scraped back in a tousled ponytail at the nape of her neck.

Damien’s eyes met Chloe’s. She looked back defiantly.

“What’s going on?” he asked again.

Chloe started to say something but stopped herself. Damien noticed the Post-it from the front of the sheet in her hand. She hesitated for another moment, and then passed it to him.

“Grace is in trouble,” she said.

Damien read the note. It said, in shakily printed letters: Tag. You’re it.

9

Leanne

“Leanne, stay just for a moment. If you would.” Mr. MacDougal smiled at the rest of the class. It was very hot for the season—summer hung on with no hint of Fall—but he was still wearing sweater vests over his long-sleeve button-down shirts. He seemed to always be cold in his classroom. He was terribly thin, but fierce when he needed to be.

Nobody messed around in Mr. MacDougal’s advanced placement history class. You were there only because you wanted to be. And Leanne very much wanted to be there.

Leanne fussed with her bookbag, packing in her notebooks and slipping her phone into the side pocket. She took a sip from her water bottle, realizing how thirsty she was and that she hadn’t drunk anything all day, and put it back inside her bag. She wished she’d worn something nicer than a ratty Aeropostale T-shirt from last year and her jeans worn through in the knees. She would have put on something nicer if she’d known Mr. MacDougal wanted to meet with her.

“I haven’t heard back from you about your applications for next year,” he said without preamble. He’d taken a seat behind his desk, which was placed at the back of the classroom. He gestured to the hard plastic chair pulled up on the side.

Leanne picked at a piece of purple nail polish and felt it chip off. It didn’t make a sound as it fell to the floor, but she wished it had.

Leanne sat down in the chair and crossed her legs, hoping to hide the holes.

“I’m not sure I can get in. My parents don’t have any savings for college, and my father’s business is having some…” She searched for the right word, remembering her father’s visit to her room last night, telling her that he hoped she wasn’t airing any of their family’s private information out in public. “Some difficulties.”

Mr. MacDougal nodded. He flipped through papers on his desk. For a moment, Leanne thought their meeting might be finished and he was signaling for her to go.

She stood up, but her teacher caught Leanne with his gaze. “Where are you going?”

“I, well, I thought…” she stammered.

“Do you want to go to Harvard?” The words themselves seemed condescending, but his tone was genuine. His look now searched her face. “I don’t want to pressure my students into applying to schools they aren’t interested in attending.”

“It’s not that,” Leanne replied. “I’d love to go there, or any school, really. I’d love to study history, or political science, or psychology. I love learning.”

Mr. MacDougal cleared his throat. “That’s so rare, you know.”

A blush crept up Leanne’s cheeks. She wasn’t used to genuine compliments.

“But my parents need me at home.” As Leanne spoke, Mr. MacDougal’s expression flexed in concern. “Or, I mean—they want me at home. And there’s no way I could afford it. I just don’t want to get my hopes up if it’ll all turn into one big disappointment.”

“I see.” He straightened the papers on his desk. There was a burst of laughter from the hallway. Leanne was very aware their mutual free period would be ending soon, and students for the next class would be streaming in any moment.

“Do you think I have a chance?” Leanne couldn’t help herself from asking the question.

Mr. MacDougal nodded. “I wouldn’t suggest it to any student if I didn’t think so.”

Leanne’s face lit up. The moment hung in the air, glittering.

Then Mr. MacDougal moved on to what Leanne would recognize later as the main reason for their meeting. “I did call your parents, you know.”

Something caught at the corner of Leanne’s mouth, a twitch. Her shoulders hunched automatically.

“No,” she said slowly. “They hadn’t mentioned anything.”

He looked quizzical. “Really? We had such a lovely conversation.”

“Who did you speak to? My mother or my father?”

“Your mother answered, and then both of them got on the line to listen,” he explained. It must have been when Leanne was out running with Tasha. Otherwise, she’d been home with them in the evenings, playing those excruciating board games or reading books holed away in her room with the door locked.

“I’ve been busy. They must have forgotten to mention it to me.”

“I understand. I’m sorry I called them, despite your reservations. It’s just that I rarely see students with such potential, and I wanted to speak to them about my impressions of you as a student.”

It was awful, having so many nice things said about her by a man she admired but not being able to process them because her brain needed to focus on what it meant for her when she got home.

Her scalp was hot. Her brain was on fire.

“They indicated to me that they were surprised by this option, but very excited about the potential for you to study at Harvard.”

“Oh,” was all she could manage at first. A heavy silence fell for a few seconds. “I hadn’t spoken to them about it yet,” she added.

The bell above rang for the change of classes. Leanne had to get to her physics classroom across the school. Mr. MacDougal had another group of students en route, for his Advanced World Religions class, Leanne thought she remembered.

She wanted to stay in this small cocoon of their conversation, in this classroom, forever.

Mr. MacDougal stood. “Well, perhaps you can speak with them about it tonight? I’d be happy to write a letter of recommendation for you. Your record stands for itself. I have no doubt you’d earn academic scholarships, and perhaps with a few federal loans you could cover the cost.” He folded his hands in front of him. “I can certainly help you with applying for those, as well, if need be.”

“Thank you,” Leanne said. “I’ll speak with them tonight.”

She walked into the hallway, which was flooding with students from open classroom doors as they shifted from one class to another.

Her phone buzzed on the side of her bookbag. She didn’t want to look at it.

She rushed to her next class, wondering how she could manage what she was coming home to tonight.

Her phone buzzed again. She pulled it out this time. It was their family group text.

How did the meeting go? Her father added an emoji with a smiley face. Her parents were always so careful about anything that was in writing. Leanne thought she might throw up.

See you at home tonight, her mother added, with a bright-red heart.

10

Damien

Damien swallowed. Something scraped at the inside of his throat.

He stared at the article, but the words rearranged themselves in his mind and he couldn’t piece the jumble of letters and sounds together into a cohesive thought.

Chloe spoke. “I met Grace ten years ago.”

She turned and started flicking knobs on the stove and rattling around the red kettle set on top. It had been a birthday present from Grace to Damien. He’d admired it in a shop window one weekend morning while they walked and sipped their coffees, and she’d remembered months later.

“What do you mean?” Damien stared at Chloe’s back.

She was making tea for them—again—as a way to avoid having to look him in the eye. Damien was certain of it. He hated himself for being so slow to register what was happening. His mind remained thick and foggy.

“I’m not her mother.” Chloe pushed in the cap on the kettle after having filled it and set it to heat.

Damien had to stop himself from repeating the same question. Instead, he said, “Then who are you?”

“My name is Chloe, and ten years ago I met Grace at a rooming house in the Village. I was a super for a run-down building, just a year sober and trying to get my life back on track. Grace showed up one night, with nothing but the clothes she was wearing and fifty dollars in ones and fives shoved into her jeans pocket. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in days—all skin and bones. She asked to rent a room.”

Damien and Grace had traded city origin stories on their second date. Damien moved to New York after high school to attend New York University and never left. Grace said she came to the city after dropping out of college in her junior year. She’d worked her way up the ladder at Rhineholt realtors, took classes, got her real estate license, and was now one of the top agents on the Upper West Side, with a second specialty in country homes in the Hamptons and Montauk. Damien could tell it fluently, word for word, after he’d helped proofread Grace’s updated webpage and business flyers. She’d gone through five different headshot sessions until she had one that ‘looked like her,’ although Damien thought the lighting in it made her appear older and gave her face unfamiliar angles.

“Grace told me she dropped out of college. She came to the city with almost nothing.” Damien ignored how desperately he was clinging to the shreds of truth Grace had given him.

“And what did she tell you about me?” Chloe prodded. The tea kettle whistled and she moved it from the burner.

Damien didn’t want to answer. If he opened this set of lies, he couldn’t guarantee the truth wouldn’t surge forward and drown them both.

But if he didn’t start getting his own answers, he’d never get closer to finding Grace.

He decided to start with the most basic and complicated question. “Why would Grace lie about you being her mother?”

“We became close, those first several months Grace was in New York.” Chloe snapped two teabags against her fingers and ripped the paper open in one movement. She put a bag in each mug and poured the water over them in a satisfying whoosh. “She waitressed for a bit, and then saw an ad for a realtor who needed secretarial work. As soon as she could afford to move out of the rooming house, she did. And soon after she took me with her.”

Damien saw tears well in Chloe’s eyes.

“She was so good to me. And I was good to her. I loved her like a daughter.” She sniffed and looked away, taking a sip of her tea. “I didn’t need to pretend in the end.”

Damien paused, considering. “We’ll find her,” he finally said.

“It’s possible she might not want to be found.” Chloe pushed the mug of tea towards Damien. “Here’s what I know.”

And Chloe told him the rest of her story.

11

Leanne

Leanne couldn’t keep anything down. She threw up on the walk home from school, barely making it to the bushes by Ms. Miller’s house on the corner. She looked around afterwards to see if anyone had spotted her, but the street was empty. It was five blocks home from Canfield High School, and by the time Leanne made it through the front door she was sweating and freezing at the same time.

Her mother was inside, sitting in the kitchen drinking from a teacup. There was no guarantee it wasn’t something stronger. Leanne tried to run up to the bathroom, but she didn’t make it in time. She ended up dry-heaving over the tiles laid out by the front door. She had to put a steadying hand on the brick step surrounding the fireplace in the living room. Marian was by her side in moments, pressing a cold compress to her forehead.

She helped Leanne to bed. The two of them walked hand in hand up the narrow stairway to the second floor. Leanne’s bedroom was on the right, with a middle bedroom used as a sewing room for her mother and a would-be office for her father, and her parents’ bedroom on the furthest side above the garage door. The windows were open in Leanne’s bedroom, and her mother must have put fresh sheets on the bed sometime that day because Leanne could smell the sharp tang of detergent as she slid between the covers.

“I’ll bring you a cup of tea,” Marian told her, and slipped out of the room. Shadows danced along the walls in the bright sunshine. Before she left, Marian lit two candles on Leanne’s dresser. The scent of vanilla wafted across the room.

Leanne hadn’t been this ill since she was in middle school. Not since her father had begun the business and started working from the office instead of making cold calls from the middle bedroom. At the time, it had felt like a miracle. Leanne could go to school for the entire day without feeling nauseous or dizzy, and when she got home her father was still at the office and her mother was singing in the kitchen.

Leanne heard her mother explain Leanne’s string of absences at a neighborhood picnic to one of the other moms—maybe Jordan’s, which was okay because Jordan always said ‘hi’ to her and smiled when he saw her at school, even though the other kids thought she was strange—as the result of stress from her father’s unemployment. ‘A family is a system,’ Marian had said. ‘If one person is stressed, the rest of the family suffers, too.’

Marian reappeared with a cup of tea on a saucer, and a slice of lemon on the side. She set it down on Leanne’s dresser, squeezed the fruit into the amber liquid, and handed it to Leanne. The air in the room sparked with the bright smell of the lemon.

Leanne tried to take a sip, but her stomach heaved.

She thought about Mr. MacDougal, and the phone call he’d made. And she thought about her father, leaving for the office each morning, before even the sun was up. How he needed to know where Leanne was, first as a precaution and then, as the angry envelopes with ‘past due’ written on them increased, as an obsession. An obsession that then infected her mother. Their family system was a Gordian knot of dysfunction.

Leanne looked up into her mother’s eyes, which were two clear pools of green. Like a cat’s eyes, she’d always said when she was little, back when she thought her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world.

“Mr. MacDougal told me he called you,” Leanne said.

“Yes, he did,” her mother replied, so calm. As though she’d expected this conversation for days and prepared for it.

“He wants me to apply to Harvard. He said…” Leanne felt dizzy again suddenly. She closed her eyes.

“Here, have a sip. Take it slowly. Just a little.” Marian waited for Leanne to pick up the cup and sip.

The dizziness passed.

“He said he’d write a letter of recommendation for me. He said I have great potential,” Leanne finished.

“That’s exactly what he told us,” Marian said. She brushed aside a few well-loved paperbacks and a collection of hair ties on Leanne’s bedside table, careful not to bump the lit candles, and set down the cup of tea and its saucer.

“Do you think I could go?” Leanne’s stomach flipped at the brazenness of her question.

“Yes. I think you could,” Marian said.

Something unraveled in Leanne’s chest. Like a flower blooming.

Her mother added, “It won’t be easy.”

Leanne assumed she was talking about money. “Mr. MacDougal thinks I could get scholarships. Plus there’s the money Aunt Nora left for me.”

Her mother paused, and then reached across Leanne and brushed a piece of hair behind her daughter’s ear, tucking it just a little too roughly. Leanne ignored the discomfort on her skin. “Yes, she did. Your aunt loved you very much, too. She wanted you to have that money for your future.”

Leanne smiled. Her body felt stronger, revived.

But then a fear darted across the back of her mind. That she was the one making her family sick. She was the reason for her father’s failures. Her mother’s drinking.

Why hadn’t she just spoken to them about Harvard on her own? Why was she always hiding pieces of her life from her parents?

No wonder her parents tracked her constantly.

So many secrets. So many lies.

“I can start filling out the application tomorrow.” Leanne let her eyes close again. An intense sense of calm swept over her, and her breathing deepened. It was the way Leanne felt after a long, hard run.

Tired, but content.

“Sleep now. We’ll talk about everything when you wake up.” Marian moved towards the door. “When your father gets home.”

And as Leanne fell asleep, the fear she’d built up for weeks, for months, leaching from her body, she saw her mother look back from the doorway of her bedroom, her green eyes reflecting every wish Leanne had ever had.

When Leanne woke up, the room was dark.

After Leanne died, and she became Grace, she would think back on that afternoon in her bedroom, and she’d remember it differently.

12

Damien

Chloe explained how Grace asked her one day, over breakfast at a corner diner, if she’d be Grace’s mother. Chloe thought at first it was just an emotional thing, “you know, something millennials do,” but she realized soon enough that Grace needed a mother for a lot of reasons. Friends wanted to know about Grace’s family; boyfriends and work colleagues did too. It was easier living in the world with some form of family to keep you connected.

Chloe never asked Grace about her real family, except for one night when they’d both had a little too much wine to celebrate Grace’s first real apartment. Chloe told a story about how her mother used to make tuna sandwiches in the summertime for lunch and they’d eat them on the picnic table in their backyard, and that Chloe had never had a tuna sandwich that tasted better than those simple ones her mother made on warm July afternoons where they’d eat, swinging their legs off the wooden bench in their swimsuits.

All the reminiscing made Chloe forget their unspoken rule of not asking about the past, and when she made the mistake of asking Grace about her favorite childhood memory, Grace told her to get the hell out of her apartment.

Chloe explained to Damien how she’d walked down the sidewalk that night, after Grace slammed the door on her back, stunned and hurt. But she chalked it up to too much wine and the exhaustion of moving, and when Grace called the next morning to apologize, all was forgiven.

She never asked Grace about her past again.

He’d spent the rest of the morning fielding calls from Grace’s friends, who were returning his frantic texts and voicemails with their own frenzy. Eventually, Chloe went back to her apartment to rest.

Now, Damien was only taking a duffel bag with him.

He didn’t have much to go on. A postmark from Youngstown, Ohio. A few slices of Grace’s past he was remembering in spurts, like her mentioning going to a park skating center with a Rocky Road or Ridge or something with another ‘R’ when she was younger. They’d been ice skating at Rockefeller Center and Grace was a little tipsy from a flask of whiskey Damien smuggled in to keep them warm.

Damien put the name into Google, along with the keywords Ohio and Youngstown, and found a link to Mill Creek Park’s now torn-down Rocky Ridge Skating rink. It was a place to start.

And there were the fragments Chloe had been able to give him. He needed to sit down and organize everything, and he couldn’t do it in the city, in the apartment he shared with Grace. So he was hopping the train and riding up to Poughkeepsie to stay with his aunt and uncle for a few days. And before that, he was stopping by Grace’s work to see if her friends and colleagues there could tell him anything.

He was throwing spare socks and underwear in the duffel bag, along with a few shirts, a long-sleeve sweatshirt, and an extra pair of jeans to go with his always pre-packed toiletry case when there was a sharp series of knocks on the door. Damien considered not answering, but he couldn’t risk it being someone who could help him find Grace and who was too skittish to say so over the phone, so he opened the door.

Standing in front of him were two police officers in uniform, and behind them he spied Mrs. Treviano peering out from her doorway. She closed it gently and the clasp scratched as the doorlatch caught.

“Damien Grant.” The first officer was short and round, young with rosy cheeks and sideburns shaved too high up on his head. The second was tall and willowy, with dark hair pulled back in a sleek bun underneath her cap. Damien would guess both were in their early twenties.

“Yes?” Damien opened the door further, motioning the officers into his apartment.

“Thank you,” the second officer said. “I’m Officer Perez and this is Officer Dubois.” She stepped inside, followed by her partner. Damien tried to see his apartment through her eyes, wondering what she’d notice. The newspaper article was tucked securely in his messenger bag, along with his laptop and passport. Grace and he were both naturally tidy. A laundry basket with the sheets he’d stripped from his sweat-soaked bed were in the corner by the bathroom.

“We’re here about your fiancée, Grace Dupree.”

A sudden wave of nausea caught Damien and threatened to knock him over. “Yes, Grace,” he replied ineptly.

“She’s wanted as a person of interest in a recent police investigation. We’ve left messages, gone to her place of work, but we haven’t been able to contact her.”

Realization throbbed at the back of Damien’s skull. They weren’t looking for Grace. They wanted to talk to Grace.

“She’s not here,” Damien told them.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Officer Perez asked. She seemed to be the leader. Officer Dubois scribbled something into a notepad. The apertures of their body cameras stared like third eyes from their chests.

“At our rehearsal dinner, last night,” Damien answered honestly.

“And the two of you live together?” Perez stepped towards the refrigerator and eyed the photos and notes posted on the door. The invitation for their wedding hung in the center. Grace insisted on putting it up when they arrived from the printer, and Damien had joked that there would be bigger problems than missing the wedding if either of them needed a reminder of the day and time.

“Yes, we do. I woke up ill this morning, and my neighbor—” Damien lifted his chin towards the doorway across the hallway—“Mrs. Treviano, was caring for me. She said Grace had left for Ohio, to visit her mother.”

“Ah.” Perez’s eyes narrowed. “Where in Ohio does her mother live?”

Damien did a quick calculation in his head. “Toledo, I believe. Or maybe Dayton. I’m not sure.”

“You don’t know?” Dubois finally spoke up. Perez shot her partner a look.

“As I said, I was ill from last night. I think it was something I’d eaten at our rehearsal dinner.” Damien passed a hand through his hair. He offered Perez a smile that he hoped looked relaxed. “When I woke up, our neighbor⁠—”

“Mrs. Treviano,” Dubois said, referencing his notepad.

“Yes. She told me Grace had an emergency with her mother and needed to leave straight away. I’m just waiting to hear from Grace once she lands.”

“When she calls, please tell her to get in touch.” Perez passed Damien a business card. Damien noticed her first name was Lorraine.

“I absolutely will.” Damien took the card and set it carefully on the kitchen counter.

“I hope you’re feeling better.” Dubois gave a chuckle, as though he thought he could bond with Damien over the universality of men drinking too much.

“Thank you,” Damien said absently. “But you still haven’t told me why you need to talk to Grace. Is it something about her work? She didn’t tell me anything was wrong.”

“Sir,” Perez looked him in the eye, “I think there are several things you and your fiancée need to talk about.”

The police officers stepped out into the hallway. “We’ll look forward to that call.” Perez grabbed her radio and started speaking into it as she strode down the hall.

Damien watched until they turned the corner towards the elevators, and then he closed the door gently, ran to his bedroom, grabbed his duffel bag, and dialed a number he hadn’t called in months but knew by heart.

His brother picked up on the fourth ring.

“Tim, I need your help.”

13

Leanne

Leanne was pretending to sleep. She’d stayed in her room for the night, under the pretense that she was still sick. Her mother brought her dry toast at some point and a glass of flat ginger ale. She heard her father arrive home, the same sequence of sounds as usual, marking the house with his presence.

She wondered if she could stay home from school tomorrow. Leanne had barely missed a day her entire high-school career. It’d been a welcome shift from when she was so ill as a middle-schooler. But one day wouldn’t hurt. Leanne thought back to the days when she was younger, spent with her mother tending to her while she watched game shows on her iPad and ate the bland noodle soup her mother made any time she was sick. Even when her mother would refuse to sit near Leanne’s bed or stroke her hair, stating that none of that would make Leanne better—only Leanne could do that—Leanne enjoyed the way her mother’s focus rested on her when she was sick.

Leanne missed feeling that close to her mother.

Her bedroom door creaked open. Leanne stilled herself, trying to slow her breathing to the steady rate of sleep.

“Leanne?” her father asked softly. “Are you awake?”

She kept her eyes closed. Leanne lay on her side with the sheets tucked up over her shoulder. She wore a loose camisole and cotton pajama shorts, an outfit she’d changed into after her mother left to make dinner.

His footsteps padded across the carpeted floor. It was strange. He didn’t touch her—her father so rarely did, the night in the kitchen a few days ago when he’d placed his hand on the crown of her head being the exception—but it still felt to Leanne like he was holding her. Squeezing her too tight, even from a distance.

He stood above her for a moment. Leanne reminded herself to breathe steadily, to not hold her breath.

When she heard her father move away from her and the soft click of the door behind him, she slowly pulled the sheets above her head and let out a silent scream. She let the edges of her mouth stretch as she mouthed sounds that weren’t words but still had meaning. Leanne considered pulling out her phone, which was nestled in the crook of her hip under the sheets, and texting Tasha, but her parents were monitoring her phone somehow and she couldn’t risk him coming back in because he would see she was awake.

Instead, she listened to the sounds of the house. A soft breeze blew through her open window, disturbing the white curtains hanging on each side. Water pumped from somewhere in the house, and Leanne heard the distinctive clink of forks and knives against plates.

Her parents were eating dinner.

Her stomach growled suddenly and insistently. She hadn’t eaten much for the last several days. Leanne questioned whether she could sneak down to the kitchen and grab a snack without her parents noticing she was there.

She also considered pretending to have awoken and simply joining her parents for dinner, but Leanne wanted the potential of a few more moments that night or tomorrow morning with her mother acting the way she used to with her. The dining room was detached from the kitchen, with a door separating the two rooms. She could grab a granola bar or a carton of yogurt without her parents seeing her.

Leanne eased her weight off the bed so as not to creak the springs in the mattress. It took her less than a minute to creep down the hallway and stairs into the kitchen. Her mother’s voice vibrated from the dining room, and although she couldn’t make out the words at first, Leanne heard the tension as though her voice was a string being pulled taut until it snapped.

Her father replied, his response a soft rumble. Leanne caught one word. ‘Harvard.’

She forced herself to stay and listen. If she pressed her ear to the bordering wall between the kitchen and dining room, she could hear their conversation clearly. It wouldn’t give her any chance to leave, though, if one of them got up suddenly.

Leanne leaned into the wall and listened.

“It’s just not feasible,” her father said.

“Why not?” Marian replied. “Nora left her that money.”

“Yeah, but we still aren’t sure why.”

Leanne heard something surprising from her mother. Marian inhaled air sharply, and let out a long, low laugh. “Keep telling yourself that, Gene. Meanwhile, I’ll be the adult, like always, and fix your family’s mess.”

“I don’t want to talk about my sister,” he replied. A fork or a knife scratched across a plate. One of their chairs creaked, and Leanne tensed, ready to fly across the kitchen and up the stairs if she had to. But both settled into their chairs further.

“Then tell me what’s going on at work,” her mother demanded.

Leanne knew something was wrong with her dad’s business. He was leaving the house so early, and the bills kept arriving. Their electricity had been turned off for a day, only to be back on the next. Her father had said it was an issue with the mail and their payment getting lost. One time she’d asked why her mother didn’t work—because surely having a second income would help their family. The only thing Gene said was that Marian wasn’t healthy enough to work. Leanne wasn’t sure what he’d meant, because her mother ran several miles every day and her sinewy muscles were visible underneath her sleeves. She’d never seen her mother sick.

“There’s nothing to tell. It’s just a downturn. Things will pick up.”

“Mrs. Miller came over here yesterday, demanding to see you. I told her you were at the office, but she said she went there first and the office was empty, with a ‘For Rent’ sign hung in the window.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” her father replied.

Silence. And then, something hard smacked against the other side of the wall, and Leanne reflexively backed away. A glass or a plate. She heard the sprinkling of its broken pieces on the floor. “Stop lying to me!” Her mother’s voice burned like acid.

Leanne had never seen her parents’ fights get physical. They always battled with words.

“I’m not…” but her father’s words were cut off by Marian.

“Are you going to stop lying?” Marian’s voice was closer now. She must have walked over to Gene’s side of the table.

“It’s going to be fine.” Her father’s voice started off steady but ended in a whimper. “I have things under control.”

Leanne wondered how close her mother was to Gene. The image came unbidden into her mind—her mother standing with her hands on her father, a shard of broken glass held close to his skin.

“You need to fix this, Gene. I will not be embarrassed in front of the entire town.”

“I just need some more investors⁠—”

“Don’t you dare rope in more of our neighbors and friends. You’ve already done enough damage.”

“Online. I’m putting out feelers online. This is going to pay off. I promise you. We just need to be patient for a little longer.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the office was gone? Where do you go all day?”

“I didn’t want to worry you.” A chair scraped the floor. Perhaps her mother was sitting down next to Gene. Leanne took a step towards the stairs, but the noise stopped. Her parents’ voices grew softer. “I go to the library and work from there. It’s quiet, and free.”

“You need to stop lying.”

“Never again, I promise.”

“I don’t like being angry. Or humiliated.” Even listening through the door, Leanne felt Marian’s words sting like ice on bare skin. Her father remained silent.

After a moment, Marian spoke. “And we’re still agreed, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” her father replied. “Of course we are.”

“Imagine us. Parents of a daughter who’s attending Harvard.”

“It would be wonderful,” Gene replied. He sounded unsure.

There was a soft tinkle. One of their feet must have brushed against the broken pieces on the floor.

Leanne decided it was time to go. She couldn’t risk any more. She wasn’t sure if she could handle hearing more of her parents’ private disagreements further, either.

She was at the bottom of the stairs, ascending them two at a time, when her mother opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Leanne couldn’t be sure if her mother saw her or not.

She could only be certain of the last phrase she heard her mother utter before Leanne moved out of earshot.

“I could always become a widow instead, Gene. Remember that.”

14

Damien

Damien met Tim at a coffee shop near Tim’s apartment on the Upper West Side. Tim was the kind of guy who drank twelve-dollar cups of coffee from fair-trade farmers but who also owned a Hummer. The two brothers couldn’t have been more different from each other, and it was a wonder that Grace had dated both, though granted, Tim had been a poor match, whereas Damien had lasted.

Until Grace left on the eve of their wedding.

Damien checked his phone. Nothing from Grace. His thumb hovered over the button to call her again, but he stopped himself. She’d call soon. He had to believe that.

Tim was already sitting at a small wire table in the coffee shop when Damien arrived. He took a moment to watch his older brother from the window. Slicked-back hair, a sleeveless Under Armour shirt with flexed biceps and the latest Nike offering. Damien liked to jog in the morning, but he wore old T-shirts from college and generic athletic shorts from Foot Locker. Tim had always been about the outward impression he made. His outward status.

That was why he’d made such a fuss at the rehearsal dinner.

But he was also Damien’s brother. And although they weren’t close, they shared the same past of losing their parents. They both loved their Uncle Mike and Aunt Sandra.

And, even if they didn’t like each other, they still loved each other.

“You look like hell,” Tim said as soon as he spotted Damien. He pushed out a metal chair with his foot for Damien to sit down. “And I thought I was hungover this morning. And look, I’m sorry about last night. I’m glad you suggested we meet to talk…” Tim trailed off as Damien settled himself at the table. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t ask you to meet to talk about dinner last night. It’s Grace.” Damien saw no point in dissembling. “She’s missing.”

“What do you mean?” Tim angled forward in his chair. His forehead creased in concern as he folded his arms and looked straight at his brother. “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know. I had a visit from the cops today. And that was after I woke up sicker than I’ve ever been, and then Chloe came over.” Damien paused. He was rambling.

“Okay, I want you to start from the beginning. But first, let me get you a coffee. You look like you could use it. Or three.” Tim went up to the counter and returned a few moments later with large white mugs of steaming dark coffee. “Black, right?” he asked Damien, who nodded.

Damien took a sip and felt the bitterness of the coffee flow over his tongue. It felt like an injection of energy. Maybe Tim was onto something with his expensive coffee.

“Chloe’s not really Grace’s mother,” he began. It took only a few minutes for him to convey everything he’d learned over the last day to his brother. Damien’s monster hangover, even though he didn’t remember drinking that much. Grace telling their neighbor she was visiting her mother in Ohio, and then Chloe’s revelation of how she and Grace met. The newspaper article, the fire. The visit from the police, about something else Grace was mixed up in.

Tim took all the information in, listening intently. His phone kept buzzing in his pocket, but Tim ignored the messages, offering a simple, “Whoever is texting me can wait; it’s probably just a fussy client” while he listened to Damien.

Damien almost told him to check it, just in case Grace was the one messaging him, but he knew it wasn’t her. Especially after what happened at the rehearsal dinner, Tim would be the last person Grace would reach out to for help.

Or so he thought. It was becoming clearer with each revelation that Damien didn’t know his fiancée as well as he’d believed.

Once Damien finished, Tim sat considering the situation. He took a sip of coffee, jostling his leg up and down in a nervous habit Damien had known since their childhood together. It’d gotten worse during high school, to the point where Tim went to the doctor to be assessed for a neurological issue but it was determined it was just anxiety, and then Tim went off to college at State University of New York, Albany, while Damien came to NYU. Slowly, it got better.

“You’re going up to see Uncle Mike and Aunt Sandra after this?” Tim asked.

“I want to stop by Grace’s office first, just to see if they know anything.”

Tim nodded. He worked in real estate too—that’s how he and Grace first met, showing the same apartment at the same time one day. Grace ultimately got the lease for her clients. She liked to bring it up once in a while, whenever Tim got a bit too mouthy at family events arranged by Mike and Sandra in the hopes of keeping the family together.

“I’ll come with you,” Tim offered.

“I’m not sure if they’ll have anything to tell me.” A text flashed up on Damien’s phone, which was sitting upright on the table. His heart jerked for a second, but he saw it was Chloe asking if he’d heard anything from Grace.

“Do you think Grace was doing something illegal at work?” Tim asked. “Is that why the police showed up at your door?”

Of course, Damien had considered it after the visit from Officers Perez and Dubois. But Grace was so moral, she always did the right thing. She crossed the street to help a mother struggling with a stroller. She picked up trash lying on the sidewalk and threw it away.

His fiancée was a good person.

“No, absolutely not.”

The two brothers looked at each other. Tim blinked.

Damien knew what he was thinking. It was written in the doubt shadowing Tim’s face.

If someone would have asked Damien yesterday if he thought Grace would lie about her family and disappear just days before their wedding, his answer would have been the same.

He’d been wrong about so many things. What else was he wrong about?

15

Leanne

“What do you think about this dress?” Tasha stared into the mirror with stoic focus. She wore a bright-pink dress with wide straps and a flared skirt. It fell just below her knees, making her petite frame seem taller.

Leanne liked the bright sparkles adorning the waist and straps of the dress. The color made Tasha’s eyes a deeper brown, and her dark pixie cut was a lovely contrast to the bold color of the dress. One of her chain necklaces had a lock from the hardware store, another with a dog tag and Tasha’s initials hanging in the divot between her collarbones. Leanne realized she’d never seen her friend in a dress before.

Canfield High School’s homecoming seemed to arrive earlier and earlier each year. For Leanne’s senior year, it fell on the third Saturday in September. Ohio was still hot and humid. The land cracked from drought. But it was a relief to be out with her friend doing something other than running in the afternoon heat.

Going to the homecoming dance was an important step in Tasha’s plan.

“We need to get dressed up, dance, show up on lots of people’s socials. Make our presence known at the dance,” Tasha told her when she first brought up the idea to Leanne a few days ago.

Leanne didn’t have many other friends at school besides Tasha. There were her cross-country teammates, but they mainly did their training runs, did their weight-lifting at the gym, and ran their meets. Otherwise, everyone was glued to their phones while the bus drove them to meets or while they stretched at the end of a group run.

“But my parents monitor my Instagram account,” Leanne countered. She had twenty people who followed her, and she was pretty sure at least five of the accounts were just bots and two of them were her parents pretending to be other people. They also made her give them her password so they could log in at any time to see what she was doing in her direct messages.

“Exactly,” Tasha had replied.

So they were at Livia’s Closet, the one dress boutique in town that catered to students going to fancy school dances, wedding parties, and the country club set. Leanne’s mother gave her one hundred dollars to spend on a dress, but Leanne was planning on re-wearing her dress from freshman year’s homecoming when she went with a boy from her geometry class, Greg. He’d been sweet and held her hand through the entire night, and then nothing had happened. They were friendly enough in class, but the next year Leanne and Greg didn’t have any classes together. They lost touch.

Leanne would bring the money back home, back to her mother.

Or, maybe, she’d hang onto it for after the homecoming dance when she’d really need it. Leanne had a little savings from a few summers ago, when she’d been allowed to work at the local grocery store for the summer months. That had been before her father’s business troubles, before he’d started getting up so early and running away from the house. And then there was the money she’d inherited from her aunt.

Tasha worked at the local Perkins restaurant on any evening she wasn’t running cross-country with Leanne. Her family had very little money. Her mom was off somewhere in Kentucky or Illinois—Tasha wasn’t sure—probably getting high with her latest boyfriend. Tasha said it was probably better that her mom wasn’t around. Tasha’s little half-sister used to live with Tasha, until Child Welfare realized there wasn’t an official adult around and they whisked the little girl off to a foster home. Tasha tried to see her whenever she could, but Tasha said the foster family ‘lost’ most of her voicemails and text messages trying to set up visits, and they really didn’t like it when Tasha just showed up at their house. Tasha didn’t know who her father was.

“How much is it?” Leanne asked. She fingered the five twenty-dollar bills her mother gave her this morning before she left for school.

Tasha twisted her head to look at the price tag on her back. “I can’t see.”

Leanne reached up and flipped the tag over. A thick red line ran through the original price, which was one hundred and fifty dollars. Half Off was written in red ink.

“Seventy-five dollars,” she announced.

Tasha started to shrug off the wide straps. “Too much. I should have looked before I tried it on.” She stepped off the pedestal in the center of the three mirrors. “I have a dress at home my mom left a long time ago, before she took off and we moved to Ohio. It was some fancy dinner thing she went to with an old boyfriend or something. I can make it work.”

“Wait, just hang on a second.” Leanne pulled out the money. “Let me buy it for you.”

Tasha paused. A soft smile crept over her mouth. Leanne heard Tasha’s phone buzz in her pocket. Tasha suddenly looked stricken.

She stepped into the dressing room and closed the door on Leanne. She heard the crackle of a zipper being pulled down.

“No, absolutely not.” Tasha was back out and dressed before Leanne could come up with a reply. The pink dress hung on a hanger from Tasha’s right hand. “We’re leaving.”

“But, what about the dress?” Leanne protested. “It looked great on you.”

Tasha hung the dress back up where she’d found it and marched out the door of the boutique into the heavy air of the day. Leanne followed, making an apologetic face at the polished saleswoman inquiring with raised eyebrows from behind the glass counter.

“Wait.” Leanne caught up to her friend halfway down the block.

Tasha turned and crashed into Leanne, who she hadn’t realized was following just a few paces behind.

“You need to focus on the plan,” Tasha said urgently. “You can’t get distracted by pretty dresses. This isn’t some fairy tale. This is real life.” She threw her hands up in the air and flexed her fingers in frustration. “If we’re going to do this, you need to be fully committed.”

“You think I don’t know that?” A bright shot of anger surged up Leanne’s throat. “I’m the one taking all the risk.”

But as the words came out of her mouth, Leanne knew she was wrong.

Tasha was risking a lot to help her. Everything, if she was being honest with herself.

A shadow of disappointment passed over Tasha’s face, and although it quickly passed, the simple sight of it nearly did Leanne in.

“I’m sorry.” Leanne reached out to hold Tasha’s hand, just as Tasha had the day her father hunted them down on their run. Tasha pushed her hands into the pockets of her jean shorts.

“It’s fine,” she told Leanne. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”

“Tasha, hang on,” Leanne called to her friend’s back. Tasha walked swiftly down the road. Leanne knew she’d turn right onto Charles Street off the village green, and then down O’Neill. The modular home they rented was in the trailer park behind the middle school. A few groups in Canfield petitioned to have the park rezoned so the trailers would be moved further out of town, but for now several other trailers were there with Tasha’s. The rent was cheap enough for Tasha to just barely afford it without her mom to help.

Leanne considered following her friend, but as she hurried in her footsteps she felt her phone pulse in her back pocket.

Her father was calling her. Which was worse than him texting because there was no record of what he said.

She hit the green button to accept the call. She didn’t even have a chance to say hello.

“You need to come home. Now.” Her father hung up the phone, not waiting for her to respond.

And as Leanne hurried to where she’d parked her mother’s car an hour ago, looking forward to an afternoon away from home and shopping with her friend—something normal—she knew her father didn’t have to wait for her to acknowledge his request.

Of course she’d come home. For now, she had no other choice.

16

Damien

Rhineholt Realty’s office was in one of those huge glass buildings towering over the river. Damien caught his reflection as they walked up to the revolving door. Tim had swung by his apartment and changed into a (designer) T-shirt and jeans on the way. Damien still had his duffel bag over his shoulder. The train ran up to Poughkeepsie almost every hour, so he could catch it later today.

The two brothers resembled each other with their dark, curly hair and olive complexions. But where Damien had a wiry frame that leant itself to long-distance running and long hikes in the countryside when he and Grace could get out of the city, Tim was V-shaped with the recognizable bulk of a CrossFit devotee. Tim had played football in high school. Damien ran cross-country. That is, until they lost their parents. After that, neither of them had the energy to do much more than survive their last years of high school in the new school at their aunt and uncle’s house. It had been the summer before Damien’s senior year, and Tim’s sophomore. It had been hell.

Just like today, Damien thought. He glanced over at his brother as they stepped into the cool air-conditioning of the building. Tim had an expression of intense focus on his face. Damien hoped his brother’s tendency to push against a problem until it gave under his sheer force of determination would prove helpful at Rhineholt, and not get in their way of finding Grace.

The office was on the twenty-third floor. Damien and Tim rode the elevator in silence, and when they emerged into the cool neutral tones of the Rhineholt office with the distinctive ding of the elevator car, Damien stepped out first and took the lead with the receptionist, a young college intern named Oliver, but who went by Ollie.

“Is Denise in?” Damien asked. Tim leaned against the tall counter of the reception desk, but Damien kept a step back.

Ollie shifted his gaze from Damien to Tim and back again. “You’re Grace’s fiancée, right?” he said to Damien.

Damien tried to smile. He explained that Grace wasn’t answering her phone and he needed to talk to her. He gestured to Tim in response to Ollie’s discerning stare. “This is my brother.”

“I see the resemblance,” Ollie replied coolly. He looked at his computer screen and tapped the keys for a moment. “Grace hasn’t been in today…”

“She’d intended to have the day off,” Damien clarified.

Ollie pressed the side of the sleek headset he was wearing. “I have Damien Grant and his brother here to see you,” he said. There was a pause. “He’s Grace’s fiancée.” Ollie listened for another few moments. Damien couldn’t distinguish what was being said on the other side of the conversation.

Ollie looked up from his screen. “You can go in. Second door on your left.”

Damien and Tim arrived at a brightly lit corner office with huge bookshelves and a massive glass desk in the center. Behind it sat Denise Rhineholt, who Damien recognized from different drinks parties he’d been to with Grace over the last year and a half. Denise welcomed them and gestured to the two seats in front of her desk. She gave a slight nod of recognition to his brother. Tim had said they were familiar with each other, in a general sense—they’d bumped into each other once or twice when showing the same apartment.

“Close the door behind you,” she instructed, brushing a strand of her stylish gray bob behind her ear.

“I’m sorry to barge in, but Grace isn’t answering her phone,” Damien explained. “As you know, we’re supposed to get married this weekend, but she left this morning and I don’t know where she is.” No point pretending otherwise, Damien figured. Tim shifted in his seat and gave Damien a sidelong look.

Grace hadn’t wanted to invite Denise, but Damien had argued she couldn’t ask for time off from work for their wedding and honeymoon and not invite her boss. Now, he was even more glad he’d won that argument.

“We thought you might be able to tell us if Grace was having any issues at work,” Tim said.

Denise looked as though she’d just bitten into a rotten piece of fruit. “Issues?” she said as crisply as anyone had ever said the word.

Damien considered mentioning to her the police visit this morning, but if Grace was hiding something from her employer he didn’t want to be the one to endanger Grace’s career by creating rumors with her boss.

Any more than he already was by coming today.

“It’s just so unlike her to not respond for several hours. We’re constantly in contact with each other. I thought perhaps something had happened at work, and perhaps Grace was too embarrassed to tell me and was avoiding me until it was fixed.” Even as he said the words, Damien realized the inadequacy of them.

“Have you considered Grace’s lack of communication has nothing to do with work, and everything to do with a classic case of cold feet?” Denise replied calmly.

Tim jumped in. “No, we haven’t. Grace and my brother are very happy together.”

Heat climbed Damien’s neck. He appreciated his brother’s support, especially after Tim’s outburst at the rehearsal dinner, but his adamance made Damien’s relationship with Grace seem more troubled, not less.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you.” Damien stood. This had been a dead end.

He was no closer to finding Grace, and now he’d possibly tainted her professional image too.

“So there’s nothing unusual that’s happened recently with Grace?” Tim still sat.

Denise had that same look again. Annoyance mixed with disgust. But Damien could see something else working over her features. Her face shifted, and Damien took a step back towards her desk.

From behind him, a voice spoke. “There was that woman who came, the day before yesterday. Demanding to see Grace.” It was Ollie, who must have been eavesdropping from outside.

“Yes, I was just about to mention that,” Denise said, a slight bite to her response. “Thank you, Ollie, for the reminder.”

Ollie disappeared again, Damien hoped fully back to his desk this time, but there was no guarantee.

“What woman?” Tim asked. “What did she want with Grace?”

“I didn’t get her name.” Denise looked at them both coolly as she spoke. “But she was quite rude. She refused to wait at reception and barged into my office asking to be shown into Grace Dupree’s office. The woman said she’d made an appointment and that Grace had stood her up.”

“And you didn’t ask who she was?” Tim seemed incredulous.

“She didn’t wait around for me to appease her. As soon as I told her we couldn’t let her into Grace’s office because Grace had taken most of the week off for her wedding, she stormed out.”

“What did she look like?” Damien asked.

“Probably around my age, perhaps a bit younger.” Denise pursed her lips in a slight moue of disappointment at her admission. “Though it was difficult to tell. She wore large sunglasses and a scarf over her hair. Slim build, medium height.”

“Thank you for your time.” Damien took hold of his brother’s arm and he stood to go.

“I’ll be sure to call you if Grace is in touch with me,” Denise said. “I’m sure she’ll turn up very soon.”

She’d already turned her attention back to papers on her desk when Damien looked back at the door’s threshold.

Ollie stopped them as they walked to the elevator.

“I remember her calling,” Ollie said in a hoarse whisper. He seemed to be enjoying the intrigue breaking up the day, although Damien was grateful nonetheless.

“Grace?” Tim asked.

“No, the woman who tried to see Grace. She called the day before, asking for an appointment with Grace Dupree. She said she was exploring apartment options and had heard what a fantastic realtor Grace was. I sent a message to Grace about it but never heard back regarding whether to confirm the meeting or not.”

“I see,” was all Damien could muster. He was thinking of the photograph in the newspaper clipping sent to Grace, of Marian Crosby’s brown hair scraped back in a tight bun. Of the lines in Marian’s face that resembled Grace’s.

Why would this woman be tracking down Grace after all these years? More important, why would Grace let her parents think she died in a fire when she was seventeen?

“And she was angry when she came to the office the day after she claimed Grace failed to show?”

Ollie shook his head. “No, she didn’t seem angry. She seemed scared.”

17

Leanne

Leanne keyed in her passcode into the electronic lock on the front door. The tone that chimed whenever the lock opened rang out over the humid air. It was too hot for Fall.

“Come here,” Gene called. Leanne pictured the message that must have flashed up on his phone just a second ago, announcing she’d used her code to enter the house.

His voice came from upstairs, and Leanne followed it to the spare bedroom where her father sat at the small desk pushed up against her mother’s sewing machine and the well-worn easy chair in the corner.

“What is it, Dad?” she asked. Her heart thumped in her chest from rushing up the stairs. She didn’t know where her mother was.

“We need to go to the bank.” He closed the lid of his laptop and stood up.

“I could have met you there,” she said. “I was right next door while I was shopping with Tasha.”

Her father held a sheaf of papers in his hand. Leanne tried to see what was on them, but it was difficult to decipher upside down. She only caught the heading at the top, which read Theralife. It was the company her father started working for several years ago. Their tagline was ‘Live Your Best Life.’ Gene noticed her looking and promptly folded the papers in half.

“I needed to talk to you before we went there,” he said cryptically. Leanne noticed sweat stains underneath the arms of his pale-blue button-down shirt. His slacks had a smear of what looked like egg yolk on the front seam by the pocket.

Leanne steeled herself, thinking of the conversation she overheard between her parents a few nights before.

“Okay,” she said. “Do you want Mom here, too?” She couldn’t hear anyone else moving around the house. She wanted to know where her mother was.

Her father gestured to the chair in the corner, and Leanne obligingly sat.

“There’s been a slight bump in the road for us, financially. I need what they call in the business an injection of funds.” His face was red. Gene ran his bear-paw of a hand through his dark, curly hair.

Money. Her father needed money.

Relief washed over her. This problem had an easy fix. She could get the money for him today. It would require nothing from her—no self-control, no surrender of her freedom, no pretending. Nothing.

“I have all the money from Aunt Nora.”

“Yes, and your mother and I wanted you to have that for your schooling, which is why I’m only asking for a loan right now. I’d pay everything back into your account once the business gets over this slight setback.”

“I’ll go right now.” Leanne gave a genuine smile. It felt good to be able to help.

Her father shook his head. “I need to come with you.”

Leanne stayed in the doorway, facing the stairs that led down to the kitchen. She wouldn’t let herself turn around.

“It’s no trouble, Dad. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Can I borrow Mom’s car again?”

Later, she’d realize how much she’d misunderstood about her father’s request. For now, all she had was the familiar pit of fear in her stomach returning. First, as a small thread of pain, and then later, as her father drove her to the bank, a deep chasm in her gut.

“It’s easier this way, Lulu.” Her father put his huge hand on the small of Leanne’s back as they stepped into the air-conditioned calm of Farmers National Bank. “We should have done this originally, but all the probate paperwork for your aunt was complicated. Somehow this piece got overlooked.”

Leanne nodded. She hadn’t touched the money from her aunt, who died last year in December. Leanne hadn’t known it was an option.

She walked up to the teller with her father, who did all the talking. The teller was an older man wearing a crisp white shirt and huge knotted necktie in blue and pink stripes. He produced a few forms, which Leanne signed without even looking at them. The account had thirty-thousand dollars in it. Before they left, he printed a debit card for her father linked with the account.

At the ATM, Gene withdrew one thousand dollars, which was the maximum limit for a daily withdrawal. Leanne knew because her father asked, feigning it as an afterthought as he’d begun to step away from the teller window. Both Gene and Leanne could withdraw higher amounts from the account directly at the bank teller window, but those withdrawals would come with a much longer paper trail.

When they got home, her mother was waiting in the kitchen. It was nearing dinnertime, and the house smelled of basil and the sweet tang of tomatoes. Leanne had no idea where her mother had been when she’d met with her father earlier.

“How did it go?” Marian asked. She wore a frilly pink apron and her hair in a tight ponytail.

Gene explained that everything was in order.

Leanne asked to go to her room. Both her parents readily agreed.

When she discovered today how quickly they could make a debit card at the bank, Leanne decided she’d go and get one the next day. She’d take out one thousand dollars each day, until her parents stopped her or the account went dry.

She’d buy Tasha that dress. It wasn’t a distraction. It was a gift, for everything Tasha was doing for her.

Homecoming was in one week. There was still so much to plan.

I’m sorry, she texted Tasha. I don’t want to fight.

She meant it. But she also knew having this record for her parents would help them believe what was going to happen next week.

“Dinnertime,” her mother called up the stairs ten minutes later. Leanne came down obediently. She sat at dinner and ate the spaghetti, sauce, and salad her mother had prepared.

Her parents did most of the talking during dinner. Chore lists and bills and someone in the extended family was having a baby shower.

Leanne listened intently and answered the few questions they asked about her day.

When she checked Instagram as she pretended to do homework up in her room, she saw Tasha’s newest post.

Gratitude came first as she took in the image of her friend, with a bottle of vodka pressed to her lips, making the peace sign. It looked like there was someone else in the background, but it was too blurry for Leanne to be certain. The caption was one word: #thirsty.

It was just like they’d planned.

The tension and the fear pummeled her later, after she read the DM Tasha sent her.

Tag. You’re it.

Just like they’d agreed on.

Later, as Leanne knelt sick in front of the toilet, her mother telling her everything was okay and holding back her hair, one word kept slamming itself against the back of her mind.

Widow.

Followed by that other important word her mother had said the night Leanne listened at the kitchen door.

Instead.

18

Damien

The train ride up to Poughkeepsie was an eternity of Damien staring at his phone and wishing for Grace to reply to any of his dozens of messages. Tim sat in the aisle and listened to music on his headphones, eventually falling asleep just before they arrived at their stop.

Their Aunt Sandra looked stretched thin, all pale skin with her veins showing through her hands as she reached out to grip Damien’s in her own. Uncle Mike was more formidable, but Damien noticed him bouncing on his toes as he waited for Damien and Tim to kiss Sandra hello. It was one of his few tells that something was wrong. The other was when Mike started humming out loud.

At least he wasn’t doing that yet, Damien thought.

They remained silent in the car ride to the house, except for Sandra inquiring whether they were hungry, which neither of them was. It was as though there was so much to say that none of them could figure out where to begin. Paralysis of choice. Damien remembered Grace saying something about it when they’d chatted one evening about her work. She’d never show clients more than three properties at once. Otherwise, the options would feel overwhelming and they’d shut down and decide to stay in their old apartment.

Mike brewed a pot of coffee when they arrived, and the four of them settled at the kitchen table.

“We’ve both tried calling her,” Sandra said. “We’ve left voicemails. I sent several text messages. We haven’t heard a thing back.”

Mike shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why would she lie about so many things?”

“Something terrible happened in Ohio,” Tim replied. His leg twitched under the table and the coffee cups in their saucers shook. “You saw the newspaper clipping, right? Damien showed you over FaceTime. That was Grace in the photo, but ten years younger. She has a family. Her parents think she’s dead.”

“And don’t forget the police are looking for her, about something related to her work. Her boss didn’t admit to anything when we went to see her.” Damien thought he felt a vibration in his pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen displayed a voicemail from an unrecognized number.

“Sshhhhh,” he almost screamed. Damien wanted to slap himself for not keeping his phone out on the table. How could he have missed a call?

He didn’t have the patience to wait for the voicemail to transcribe. He dialed the number back, heard it connect after a moment, one ring, and then total silence on the other end.

“Hello,” he said into the phone, trying to keep his voice from trembling. “Grace? Are you there? Just tell me you’re okay.”

Again, only silence on the other end of the line. Damien’s eyes met Sandra’s, which were wide with fear or anticipation, Damien couldn’t tell. His uncle hummed a tuneless song, and then abruptly stopped when he realized what he was doing.

The line disconnected.

Damien immediately clicked over to the voicemail and hit play.

“Did she say anything?” Tim asked. Damien ignored him and pressed the phone to his ear, trying to hear every piece of the recording.

Static. A crackle, like a radio mistuned, and then her voice.

“Damien?” A pause, and then, “Damien, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have explained everything before I left…” He heard a rumble in the background, like cars rushing past on a distant road. A blue jay gave its distinctive laugh. “I’m so sorry, but you have to let me go. It’s not safe.”

Something cracked inside Damien’s chest. Grace sounded broken. Hurt.

Scared.

The voicemail wasn’t over yet. He could still hear the background noise.

There was the sharp snap of a door slamming closed. A murmur in the background, and then a scream.

“No!” he heard Grace say. “Get away from me!”

And the recording ended.

Damien looked at his uncle, who’d been standing the closest to him. Mike heard the last part, surely. He stared back at Damien with a sag in his shoulders. Damien wanted to throw his phone across the room. He dialed the number again, but it didn’t even connect this time.

He called Grace’s phone. Instead of hearing her voice in the recording, it was a robotic female, telling him the number was no longer in service.

Damien couldn’t believe any of this was happening. He’d never been so powerless in his life.

Tim reached out and put a hand on Damien’s shoulder, as though he knew the violent thoughts going through his brother’s head.

And then Damien checked himself. He shrugged off his brother’s touch.

There’d been another time where someone he’d loved—the two people he’d loved the most—had been hurt and he couldn’t get there in time to help them.

The night his parents died Damien was out on a date with a girl from his chemistry class. Tim was the one who was with them when they died.

“It’s time to call the police,” Mike said to the coffee pot on the kitchen table, now empty and stained brown on the edges.

Damien grabbed the glass urn and hurled it across the room. It shattered with a satisfying crack. Shards of glass skittered across the floor like insects crawling over a corpse.

“Goddammit!” Damien shouted.

Someone in the group let out an audible gasp. Without a word, Tim left the room and returned with a dustpan and broom. He began sweeping up the mess.

Damien looked on at the distress he’d caused his family, the mess he’d made. He hunched over and started to sob, large heaving breaths racking his body. Sandra gingerly came towards him and stroked his back.

“I can’t wait for the police,” he said eventually. “I need to go to Ohio. Tonight.”

19

Leanne

Leanne gingerly sipped on the smoothie her mother packed for her lunch, along with an apple, turkey sandwich, and a granola fruit bar. Although she’d been packing her own lunch for years, today Leanne came down to the kitchen to a paper bag with her name scripted across it in black marker and a thermos that was cool to the touch.

“I know you have a training run after school today,” her mother gave as way of explanation. She sat at the kitchen island, sipping her coffee. “The smoothie has lots of vitamins in it to help you build muscle.”

Leanne had nodded and smiled, and then left for school.

Between ATM withdrawals and two visits to the bank teller, she had ten thousand dollars stored in a red Asics shoebox under her bed. Homecoming was in four days.

Tasha sat down next to her, scraping her tray across the laminate tabletop. The voices of their classmates hummed around them as they ate and gossiped and talked about upcoming tests.

“I can’t run with you after school today.” Tasha took a bite of her chicken patty sandwich.

“Okay.” Leanne still wasn’t sure if she and Tasha were back to normal after their fight at the dress shop over the weekend. Tasha had followed their plan by posting on her Instagram account, but in-person things still seemed tense between them. “Do you need help with something?”

“My sister’s foster mom finally agreed to let me come visit her. We’re having a tea party in the back garden and reading Harry Potter.” Tasha rolled her eyes, but Leanne could tell she was excited.

“That’s great news!” But then another thought occurred to Leanne, and she wanted to smack herself for not even considering it sooner.

“Are you still going to train? Or are your parents making you come home?” Tasha asked, interrupting Leanne’s thoughts.

Not waiting for Leanne to reply, Tasha went on. “I’ll post something again tonight, after I get back from visiting Jordan.”

“Listen, I’ve been thinking…” Leanne hadn’t told her friend about the cash she was stashing away, or about how her father had insisted on making her inheritance from her aunt a joint account. The balance had been steadily going down each day, by far more than what Leanne was taking out.

Her father was either too preoccupied to notice Leanne’s withdrawals, which were becoming bolder as the days went on, or he was too ashamed to mention them. Leanne wasn’t sure which. But with her father saying nothing to Leanne about the decreasing funds and more money going missing into Gene’s hands, Leanne felt urgency taking over. She couldn’t let him take all the money.

“We’re not turning back on this,” Tasha interrupted. She took another bite of her sandwich, drank a swig of milk, and wiped her mouth on a napkin. Today her short hair was in two old-fashioned pin waves against her temples, and she wore a white tank top and a stack of gold necklaces to match her dangly gold earrings.

Leanne wore a T-shirt and jeans, her hair limp around her face.

“I’ve thought about it, and we need to keep this momentum up. You can’t leave anything to chance.” Tasha dropped her sandwich on her tray and looked directly at Leanne for the first time since sitting down. “This is going to work. I’m certain of it. You just need to trust me.”

Leanne finally had a chance to voice her newfound concern. “But what about your sister? What if they decide they don’t want a bad influence like you hanging around with her?”

“I’m not worried.”

The bell rang. The jumble of chairs scraping against the floor and students talking as they headed off to their next class drowned out what Tasha said next.

“What did you say?” Leanne asked.

Tasha grabbed Leanne’s elbow and steered her towards the bathrooms next to the band-room extension on the side of the high-school building.

“I said, my mother texted me last night. She’s coming back to town.”

Leanne’s reaction was instant. “Okay, we need to stop this. It’s too much. From what you’ve told me, your mother is a nightmare.”

“Let me worry about her, and you focus on your situation, okay?” Tasha opened the bathroom door, and Leanne followed her inside.

“But at the dress store, you said there couldn’t be any distractions. That we had to stay focused.” Leanne felt guilty even as she said it. There was so much on the sidelines of her life she wasn’t telling her best friend.

Tasha went through the stalls, checking underneath to make sure nobody was hiding out on a toilet seat.

“I am focused. There’s nothing new about my mother being a disaster or me spending some time with my little sister.” Tasha rummaged around in her backpack. “I think the lighting in here will be perfect.

She thrust her phone at Leanne. “Put it on the gingham filter. I like how it washes out the color.”

“We need to talk about this more. It’s not worth risking so much.”

Her friend paused in her almost constant movement and looked up at Leanne from where she stood by the white industrial sinks. A faucet dripped in the background.

“You are worth every risk. And more.”

Leanne thought she might cry. She didn’t deserve a friend like Tasha. Not one bit.

“Now hold it horizontal, because I want it to be clear that I’m in the school bathroom.”

Leanne obeyed as Tasha took out a pack of cigarettes and stuck one in her mouth. She pulled out a cheap orange lighter and lit the tip, leaning in towards the camera as she did so.

“Take it now,” she ordered, and Leanne listened to her friend.

A few moments later, Tasha posted it on Instagram.

Below the photo, they added a hashtag. #TagYoureIt.

20

Damien

“I’m coming with you.” Tim opened the garbage bin, threw the broken pieces of glass inside, and closed the lid with a sharp snap. “We can leave as soon as you’re ready.”

“I’ll be fine on my own. You have work. I can’t ask you to drop everything.” Damien wasn’t prepared for all this closeness with his brother. Not without Grace’s calming presence to bring him back to center. Damien couldn’t guarantee what he’d do as the time with his brother extended, and everything from when they were kids crept up to the surface, like the nasty fat congealing on the surface of a clear broth.

Damien didn’t have a chance to read his brother’s reaction. His phone pinged as a text message came in. The flicker of hope that rose in his chest drained as he read the text on his screen.

It wasn’t from Grace. It was from Chloe, her fake mother.

Where are you? I’m at your apartment. There’s a package at the door.

Damien figured it couldn’t simply be something they’d ordered online, or a wedding gift delivered early. Chloe wouldn’t care if those were at their apartment door, and besides, packages at their building were kept at the front desk and the security guard sent an email to the residents to notify them a package had arrived.

His Aunt Sandra was saying something about train times and flights. He’d already worked out in his head that it would be better to drive to Ohio. He’d go crazy sitting in an airport waiting to do something. On the train ride up he’d checked the driving time to Youngstown from Poughkeepsie. Just over seven hours. Less than a day’s driving, easily.

Send a pic, he started to text back. Damien added a please before he hit send.

“Who is it?” Tim asked.

“Is it Grace?” his uncle said at the same time.

Damien ignored them. A picture flashed up on his phone almost immediately.

It was of a small blue box tied with a lighter blue ribbon. Damien recognized the motif instantly: a Tiffany’s box. But he hadn’t ordered anything from the store.

He thought again about Grace’s insistence on a simple gold band for her engagement ring. Even though he’d eyed a ring at Tiffany’s, they’d bought their wedding bands from a family jeweler just around the corner from their apartment. Both rings were in a box on their shared dresser in their bedroom.

Had Grace sent a clue? Damien thought.

Open it, he texted back. All sense of politeness had left him. He needed to know what was inside.

There was a pause, three dots pacing across his screen as he waited for Chloe to finish the message she was typing. And then Chloe’s name flashed up. She was calling him.

Damien answered it with more than a hint of irritation. He needed to see what was inside, not talk to the woman who’d pretended to be Grace’s mother for the last several years.

“What is it? What’s inside?”

“Damien?” Chloe’s voice sounded very far away.

“Yes, yes. What’s going on?” He could barely contain himself. He’d been pacing around the kitchen, his family scattered to the far corners of the room, watching him with frightened expressions on their faces. Except for his uncle, who looked more hopeful than anything.

Damien looked down at his feet because he couldn’t stand looking at anyone right now.

Chloe stammered again. He had never heard her sound so unsure.

A deep pit formed in his stomach. His mind raced to the movie with Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey, where Brad Pitt’s a detective searching for a serial killer. The package that’s delivered ends up being his wife’s head. And so he kills the serial killer, just like the killer had planned all along.

“Tell me,” he said through gritted teeth. He couldn’t believe this was his life.

“Have you spoken to Grace?” she asked.

“What’s in the box, Chloe!” he shouted into the phone. “What is it?”

There was a deep silence, and then he heard the call end.

A moment later, a photo flashed up on his screen. At first, he couldn’t focus his eyes. The colors and shadows didn’t make sense. And then his brain organized itself around what he was seeing, and his mind caught up with his senses.

It was a long lock of hair, bright blonde and braided. The same color as Grace’s hair. Around one end was a white ribbon tied in a looping bow.

Around the other end was a simple gold ring. Damien knew it instantly as Grace’s engagement ring.

Grace’s voice rang in his head from her call earlier. He tried to decide if the voice he heard in the background was a man or a woman.

He’d thought she sounded scared, but maybe it was something else that he’d heard. A command, rather than a plea.

He sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the small crack in the center where the wood had shifted apart between the wet heat of summer and the cold dryness of winter.

Perhaps he’d been thinking about this all wrong.

His illness this morning. The need for Mrs. Treviano to come and stay with him while he was sick. He hadn’t drunk much the night before. He wasn’t hungover—not from alcohol, at least. Someone had drugged him. He was certain of it.

A dangerous thought crept into his mind. He pressed his palms into his eyes, trying to think. A hand touched his back and a chair scraped next to him. He felt, rather than saw, his uncle’s solid presence beside him.

“I’m so sorry,” his uncle said.

Damien realized Mike assumed whatever Chloe had sent him, it confirmed that Grace was hurt or dead.

Damien looked at his uncle, and told him what they all needed to consider, however painful it was.

“I think Grace planned this.”

Tim gave a nervous laugh. Sandra stood still and said nothing.

That box wasn’t a warning, Damien thought. It was a goodbye.

21

Leanne

Leanne spent her free period with Mr. MacDougal, working on her personal essay for the Harvard application. They’d also decided she would apply to SUNY Stony Brook, Notre Dame, Princeton, and University of California, Davis. It seemed like a random smattering of schools, but Mr. MacDougal assured her it was a perfect mixture of competitive Ivy League schools, other prestigious schools, and a reasonable safety school.

“We’ll put the finishing touches on these at our next meeting,” Mr. MacDougal said, tapping the sheets of paper into a pile and handing them back to Leanne. Her eye caught on the top page, which was marked with his distinctive green pen. He’d written his favorite editing phrase next to one paragraph where she’d admittedly meandered and her tone had been wooden. Once more, with feeling! it read. She’d made four different drafts over the last week and a half—one for each school—and her favorite teacher marked each one up in turn. But there were fewer edits draft to draft, and Leanne felt more confident with each version that it was expressing something unique about her to the admissions committees.

She thanked her teacher and set out into the nearly empty hallway to get to her next class a bit early. Tasha was in gym right now. It was the punishment every senior risked for avoiding required physical education classes until their last year.

Leanne took both of her credits in her freshman year. Her mother had insisted, since Leanne was feeling better after her sickness bouts from middle school. As Marian explained to Leanne when she begrudgingly packed her gym-clothes kit, they weren’t sure if or when Leanne would potentially start having health problems again. Leanne should take advantage of her health while she could.

Leanne’s next class was English. They were reading Hamlet. Leanne loved all the Shakespearean tragedies. They made her family seem normal by comparison.

Harvard’s application was due November 1. In theory, Leanne had plenty of time. But, if Tasha’s plan went well, Leanne might not even need the essays.

If. Leanne clocked herself thinking about the potential for her and Tasha to fail, which she shouldn’t be doing.

It was too dangerous to consider what life would be like if the plan didn’t work out. Both their lives after the homecoming dance would be unrecognizable, but if what Tasha was proposing worked then the changes would be good for them both and if it didn’t, then they’d both end up reeling.

Her stomach cramped as she walked. Leanne took a sip from her water bottle. Her mother packed for her again today, with iced tea, an apple, and a sandwich for lunch. Leanne hadn’t wanted the sandwich, which looked slimy with its bologna and yellow cheese. She’d probably buy something in the cafeteria at lunch. Or save her money and not eat at all.

She was thinking about Tasha, and homecoming, and her father’s face when he came into her room last night when he thought she was sleeping and stared at her for longer than usual, when she collided with another student in the hallway.

Her bookbag fell off her shoulder, and the papers she’d stowed away with Mr. MacDougal’s careful green-inked edits flew across the linoleum.

“I’m sorry,” the boy she’d bumped into said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Leanne looked up from her tousled belongings and found herself staring at Greg, her freshman homecoming date. They’d been in different classes, different extracurriculars, for the last three years. Their school was big enough for her to go through years without seeing a bulk of her classmates. She hadn’t been this close to him in a long time, and she noticed immediately that his face had lost its boyish softness. His jaw was firm and there was the shadow of a beard across it. His dark hair fell into his eyes as he helped her pick up her belongings.

“It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention either.” Leanne stood up, wondering if he even recognized her.

He looked at her full-on and gave her a smile. “Can you believe it’s senior year already?”

Greg did recognize her.

“Time waits for no one,” Leanne replied. It was a favorite saying of her father’s.

Greg passed the papers back to her. Their hands touched briefly. He cleared his throat. “It was nice seeing you, Leanne.”

“It was nice seeing you, too.”

He walked away, but not without looking back over his shoulder once, and meeting Leanne’s eyes as he did.

Afterward, in her new life, Leanne would wish that she’d waited just a few more seconds in Mr. MacDougal’s room. Maybe then, the night of the homecoming dance might not have ended up deadly.

22

Damien

The drive to Youngstown, Ohio, took precisely seven hours and twenty-three minutes. Damien knew because he’d set a timer on his watch, counting down from eight hours. Mental boundaries helped him with lots of things. It was a trick he’d learned from his school guidance counselor—the one at the high school in Poughkeepsie, after he and Tim moved there following his parents’ deaths. Achievable goals. Concrete limits.

It was a small victory, getting to Ohio in less time than he’d expected.

It was the middle of the night when he arrived off Interstate 80, and he got a room at one of the cheap hotels off the freeway. He slept for maybe a few hours, fitfully and checking his phone what seemed like every thirty minutes as he tossed and turned, although there were no further calls or texts from Grace. At 5.30am, he rose and took a shower, packed up his meagre bag of belongings, and drove to the parking lot of The Vindicator newspaper in downtown Youngstown. In the early morning light, the city looked burnished, but as he drove down Wick Avenue he saw boarded windows, ragged edges of sidewalks choked with weeds, and vacant lots. Youngstown seemed to have its own struggles, but Damien wasn’t here for them. Whether Grace was running from someone, or she was purposefully trying to leave her life with Damien, he needed to either find Grace or find out who his fiancée really was, and going to the source of what had seemed to set Grace’s disappearance in motion was the only place he felt he could start.

He’d stopped at a bustling Dunkin’ Donuts on the side of Market Street to get a massive cup of black coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. He had no appetite but needed the caffeine to keep going after driving most of last night and sleeping little, and the food to settle his nerves and keep him from seeming too strung out at the newspaper’s office.

A text from his brother came in. Before Damien left his aunt and uncle’s house, he’d changed the settings on his phone to have different notifications depending on who was calling. Tim got a low tone, Mike and Sandra both had the little tweet sound, since Damien couldn’t think of anything else that suited, and Grace got the siren. So did unknown numbers. He didn’t want to miss anything from Grace again.

Chloe had another sound, which he couldn’t remember. He’d recognize it when he heard it.

Did you get there ok? Tim asked.

Damien sent a group text to his family and Chloe, telling them he was in Youngstown and he’d keep them posted with any updates. He felt it went without saying that they should get in touch if they heard from Grace.

The Vindicator building was low and flat, with beige siding. It was flanked by a parking lot on one side, which branched onto the Mahoning River. He knew the name of the river because of a large sign posted near a footpath that led to the river’s edge from the parking lot.

He tried the door to the building, but the lights were off and the door was locked. Not surprising, since it was just barely past 7am. Damien’s car—which was really his aunt’s car that he’d borrowed for the trip—was the only one in the parking lot. He followed the towpath down to the river and dialed Grace’s number again.

Nothing. Just the recording that announced her number was no longer in service.

He looked around the water’s edge. An old tire floated along the side. A stack of leaflets for a band had been scattered around in the trees and in the grass growing along the water’s edge. There was a man, standing in waders, in the center of the river about a half-mile down from Damien. He seemed to be fishing, and when he caught sight of Damien, he turned his back and faced in the opposite direction.

Damien waited, counting down the minutes until he thought the building might open at 8am. He hoped and prayed that some of the reporters were early risers. Or that the staff for the paper ran on early business hours.

He opened his phone and scanned the photo of the box with Grace’s lock of hair and engagement ring. He wondered if they could get it tested for fingerprints. He wondered if Chloe was already doing that, although he stopped himself because that would mean involving the police. More than they already were, asking after Grace’s work at Rhineholt.

He tapped his foot and wished he’d drunk less coffee. Damien’s eyes burned from stress and lack of sleep. The newspaper article was tucked into his messenger bag hanging from his shoulder. He didn’t need to look at it again. He had the names memorized.

Finally, he heard the crunch of gravel up above as a car pulled into the lot. Footsteps and the metallic click of a door being unlatched followed.

He walked briskly up the path and rounded the top of the hill. A woman with short gray hair and a red lunch bag in her hand was entering the building. Damien resisted the urge to call out to her. He knew what he looked like with his bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothes.

And she was a woman, seemingly alone in a building.

Grace’s face came into his mind, and a desperation just to know that she was okay threatened to overwhelm him.

The lights were on behind the glass door as he approached, which he felt was a good sign. He pulled the door to open it, but it caught on the lock. He couldn’t go in.

He knocked on the door, softly, and then louder.

Nobody came.

He started to call out, asking for help. Saying he needed someone to help him, then screaming it. He was lost, he needed to find his fiancée, he told the gray-haired woman, who was now looking at him from behind a front counter. Her eyes were wide, her brow creased.

He begged her to let him in.

“You need to leave,” she said. Her voice was calmer than Damien expected.

Damien reached into his bag and pulled out the newspaper clipping. He pressed it to the glass as way of explanation. “I need to find her,” he explained.

“I can’t help you. You need to leave. Sleep it off,” the woman said. Her hands moved below her, but they were underneath the counter and Damien couldn’t tell what she was doing.

“You don’t understand.” Damien forced himself to breathe. The frustration was like a wave crushing him. His life was hurtling out of control, and the only way he felt he could stop it was to get inside this building and talk to someone about what they knew.

“I need to talk to Victoria Hoover. She can help me find my fiancée.” He tapped the glass, making an angry tattoo that vibrated into the doorframe.

The woman froze. “Get out of here.” Her consonants snapped across the space between them.

Damien repeated the name of the reporter whose byline was attached to the article. “Victoria Hoover.”

From under the counter she pulled her phone and dialed a number.

She turned as she spoke, but Damien could still hear what she was saying, and the shame came instantly, followed by regret.

“I need the police.”

23

Leanne

“Greg asked me to go to homecoming with him.” Leanne walked with Tasha out to the parking lot after school.

“What do you mean? When?” Tasha shifted her backpack to her other shoulder. “I just saw you at lunch.”

“He texted me during last period.”

His name flashed up on Leanne’s phone while Ms. Huberty went over the importance of the Treaty of Versailles.

Will you go to homecoming with me?

It was so polite and well-worded, just like Leanne remembered Greg from freshman year when he’d ask to walk her from geometry class to freshman English.

“What did you reply?” Tasha’s face was crowded with thought. Leanne was worried she’d be angry when she heard, although she hadn’t told her the worst part yet.

“I haven’t replied yet.” A group of boys rushed past them on their way to the parking lot. They all wore red jerseys for the football team. A few of them apologized as they bumped past. Leanne recognized one from her English class. He’d read the part of Hamlet in class that day.

Leanne swallowed hard. “But I wanted to say yes.”

“Oh. You did?” Tasha met her friend’s eyes. Leanne didn’t see a trace of anger. Tasha also didn’t look worried. A brightness clung to her face that Leanne hadn’t expected.

“We saw each other today, in the hallway between classes. He helped me pick up my books.” She didn’t feel the need to mention he’d run into her first, and that was why she’d dropped them.

“This might be really good, actually.” Tasha started walking away from the crowds of students and line of cars waiting to exit the school parking lot, heading towards the path that led to Leanne’s neighborhood. It was an extension of the trail they’d run on last week, when Leanne’s father had tracked them down.

Leanne ran a few paces to catch up. Tasha kept talking.

“You’d have a witness. If you went to homecoming with Greg, and he was there when it… when everything happens, and he sees what you do, it could be the perfect way to confirm our story.” Tasha stared ahead intently. The bracelets on her left wrist jingled as she walked. The sun beat down, and Leanne noticed a bead of sweat tracing its way down Tasha’s left arm from underneath the Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt she wore today.

Leanne’s head spun at Tasha’s statement. A pair of girls walked by. They were petite, dressed in matching jean skirts and Abercrombie & Fitch crew-necks. Leanne was conscious of them overhearing her and Tasha’s conversation. “But we weren’t really going to do it,” she replied in a half whisper. “It was just going to seem like it happened. It’s too dangerous otherwise.”

Tasha stopped suddenly next to a huge thistle sprouting on the side of the trail. The pair of girls passed out of earshot. They were alone again.

“No, it’s not. I’d been worried about people believing me. But if we have Greg, with his reputation⁠—”

“It’s not just his reputation,” Leanne cut in automatically. “He really is the nicest person.”

“That’s fine, I’m not arguing with that. What I’m saying is that people trust him. They believe him. With me, even before I started this thing, I wasn’t the star example of a ‘good person.’”

It hurt Leanne’s heart to hear that. “But you are the best kind of person,” she countered.

Tasha gave a tired smile. “Thanks. I know you like me. But other people don’t. Teachers, classmates, social workers. They see the easiest story available to them, which is a teenage girl with a messed-up family, weird clothes, and a bad attitude.”

“What about Coach Woodburn?” Leanne couldn’t let this go. Tasha needed to know that people saw her as more than a two-dimensional stereotype.

Tasha waved her hand as if swatting at a mosquito. They were almost to Leanne’s street. Ms. Miller’s split-level loomed up on the horizon.

“It’s fine, Leanne. We don’t need to keep talking about it.”

“But you’re doing so much to help me, and I can’t just stand around and have you think all these bad things about yourself.”

“I don’t think them. They’re what other people think, which I couldn’t care less about.” Tasha paused, her mind working. “Except for on Saturday night. Then it’s going to matter what people think about you, and me. That’s why having Greg there will be so helpful.”

Leanne let them walk a few paces before she replied. “So, I should text him back and accept?”

“Yes,” Tasha said. She nodded her head in confirmation.

They’d turned to Leanne’s house. Leanne punched her code into the keypad and opened the front door. Tasha hesitated on the doorstep, and when Leanne didn’t invite her in she made an excuse about getting home to see what mess her mother had made of the trailer and walked off with a gentle touch on Leanne’s right arm as a goodbye.

Leanne stepped into the house, which was cool and quiet compared to outside.

A voice came from the kitchen, where everything seemed to happen in her family these days. “I don’t like you spending time with that girl.”

Her mother emerged from the kitchen. Marian’s face looked drawn and there were deep creases under her eyes. Leanne wondered if her mother had slept the night before.

“She’s dangerous,” her mother continued.

Leanne didn’t bother responding. It was exactly what she and Tasha wanted her parents to think.

24

Damien

“I’m sorry you’ve been waiting so long.” The officer was young, Damien would guess in her early twenties, with freckles across her nose and thick dark hair pulled back in a high ponytail. She took a key from her vest and unlocked the handcuff keeping Damien seated at a high-backed wooden chair.

The politeness caught Damien’s attention. He’d been sitting in the front area of the Youngstown police station for what felt like hours, waiting for someone to tell him he could leave. The lack of sleep was catching up to him, and his memory blurred slightly as he recalled the events that led to him riding in the back of a police car.

“The officers you encountered are new to the force,” she continued explaining. Damien wondered how long she’d been a police officer, and what ‘new to the force’ might mean. “They should have never brought you in, let alone handcuffed you.” She offered a polite smile and held a clipboard towards him.

Damien reflexively rubbed his wrist where the cuff had been cinched. He hadn’t wanted to leave the Vindicator office. Not without some answers, at least. The woman behind the counter became increasingly upset as he talked—pleaded, perhaps yelled a little—at her. By the time the officers arrived, she was screaming at Damien and he had his hands gripped into fists. Perhaps raised up above his head. He couldn’t remember. All he could think about was finding Grace, and how that woman was standing in his way of the only lead he had.

“What’s this?” he asked, gesturing to the clipboard.

“It’s a waiver, stating you won’t issue a formal complaint for the officers’ misstep today.” She tilted her head slightly to the left and waited.

Damien took it from her and signed his name at the bottom. He didn’t bother reading it. He needed to figure out what he would do next in his search for Grace.

“Thank you.” She put the clipboard behind her on the desk. The officer pressed her lips together in a thin line, and then seemed to come to a silent decision. “You’re looking for your fiancée?”

Damien’s phone beeped. He knew by the tone it was his uncle. “I think she was involved in a fire. There was an article in The Vindicator.”

He stared at the double wooden doors at the far right of the room. A plain-clothes officer stepped through on his way somewhere. The gun at his hip glinted in the fluorescent lights.

“Which fire? We haven’t had one recently, that I can recall.” The thin line of her mouth returned.

“It was quite a few years ago,” Damien said absently. He stood up.

There was a pressure on his arm. He looked down. The young officer’s hand held him back.

“Do you mean the Crosby fire?” she asked.

Something caught in the back of his mind, an energy that started to hum. It might have been the caffeine overload, or the after-effects of whatever Grace—or someone else, he still wasn’t sure—had drugged him with, or the crippling exhaustion. But Damien thought it could also be hope.

“Yes, back in 2012.” Damien pictured the masthead on the newspaper clipping. It was tucked into his messenger bag, which he’d left in his car at the Vindicator lot.

“A teenage girl died.” The officer’s dark-brown eyes softened.

The realization hit Damien instantly. He looked at the young woman’s face, trying to see similarities. The newspaper article hadn’t mentioned a sister, but perhaps if she turned her head just so he could see a resemblance…

His thoughts were interrupted by her next statement.

“I remember, because it was the same night my sister disappeared.”

Damien tried to think through what this new revelation might mean about Grace’s disappearance, but he couldn’t force anything bright through the sludge clouding his brain.

“What’s your sister’s name?” he managed.

“Tasha,” she replied solemnly. “Tasha Henderson.” And then, almost as an afterthought. “She was seventeen years old.”

25

Leanne

She texted Greg back that evening, before dinner.

Yes, I’d like to go to homecoming with you.

Leanne thought about saying ‘love’ instead of ‘like’ and adding a heart emoji at the end, but decided it was too much. Over chicken and mushroom casserole, her father made it clear it was good Leanne had kept her message as bland as possible.

“You’re going to the dance this Saturday with that boy?” he asked, spooning a mouthful of casserole into his mouth before almost spitting it out. The casserole was steaming, just out of the oven. He took a quick sip of iced water. “I don’t want just any boy going out with my only daughter.”

“He’s a friend,” Leanne replied.

She didn’t bother asking how he knew Greg had asked her to the dance. There was no pretense anymore that her parents couldn’t read everything Leanne did on her phone.

“I think it’s wonderful,” her mother said. She took a sip of white wine from the delicate glass at her place on the table.

Leanne noticed a slight tremble in her mother’s hand as she held her fork up with a lone noodle on it. She took a hesitant bite, wrapping her teeth around the fork tines first as though she couldn’t stand the thought of putting calories into her body that weren’t liquid.

Marian smiled. “We’ll need to get you a dress.”

“I have the one I wore in my freshman year.” Leanne pictured it. Green chiffon with sequins sewn around the sweetheart neckline. It should still fit her. She hadn’t grown much since middle school when her period stopped coming for a few years. Her mother said it was a side effect of Leanne’s sickness.

Leanne had looked up symptoms of anxiety disorders on her phone once, and it said on one of the websites that anxiety can affect appetite, and menstrual cycles too as a result. That had been years ago, though, and she wasn’t sure if her parents had been tracking her phone then.

Probably.

“No, no. You wore that with him last time.” Marian slurred the last two words together. Lashhtime. “You need a new dress. I’ll take you after dinner.”

She’d never seen her mother like this at dinner. Usually Marian drank throughout the evening to keep what Leanne assumed was a steadying buzz, not in gulps before and during dinner.

Leanne looked to Gene, but he kept his eyes locked on Marian. She gave him a little shake of her head. He took another bite of casserole and cleared his throat. “If that’s what you’d like to do, sweetheart, I think that’s a great idea. There’s cash in my wallet.”

Marian wiped her mouth with a napkin, ignoring Gene’s comment. Leanne had no idea what she was wiping at, as she’d eaten barely anything. “We’ll go to that boutique in the center of town. I know we’ll find something.” Her mother took another sip of wine. Her portion of casserole sat like beige sludge on Marian’s plate.

Leanne was hungry and ate her entire portion in four or five bites. All the running had been amping up her appetite, which was hard because the waves of nausea would come over her still when she least expected it. Tonight, she ate because she was hungry, but also because it kept her hands and mouth busy.

Her father finally looked at Leanne from across the table.

“Leanne will drive,” he announced.

“Yes, chauffeur me,” her mother said. She stood from the table and cleared the plates away. She walked into the kitchen, surprisingly steady on her feet for how much she was slurring her speech.

As soon as Marian was through to the kitchen, Gene leaned over the table and whispered to Leanne, “Do whatever she wants. Let her buy you whichever dress she wants to.”

Leanne couldn’t believe the urgency in her dad’s voice. “Okay. But I don’t understand. Why does that matter so much?”

“Just do it,” he said. “Your mother is having a hard time lately, and I think this will make her feel better.” He paused, listening for sounds from the kitchen. The water went on from the sink. Her mother was starting on the dishes.

“I need to get in there and help,” Gene said. “But I’m going to take your mother out for a nice dinner on Saturday night, while you’re at the homecoming dance. Maybe help her find a new dress she could wear when you go shopping tonight? Do you think she’d like that?”

Leanne stood to follow him into the kitchen. “No, no.” He waved her away. “You go get ready to leave. I’ll take over for your mother and get this all cleaned up. My wallet’s on the windowsill by the front door.”

Gene had a frantic look to him that Leanne had seen one other time, when he’d spoken to her in his office before going to the bank.

There was the distinctive pop from the kitchen of a wine bottle being opened.

Leanne waited by the front door, keys in hand. Her mother appeared a few minutes later. She didn’t smell of wine, but she took an extra-long time slipping her jacket and shoes on.

“We’re going to get something extra special for our Lulu.”

When they got home almost two hours later, her mother had a sleek little black dress that cost two hundred dollars to hang up in her closet for Saturday.

Leanne had the dress Tasha couldn’t buy on their first shopping trip. Bright pink, with sparkles and a flared skirt. It was great luck that it was still there at the store, and no one had come to snatch it up.

But she hadn’t bought it for Tasha.

Leanne took it out of its thin plastic covering and held it up to herself in the dresser’s mirror.

She’d bought it for herself.

26

Damien

They were sitting in Plaza Donuts around the corner from the police station. Everything in the café, the sign included, looked about sixty years old. Officer Henderson nibbled on a chocolate frosted donut. Damien cautiously sipped another cup of black coffee. His leg bounced up and down underneath the plastic table they were seated at, and for a moment Damien missed his brother intensely.

Officer Henderson—although she told him to call her Jordan—had suggested they meet at the donut shop when her shift finished thirty minutes later. She’d been on all night but was shifting to day-turn later in the week.

“Three on, three off,” she said now, taking a larger bite of her donut. “I’m coming off seventy-two hours straight, pretty much, although it’s supposed to only be twelve hours at a time.”

“I’m sorry,” Damien said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say and he wanted Officer Henderson to keep talking.

“I’m not looking for your pity,” she said with a gentle laugh. “What I mean is that I’ll have time these next few days to help you look into the Crosby case—unofficially, of course—if you want my help.”

Damien assured her he wanted as much help as he could get. He gave a brief summary of the circumstances that brought him to Youngstown, including Grace’s sudden disappearance, Chloe’s admission that she wasn’t related to Grace, and his phone call with Grace where it sounded like she was being attacked by someone. Carefully, he pulled out the newspaper clipping and showed it to her.

Jordan pushed aside her half-eaten donut and her cup of cooling coffee. She stared at the clipping and the Post-it note still attached. Tag. You’re it.

“I remember this photo.” She tapped her finger against the photograph of Leanne, who was Grace. Or vice versa—Grace was really Leanne. “There was no mention of my sister in the paper that day, or the days after. Nobody cared she was gone.”

Damien’s instinct was to say how sorry he was again but he stopped himself.

“So you think your fiancée is really Leanne, all grown up?”

“Yes.” Damien pulled out his phone and showed Jordan several recent photos he had of Grace. Looking at strawberries at the farmers’ market. Smiling while she cooked dinner one night, her hair pulled back into a messy bun and her green eyes sparkling. The two of them all dressed up at a real estate party a few weeks ago, surrounded by candlelight on the terrace of some expensive hotel Rhineholt had rented out.

Jordan stared intently at the photos. Her face remained blank. Damien imagined her sitting across from murderers and rapists with the same impassive expression, and it immediately occurred to him she might be assessing him the same way. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. There wasn’t time to worry about why she was helping him. She wanted to help him find Grace—that’s all that mattered.

Jordan’s eyes met his. “I believe that’s the same person.”

Ignoring all the other unanswered questions, he asked the one that mattered the most to him. “How do we find her?”

But Jordan wasn’t allowing it. “If she didn’t die in the fire, then who did?”

She sat perfectly still for a moment. Suddenly, she stood up from the table and jogged toward the door. Damien was still sitting, looking on like an uncoordinated little boy, when she turned to him. “Are you coming?”

He didn’t risk the time it took to respond. He leapt up and followed her out the door. It was in the seat of her beat-up blue Honda Civic—his borrowed car was still in the Vindicator parking lot—that he finally asked where they were going.

“To my apartment. I have the case file on my work laptop, but I don’t want to view it with you in public. It’s technically not allowed.”

The wording caught Damien’s attention. “You can access it from your laptop?” he clarified.

“I’ve been studying it for years. Trying to find my sister.”

Damien felt like an idiot. His phone gave a distinctive beep in his pocket. It was Chloe texting him.

I’m coming to Ohio, it said.

Damien watched the meagre downtown skyline of Youngstown grow smaller from the window. The brownfields underneath the highway were scarred with rusted metal structures.

“And then after my apartment we’re going to Canfield to see Gene and Marian Crosby.” Jordan clicked her turn signal and eased onto I-680 from downtown Youngstown.

“Have you talked with them before?”

“I used to live with them.” She cast a sideways glance his way. “So yeah, we’ve talked.”

27

Leanne

“Let’s get dressed together,” Tasha said over lunch the next day. “You can come over to my place and we’ll meet Greg at the dance from there.”

Leanne still hadn’t told her best friend that she bought the dress. She hadn’t told her about Marian’s intensifying drinking problem either, although Tasha seemed to know more about Leanne’s family than Leanne ever told her. That’s in part what made Tasha such a good friend: she noticed things other people didn’t. She paid attention.

Which was why Leanne was nervous to tell her about the dress.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should just meet at the dance. My parents will want to take pictures of Greg and me.”

Leanne wasn’t sure that was true, but it was a good stall for the time being. She thought about how upset Tasha had been in the dress boutique when Leanne had offered to buy the dress for her. This was different, obviously—Leanne’s mom had bought the dress for Leanne—but she was still worried Tasha would see it as a sign of weakness in Leanne and cancel their plans.

“Okay. We can meet at your house, but we won’t have as much privacy there.” Tasha scanned the cafeteria as though looking for someone. It was the largest room in the school, with at least thirty long tables full of students from all four grades of the high school. It’d be easy to miss the fact that someone shared the same lunch. “Does Greg have this lunch period?”

Leanne unpacked the bag her mom placed in her hands this morning as she left for school. Another smoothie, still cool in the thermos. A granola bar, an apple, and a turkey sandwich. Leanne’s stomach growled.

She’d felt sick last night again after they returned from the store, and she hadn’t eaten breakfast as a result of her lingering nausea. Leanne took a bite of her sandwich. The skin of a tomato caught in her teeth, and she sucked at it with her lips closed, trying to dislodge it. She took a big swig of her smoothie. It tasted of banana and blueberries.

“I don’t know.”

“Text him.”

“I don’t want to bother him.” Leanne glanced up from her lunch at Tasha. They looked at each other for a beat before something or someone else caught Tasha’s eye, but Leanne was certain her friend had understood her.

She didn’t like texting on her phone more than she had to.

“I’ll text him,” Tasha offered.

“Why do you need to text him?” A slight irritation pricked the back of Leanne’s neck, but she pushed it down.

“It’d be easier to make plans for homecoming with him here.” Tasha gave a weak smile, which was replaced quickly by a tensing in her jaw. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Leanne said too quickly.

“Hey Leanne,” a male voice said from behind her, interrupting them.

It was Greg, holding a tray with soggy chips and a plain burger. Following Leanne’s eyes to his tray, he explained, “I slept in and didn’t have time to pack a lunch. Looks delicious, huh?” He laughed.

Tasha gazed at him with an expression of doubt mixed with kindness. “I’m Tasha,” she said, holding out her right hand. The metal bangles she wore jangled when she moved her arm.

Greg set his tray down on the table next to Leanne and gave what appeared to be a very firm handshake. Leanne felt as though he were meeting her parents. It gave her an odd flutter in her stomach.

“We were just talking about you,” Tasha said as soon as Greg settled himself into the seat next to Leanne.

“Oh?” Greg seemed pleasantly surprised.

“Would you want to meet at my place before homecoming? We could all get ready together?” Tasha explained.

Leanne felt the urge to kick her friend under the table. She didn’t want to get dressed and do her hair with Greg there.

Greg gave a nervous chuckle. “I think my parents will probably want me to get ready at home. They’re kind of old-fashioned that way.”

“Okay.” Tasha had clearly been expecting that answer. “Then you can pick us both up at 6pm on Saturday.”

Greg shot a glance at Leanne. She nodded. “From Tasha’s house. We’re getting ready together over there. My parents are going out that evening, so they won’t be taking pictures or anything.”

Tasha gave Leanne a searching look, but Leanne ignored her. She’d explain later why she’d acted like her parents would be home when Tasha had asked her before. Or hopefully Tasha would forget and she wouldn’t have to explain.

Leanne wasn’t counting on it, though.

Tasha put her address into Greg’s phone. Along with her number, Leanne noticed.

The bell rang. Tasha had only sipped from a Diet Coke all lunch period. Leanne had a bit of smoothie left.

“See you later.” Greg gave a half-wave as he headed off to class. He said it to them both, which Leanne didn’t mind. Not really.

“Are we still running together after school?” Tasha asked as she chugged the rest of her drink and threw the can into the recycling bin behind her.

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom. Make sure to check your phone in about five minutes.”

Tasha didn’t wait for a reply before she walked behind the white-tiled entrance to the bathroom at the edge of the cafeteria. Leanne didn’t bother reminding Tasha she’d be late for class. Like everything else they’d been doing lately, that was Tasha’s plan.

In calculus class several minutes later, Leanne gave a quick glance at Instagram from her phone. There was a photo posted by Tasha, like she’d expected. But when Leanne saw it, she made a noise between a cry and a gasp. Her teacher, the kindly Ms. Matthison, offered a concerned look before turning back to the equation she was writing on the marker board.

The photo showed Tasha’s face, with her arm bare and the bracelets removed.

No caption this time. But there was blood. So much blood.

28

Damien

They’d stopped by Jordan’s apartment, which was a nondescript duplex on a cul-de-sac about fifteen minutes away from the police station. Jordan went inside and came back with her laptop, shoving it onto Damien in the passenger seat.

“We’ll look through that later,” Jordan said, gesturing to her computer. It was heavy and thick, maybe ten years old if Damien had to guess.

“So, you used to live with the Crosbys?” Damien asked.

“After their daughter died in the fire and my sister disappeared, they applied to be foster parents and I needed a place to stay.” Jordan shook her head as she drove. “It’s really not that complicated.”

“But it is a strange coincidence.” Damien glanced out the window. It had started to rain. They pulled to a stop-light off the freeway and when he looked over, Jordan’s eyes were on him.

“I suppose it is.” Her face appeared neutral, but Damien thought he caught something else in the rigid set of her jaw. He noted again the spray of freckles on the tip of her nose. Her cheekbones were high and sharp.

He missed Grace.

Chloe was arriving in the evening, on a flight into Cleveland. She told him she’d rent a car and drive the hour down to Youngstown. Damien didn’t even have a place to stay tonight. His car was still parked at the Vindicator. He had to tell Chloe to meet him at the police station in Youngstown, because he wasn’t sure where else to tell her. He couldn’t suggest the Vindicator parking lot.

Jordan continued. “I’m not as close to them anymore. Things became…” Jordan paused, considering her words. They turned off the main street they were on, which was bloated with suburban sprawl. A Panera Bread sat squished next to a hardware store, a Sheetz gas station, and a Giant Eagle.

The side road quickly became fields. A few houses were scattered along both sides, each separated by green yards that were massive in comparison to the ones Damien was used to in Poughkeepsie.

“Became what?”

“They became unbearable.” Jordan kept her eyes on the road.

They came to a four-way stop in the center of a wide field.

“How much further is it?” he asked.

“A few more miles.”

“It must have been hard being a teenager and living so far away from town.” Damien’s aunt and uncle lived in a busy neighborhood, with the high school and middle school both within walking distance. Damien and Tim could walk to the library, or the pool, or three different parks.

Not that they did much of that while they were finishing high school. But they could have. The further Jordan drove towards the Crosbys, the more isolated each home seemed to become.

“There were a lot of things that were hard about it. They were grieving. I was grieving. We both lost our homes—theirs to fire, and me because I couldn’t control myself after Tasha went missing. My foster family didn’t want an angry, grieving kid living with them. It wasn’t particularly the recipe for a happy home life.”

“But their daughter didn’t die in the fire. She moved to New York, changed her name, and created an entirely new life.” Damien twisted his fingers around themselves. The pressure on his knuckles felt good.

“They recovered a body. It was female.”

“But did they ID it as Leanne Crosby? I mean,” Damien’s mind raced through the little information he knew from watching crime shows on Netflix with Grace some evenings, “did they find her DNA?”

Jordan flicked her chin towards the laptop Damien held. “The parents gave a positive ID of the body. And Leanne was gone. There wasn’t any need for DNA testing.”

Damien’s head spun. “But didn’t anyone think it was strange that your sister went missing the same night? Why didn’t anyone check?”

“Because Leanne was from a respectable family, and she was headed to Harvard, and nobody could believe she’d leave all that potential behind her. It made more sense as a terrible tragedy. On the other hand, my sister was from the trailer park everyone in town considered an eyesore, with a drug addict, absent mom and a bad reputation.”

“I’m sorry,” Damien said. And he was.

“Plus, Tasha had been posting things online that made it seem like she was going to do something extreme.”

“What kind of things?”

“I’ll show you. It’s hard to explain.” Jordan turned down a gravel driveway. A mailbox sat on the end with its lid gaping open. Tree branches closed in around the top of the drive, blocking the light that made it through the cloud cover. “It was on her Instagram account.”

“Do you think it was your sister’s body they found?”

“I thought it could be.”

“Why would the Crosbys lie?”

“I don’t know. When I lived with them, there was always something off between Gene and Marian. And of course, there was the money.”

“What money?” Damien asked. But shoving that to the side was another question, one that even twenty-four hours ago would have been impossible for him to consider.

“Do you think Grace—er, Leanne—killed your sister?”

“I don’t know. Tasha’s last Instagram post hinted that she might have set the fire. It’s possible it got out of control before she could get out safely.”

“Why would your sister do that?”

“I have no idea. She always tried to take care of me, even when I was in foster care. She’d visit, call, write me letters. I had no clue she was getting into trouble, not like what she was posting on her social media accounts. So, yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

The car pulled through the tree cover into a clearing. It came to a stop at a one-story shotgun house with green shutters and cream siding. A large hydrangea bloomed on the side of the gravel drive. A red pickup truck was parked underneath a car port along the side of the house. “Looks like someone’s home.”

Jordan turned to Damien as she put the car in park. A screen door snapped shut. Damien looked up to see the man and woman from the newspaper clipping standing on the cement steps and shielding their eyes from sunshine that wasn’t there.

“Jordan, is that you?” the woman called.

Jordan ignored them. She kept her eyes on Damien. “Leanne was my sister’s best friend. If Tasha was killed because she was helping Leanne, either something horrible happened that night that made Leanne run away and become Grace…”

“Or?” Damien prompted, already coming to the second option, but wanting Jordan to say it instead of him.

“Or your fiancée is a sociopath who’d hurt anyone to get what she wants.”

“Grace wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Damien said automatically. Even as the words came out, he thought of how sick he was yesterday. How Grace might have drugged him to keep him out of her way.

Jordan gripped the handle on her door. “You sure about that?” She stepped out of the car and waved at the couple.

No, Damien realized, blood pounding in his ears. I’m not.

29

Leanne

Tasha wanted to run after school, but Leanne told her it was insane to train after what she’d seen on Tasha’s Instagram.

“You cut yourself,” Leanne said as soon as she was with Tasha in the parking lot after school. She reached out to take hold of Tasha’s fingers and gently pushed back the stack of bracelets on Tasha’s wrist. Hiding underneath was an Ace bandage wrapped tight, a ribbon of red lashing the fabric. “You’re still bleeding.”

“Stop it.” Tasha yanked her arm away from Leanne. She glanced around at their classmates. A few turned their heads towards the two girls, but most of them were absorbed in their friends or their phones. “It’s no big deal. I’m doing what we planned.”

Leanne pulled her friend towards the pathway home. “You weren’t supposed to cut yourself,” she half-whispered. Anger and fear swirled in her chest. Part of her wanted to slam Tasha against the concrete wall lining the side of the high-school building and another part wanted to hug her. “This is going too far.”

“No.” Tasha walked up ahead. Her slender legs seemed longer in the jean shorts she was wearing. Her well-worn Nirvana T-shirt looked pale green in the summer light. Leanne had to sprint after her friend.

“What do you mean, ‘No’?” Leanne asked.

“I mean that your situation at home is messed up. Seriously messed up. And me cutting myself a little is nothing compared to what you’re dealing with from your parents.”

Something cracked inside Leanne at those words. Seriously messed up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know your Dad stalks you, and that you have no privacy. Your mom has some weird obsession with your health.” Tasha paused and looked out across the field on the right side of the pathway. Leanne kept her distance. A few birds sat on the rickety fence that edged the field. “I know you’re scared of them.”

Leanne didn’t know what to say. She’d never had her life compressed into such a dense bundle of awful things before. She swallowed hard.

“I’m not scared of them.” Even to her own ears, Leanne sounded like a child.

“Well, you should be. So let me help you.” Tasha slowed her steps and waited for Leanne to come up alongside her.

Leanne’s hands were still clenched. She dug her nails into her palms before she spoke. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“You need to trust me.”

Leanne looked into her friend’s eyes, which were calm and cool. Tasha’s bracelets were back down, covering her bandage.

“I trust you,” Leanne said, ignoring the voice in her head repeating that other word.

Hurt. Hurt. Hurt.

At home, Leanne heard her mother before she saw her. Her footsteps in the master bedroom thudded on the ceiling of the living room as Leanne punched in her code at the front door and stepped inside.

“How was your day?” Her mother was perched at the top of the stairs, holding a bundle of used towels in her hands. Leanne stared up at her from the bottom step. The fire poker gleamed in the waning afternoon light by the fireplace. The kitchen smelled of fresh baked bread, and Leanne’s mouth watered.

“My friend, Tasha, said something interesting today.”

“Oh, what was that?” Her mother gave a watery smile. Leanne could smell the wine on her breath from the bottom of the stairs. That was new. She took a step towards Marian, and then another.

She reached out and gripped the fire poker in her left hand, behind her. Leanne knew her mother couldn’t see what was coming.

Leanne took another step, then a few more until she was at the top of the stairs. She stood close enough so the red veins around the greens of Marian’s eyes were visible.

“She said that my family was seriously messed up.”

Leanne watched as the flicker of fear crossed her mother’s face. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this. Leanne raised the fire poker and brought the flat edge of its bar down onto Marian’s shoulder with a satisfying thud.

Marian cried out in pain.

“She knew things about my family that I’d never told her. Like that you’re worried about my health? No. Actually, the word she used was ‘obsessed.’”

“I, no…” Her mother shook her head. When their eyes met, another emotion had replaced the fear on her mother’s face. Leanne couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was pride.

Marian stood up tall and straightened her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said, defiant.

Leanne tightened her grip on the poker. Marian’s eyes shifted to the weapon in Leanne’s hands.

“Who have you been talking to, Mother?”

30

Damien

“It’s good to see you,” Marian said, stepping closer to give Jordan a hug. Gene stood alongside his wife, slightly disheveled in cargo shorts and a T-shirt that slouched off his shoulders. He offered a scrutinous look to Damien but didn’t reach to touch Jordan or offer Damien his hand.

Jordan leaned into the hug. “It’s good to see you too.” She rested her chin on Marian’s shoulder for a heartbeat, and then shifted back. “This is Damien.”

No explanation for his presence was offered, so Damien filled it in himself. “I’m from New York. I’m looking…”

But Jordan cut him off, taking control of the conversation. “He’s looking for his fiancée. It’s a complicated story. We should go inside to talk.” She walked to the front door of the home and let herself in. Damien moved to follow her but felt a hand on his shoulder as he turned towards the front walkway.

“You’re welcome in our home,” Marian said. Streaks of gray wove themselves through her hair. The day was warm, but Marian wore a long-sleeved striped shirt tucked into high-waisted jeans. “But I don’t want any trouble.” She glanced at her husband, who looked away. “We’ve had enough of that already for one lifetime.”

Damien didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

The three of them proceeded into the house, which was small and tidy. A beige carpet covered the floor beyond a small rectangle of tiles that allowed guests to wipe their feet by the front door. The living room led into a small kitchen. Damien assumed the bedrooms were down the hall that extended to the left.

There was a picture of Grace on the fireplace mantel. Or rather, of Grace when she was Leanne. She was sitting in front of a birthday cake with sixteen candles, smiling up at the camera. Her hair was long and straight, pushed behind her ears. Grace looked tanned, and the background of the picture suggested it was summertime when it was taken.

Grace had told him her birthday was in February.

“Have a seat.” Gene gestured to a green armchair by the large picture window in the living room. Jordan took what appeared to be her normal spot on the right side of the love-seat. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea? I’d suggest something stronger, but we’re a dry house. My wife’s in recovery.”

Marian gave Gene a cool look and then turned to Damien. “I stopped drinking the day Leanne died.”

She sat down, feeling no further explanation necessary. Gene silently joined her on the couch, a large space between them. The television was on at a low volume. Damien heard the jingle of a car commercial. As he moved towards the indicated chair, Damien could see down the hallway of the house. There were two bedroom doors left open. Twin beds sat in each, a fluffy blue duvet on one and a worn brown blanket on the other. Books were stacked on the single nightstands by each bed. Even from a quick glance, it seemed clear Marian and Gene slept in separate rooms.

Jordan didn’t wait. “Damien thinks his fiancée is Leanne.” She kept her eyes on Marian, who turned pale at the sound of her daughter’s name.

Silence followed. Gene cleared his throat. Marian scratched at the armrest of the love-seat. Across the living room it sounded to Damien like an insect burrowing.

Finally, Gene spoke. “How dare you,” he said, looking straight at Damien. He didn’t stand, but his voice was confrontational enough. “How dare you come here from—where’s he from again?”

He turned to Jordan, who replied, “New York.”

Gene continued. “You come into my home and mention my daughter’s name. You can see my wife isn’t well.” He turned to Marian, who Damien saw was near to tears. He hadn’t noticed before how her shirt hung off her shoulders, or how much fabric gapped around her legs as she sat down. She was terribly thin.

“I’m sorry.” Damien stumbled over the words. His mouth didn’t seem to want to work properly. “My fiancée disappeared just a few days before our wedding, and just hours after she received this in the mail.” He pulled the newspaper article from his bag. Jordan reached out and intercepted the clipping, passing it to Gene herself.

Jordan went on to explain how she’d met Damien, and what they’d already discussed about Grace’s disappearance. She didn’t mention her sister.

Gene and Marian stared at the article, which Gene held in his hands as though it might scratch him.

Jordan kept her eyes on the couple, but said to Damien, “Show them a picture of Grace.”

Damien pulled up one of the photos of Grace that he’d showed Jordan at the police station. She stood holding a basket of strawberries with various vendor stalls and people milling around behind her, her face lit by the warm afternoon sun. He passed his phone to Jordan, since there seemed to be some unspoken rule that he needed a barrier between himself and Grace’s parents.

“We actually met at a farmers’ market. She and I were both trying to buy the last loaf of sourdough bread from the boulangerie stand. We grabbed it at the same time without realizing, and our heads bumped together. She offered to let me have the loaf, and I offered to take it only if she let me make her dinner.”

“And you fell in love,” Marian murmured. She took the proffered phone from Jordan. Damien noticed both Marian’s hands were badly scarred.

Once he’d begun the story, Damien couldn’t stop himself. He knew he was babbling, but he didn’t care. “It took a bit of persistence on my part. Grace kept saying she wasn’t looking for a relationship, but we had such a powerful connection. I’d never felt that way about anyone before. And I believed Grace felt the same, but that she was just scared to move forward. It didn’t help us when we figured out she’d been on a few dates with my brother the year before—they’d met through their realty work. That was an awkward family dinner, to say the least. Afterwards, she almost ended things. But I knew we were meant to be together, and I wouldn’t give up on her. On us.”

The last two words rung hollow in Damien’s ears. Was there even an ‘us’ anymore? He started to speak again but pressed his lips together. He needed to stop. They needed to get on with this meeting.

Marian and Gene looked at the photo for what was probably one or two minutes, but Damien’s sense of time was morphing and everything seemed to take longer than he was used to. Except for when time sped up to the point that he felt as though his thoughts might catch fire from the friction they were causing in his brain.

Eventually, they passed the phone back to Jordan, who tucked it away in her lap. Damien wanted to scream that he needed his phone, that Grace might be calling him right now, but Marian spoke next and what she said shifted his mind once again.

“That’s not our daughter.” She looked straight at Damien for the first time since he’d arrived. “Our daughter died ten years ago. In a fire. It was a horrible, traumatizing accident that we’ve just begun to recover from.”

“Are you sure it was her who died in the fire?” As soon as Damien spoke, Jordan’s eyes cut through him. He couldn’t understand why she brought him here if she’d expected this type of reaction from Marian and Gene. Was he not supposed to ask about their daughter, who was Grace? Who was missing and sounded frightened—or frightening—the last time she spoke on the phone to him.

Grace, who might know what happened to Jordan’s older sister, Tasha.

Damien tried to keep the other possibility from intruding, but it rose to the surface of his consciousness too quickly: Grace, who might have killed Tasha to make it look like she’d died instead. Who might have hurt or threatened someone else just before she called Damien for the last time.

Marian’s face remained gray. There were deep furrows in her forehead and around the corners of her mouth. It was a face where sadness had taken up residence a long time ago.

“We know it was her.”

“There would have been…” Jordan started to say.

“I’m sorry, but I need to ask how you know that.” Sweat dripped down the center of Damien’s back. His mouth was dry, but he couldn’t ask for a glass of water.

“A parent knows,” Marian said. Damien had never heard a voice so weary.

“Our old home had codes for each family member to enter. It was a special lock. I’d receive a notification anytime anyone went into the home. The only person who’d come inside that evening after Marian and I left for dinner was Leanne. Only her code was entered.” Gene stared at the floor as he spoke. “We stopped at the dance so Marian could drop something off that Leanne forgot, and by the time we were on our way to the restaurant I wasn’t feeling well so we headed back home early.”

Damien considered this new information. “And that’s what you told the police?”

Gene nodded.

“They also identified the body,” Jordan added.

“Yes, we did.” Marian raised her gaze to meet Damien’s. “It was the worst moment of my life, seeing my baby on the table.”

“We know it was our daughter who died. And we’ve been carrying that grief ever since.” Gene stood now. Marian gripped the armrest of the sofa as she rose to steady herself.

“It’s time for you to leave.” Gene walked the few steps to the front door. Marian stayed where she was.

Jordan moved towards Marian and whispered something in her ear as the two embraced again. Damien waited for a moment, confused and then realized that their meeting was indeed over. He walked to the front door, leaning in to shake Gene’s hand before stopping himself, and silently walked out the front door and down to the car.

Jordan followed soon after. He could hear voices inside the house but he couldn’t make out what Jordan was saying to her former foster parents.

She got into the car without speaking to Damien, backed up in the gravel pad, and drove down the driveway under the shade of the trees. Once they were back on the paved road, Jordan let out a deep breath Damien hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Well, we got our answers,” she said.

Damien wanted to scream. There were no answers. The two parents they were driving away from were broken, certain that their daughter had been dead for the last ten years.

“We’re no closer to finding Grace,” he told Jordan.

“We know that Marian and Gene are lying,” Jordan countered.

“About what? What I saw in that house were two people destroyed by what they believe was their daughter’s death.”

“There were two codes put into the lock that night. One just thirty seconds before the other.”

“Two codes?”

“Yes, Leanne’s code was used first. And then Marian’s code was used. In the interviews, Marian Crosby said Leanne knew her code and must have used Marian’s when hers wouldn’t work. But there was a gap of several minutes from when Leanne’s code was entered and then Marian’s was. The Crosbys thought perhaps Leanne had gone around the back to see if the back door was open, which doesn’t make sense. I mean, why not just use Marian’s code right away?”

Damien considered what Jordan was saying. “Why would Gene lie to us about something that was in the report? They know you would have seen that.”

“I haven’t told anyone that I’m looking into Tasha’s missing persons case. The Crosbys don’t know I think Leanne’s death is linked to Tasha’s disappearance. I technically shouldn’t even have the report from work.”

Jordan kept her eyes on the road. Damien recalled her cool introduction to the purpose of their visit in Marian and Gene’s living room. Understatements seemed to be Detective Jordan Henderson’s specialty.

“Your department doesn’t know you’re investigating your sister’s disappearance?”

Jordan gave a short laugh. “Of course they don’t. It would be completely unprofessional to assign me to a case with a family member involved.”

“And you never mentioned your suspicions to Marian and Gene.”

“No,” was all Jordan said.

“Okay.” Damien paused, working through the information he’d learned this afternoon. “I still don’t understand what we learned from Marian and Gene. They didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.”

Jordan turned left onto another curving country road. “Think about it.”

The car roared to a four-way stop, idled, and then came up over a hill. Damien caught a glimpse of a red pickup truck about a quarter-mile behind them. A large red-brick structure stretched out in front of them. The sign at the top of the hill announced itself as Canfield High School, home of the Fighting Cardinals football team.

Damien didn’t want to think. He was sick of guessing. He wanted answers. “They saw Leanne’s body. They said it was their daughter.”

“The body was badly burnt. There was no identifying jewelry, tattoos, or birthmarks to go by. Just the passcode entry, Leanne’s absence, and their parents’ word that it was her.”

“They lied to us once.” Damien felt a snap as the pieces Jordan had been casting out came together.

“And if they lied about an extra passcode, we have to wonder what else they might be lying about.” Jordan sped over the hill, around another corner, and pulled into a driveway along a quiet suburban street.

“Where are we?” Damien asked.

But he already knew. They were at the house. The house where Grace supposedly died.

31

Leanne

Dad came home about an hour later, reeking of self-defeat. Leanne couldn’t understand what he was doing out, when both she and Marian knew he’d lost the office and wasn’t working. Although he spent at least part of his time going to the ATM or the bank every day. Leanne tracked it easily enough on the banking app on her phone. Her inheritance from her aunt was slowly leaking away, from both her father’s withdrawals and her own.

She had almost fifteen thousand dollars in her shoebox under her bed.

Her mother opened the door for Gene before he could punch in his code. She’d put her arm in a makeshift sling Leanne helped her create from an orange summer scarf. It looked pretty against her mother’s pale skin. Leanne expected it to be gone in another day or so. She hadn’t hit her mother hard. Marian would wear it just long enough to get a little attention.

Marian didn’t offer an explanation as Gene hung up his keys by the front door, a questioning look on his face that quickly turned to disappointment once Marian said hello and he caught the wine on her breath.

He wasn’t going to risk upsetting his wife, though. Instead, Gene put his hands gently around Marian and held her tight. “You need to be more careful,” he said tenderly in her ear.

He thought Marian had drunk too much and fallen down the stairs.

Leanne couldn’t remember the last time her father had hugged her. Maybe when she was sick all the time, back in middle school.

“I’m so clumsy,” Marian said in response. “But I can still make dinner.” She waved her left hand towards the kitchen.

“No, of course you can’t.” Gene looked at Leanne, who’d been lurking at the bottom of the stairs and watching her parents. “Leanne and I will make dinner. You rest.”

He guided Marian to a chair in the living room and brought her a bag of ice. The bruise on her mother’s cheekbone was starting to color a deeper purple.

Leanne went into the kitchen and peered into the fridge. She had no idea what her mother was planning to cook tonight. A head of broccoli stared back at her like an angry troll. She grabbed it and snatched a box of pasta from the pantry.

By the time her father finished fussing with her mother and came into the kitchen, Leanne had a pot of water set to boil and was slicing the ends off the broccoli with their largest kitchen knife. She’d put on her mother’s red apron to keep from staining her clothes underneath.

“Were you here when it happened?” her father asked, his voice no more than a whisper. His growing anxiety around Marian was like a stench filling their house. Leanne wished she could tell him the truth, but she couldn’t envision what would come next after admitting to Gene that she’d hit her mother.

And that it wasn’t the first time either.

Leanne’s hands trembled as she sliced the broccoli into bite-size pieces. Her father got a frying pan out from the bottom shelf and began to heat oil in it. He put two heads of garlic, whole, into the oil. Leanne wanted to protest and explain the cloves should be pressed to release their flavor more, but she didn’t. He kept his distance although they were spaced so closely in the kitchen, cooking around the same stove.

The water in the pot began to boil.

Leanne poured the pasta into the water with a satisfying whoosh. She stirred it to keep everything from sticking. It was helping, having something to do with her hands as the adrenaline from earlier seeped out through her fingertips.

“What are you making?”

Both Gene and Leanne turned at the sound of her mother’s voice.

“Broccolini pasta,” Leanne managed to say.

“Sounds delicious. I can’t wait. I’m starving.” Her mother sat down at the small breakfast counter and folded her hands into themselves.

“Don’t you want to rest?” Gene asked. “We can bring dinner out to you.”

“No, I’d rather be here in the kitchen, with the two people I love the most.”

Leanne flinched.

Marian stood up and edged between Gene and her daughter. Her right arm was still in its pretty sling, but her left arm moved to grab the wooden spoon from Leanne’s hand. Leanne tried to hold on, but her mother’s grip was firmer than hers.

Marian stood straight. The wine must have moved through her system.

The pasta was about to boil over, with white foam rising to the edge of the pot and bubbling fiercely. Marian turned the heat down and they watched the bubbles recede in silence for a few minutes.

“This needs stirred,” Marian said.

While Gene looked on in horror, Marian grabbed Leanne’s left hand and shoved it into the pot of now-simmering water. Leanne screamed.

Marian pulled her daughter’s hand back out from the pot and shoved it under a cool stream of water under the sink. All of this with only one good arm. Leanne knew she should have been braver. She should have swung harder while her mother was vulnerable.

“Darling, you need to be more careful.” Cold water streamed over Leanne’s hand, which was swelling with violent blisters.

“Marian!” Gene shouted.

“Shut up,” Leanne’s mother snapped. “It was an accident. This entire family is so clumsy.”

She leaned into Leanne’s ear and whispered words that sent ice through Leanne’s heart.

“You’ll always lose. Never forget that.”

32

Damien

A ‘For Sale’ sign stood on a picket in the front yard of the house. Damien’s phone rang as Jordan opened her car door. He knew by the ring it was Chloe calling.

“I’m here,” she announced before Damien could say hello.

“Where?” he replied. Jordan glanced back over her shoulder as she fiddled with the realty lockbox on the front door of the house.

“In Youngstown.” Chloe sounded annoyed. The creak of a door sounded in the background.

Damien didn’t ask why she’d insisted on coming to Ohio. She’d been lying to him the entire time they’d known each other. He wasn’t inclined to trust her to help in a town he didn’t know, with a situation that was becoming increasingly complicated and heart-breaking.

The silence on his end clearly bothered Chloe. “Aren’t you going to ask where we should meet up? Where are you right now?”

He cleared his throat and stepped out of the car. Jordan had opened the lockbox and pulled out the key for the front door. Damien assumed it was a privilege of being a police officer to know the codes for houses on the market, though who knew? Jordan had stolen the case file for the Crosby fire, and she persuaded him out of filing a complaint about the officers who dragged him into the station for trying to talk to that woman at the Vindicator. She might not be as upstanding as he’d assumed.

“I’m in Canfield. That’s where Leanne—er, Grace—grew up.”

“Okay, I’m at the mall on, let me see…” Her voice paused for a moment. “The mall on Market Street. By the JCPenney. I’ll drive and meet you. Give me the address of where you’re at.”

“I don’t know how long…”

Chloe was impatient. “Just tell me where you are so I can meet up with you and we can find Grace, okay?”

Damien texted her the address for the Crosbys’ original home. Chloe hung up with a curt ‘Thank you’ and Damien went to find Jordan inside the house.

“You’d think it would have been razed after the fire, but the damage was mostly contained to the back bedrooms and kitchen. The Crosbys had insurance and renovated it before moving to their house on Crory Road.” Jordan stood in the living room, which appeared to be staged with furniture from the realty company. Damien noticed the accents and décor were all nautically-themed, which struck him as odd for a Midwestern state. “It’s had a few owners since then.”

The home felt sterile and lifeless to Damien. He wasn’t sure why they were even there or what they’d learn about where Grace was now by revisiting the past. He told Jordan as much.

“Sometimes it helps to have a sense of a place where bad things happened.” She took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor, where Damien assumed the bedrooms were located.

There were three bedrooms. The master was at the far end, with a bathroom attached. The furniture was all white with seashell throw pillows in navy and red stripes. The middle was staged as a home office, and the third, which was situated next to the second full bath on that floor, was decorated in soft greens and yellows. A child-size bed was tucked in the corner.

Damien felt nothing looking at it. No connection to Grace, or the girl she might have been when she lived in this room. The air was stale, and the sunshine coming through the window was pale and lifeless.

Jordan stood in the doorway to the bedroom, watching Damien.

“You said the fire was mostly in this room and the kitchen?” he clarified, brushing past her on his way back downstairs. The kitchen was all white with gleaming chrome appliances. Through the main window over the sink he saw the wooden patio extend into the backyard. The door outside must have been in the dining room or the den that connected into the kitchen.

He checked his watch. It’d only been ten minutes since he spoke to Chloe on the phone. He didn’t know Youngstown well, but on the way from the police station out to Canfield they’d passed the mall and it was at least thirty minutes to get to where they were on the outskirts of Youngstown. He’d have to call her and give her a different meeting location. Maybe Jordan’s apartment, which was ten minutes away, if he remembered correctly.

Jordan had been following him almost silently through the house, and Damien found himself craving fresh air.

“I’m going to stand out on the patio for a moment,” he told Jordan. The sliding door was on the far edge of the dining room. He slipped the lock and pulled the door open with a heavy whoosh.

“I’m sorry I brought you here.” Jordan’s forehead furrowed in frustration. “I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess I thought it might help you to see where your fiancée came from. What she was running from.”

That final sentence caught at Damien’s mind like the jagged end of a fingernail. “You think she’s still running from something that happened in this house?”

Jordan scanned the kitchen. “I don’t know,” she replied, her eyes resting on Damien’s. “Go outside, clear your head. I’ll be in here when you’re ready.”

Damien stepped onto the patio. A large oak tree filled the center of the yard, shading the patio and most of the grass. A fence enclosed the yard on all sides. Underneath the branches of the tree was cool and he bowed his head to stretch the muscles of his neck.

He closed his eyes, wishing that the last forty-eight hours were a dream and that when he opened them he’d see Grace resting her beautiful head on the pillow next to his in their apartment in New York.

But when he opened them, he was still in the backyard of the lifeless house, drenched in the shade of a tree that was probably half its size when Grace lived there as a girl.

And when he opened them, he wasn’t alone.

Someone was behind him, and the cool edge of a knife pressed into his neck.

33

Leanne

“What happened?” Tasha gripped Leanne by the shoulders and turned her friend towards her. They stood on the cement pad outside the front entrance to the high school. Tasha had been waiting for Leanne when she walked up the path from her neighborhood. Leanne’s left hand was bulky as a boxer’s glove, wrapped in gauze with an ACE bandage holding it all together.

“Nothing. I had an accident making dinner last night.” Leanne shrugged out of Tasha’s hold and shifted her bookbag higher up onto her right shoulder. Her eyes immediately went to the bracelets still covering the bandages on Tasha’s right wrist. “At least it wasn’t my right hand. I can still write and do homework and stuff.”

Leanne was doing her best at nonchalance, but she could tell Tasha wasn’t buying what she was selling. “You make dinner on Tuesday nights. Not Thursdays.”

“My mom was drunk and so Dad and I made it instead.”

Leanne kept walking towards the main doors. Fellow students flowed around them like they were two awkward stones in the center of a rushing stream.

“You can talk to me, you know?” Tasha’s eyes were wide and clear.

“Oh, I know you’re great at talking.” Several heads turned at the acid in Leanne’s tone. She ducked her chin and moved over to the side by a line of holly bushes that were dry and brittle in the September sunshine. “I thought you were on my side,” she half-whispered.

Tasha sat down on a bench and gave Leanne a searching look. “I don’t understand.”

“You talked to my mother. This whole time, you’ve been acting like you’re my friend and telling me how important it is for me to get away from my parents, but really you’re with them, not me.”

Moments passed, the two friends looking at each other. Tasha’s mouth opened and closed, but she remained silent.

“Why would you say my mother was obsessed with my health? I never told you that. We didn’t know each other in middle school, back when I was sick all the time. You must have heard it from my mother.” Leanne looked up and spotted Greg pulling into a parking spot in his rusted Chevy Corsica.

“She called me!” Tasha said. “And I didn’t tell her anything. She said she was worried about you, but I didn’t say anything in return. I just listened, and I told her I thought you were fine—better than fine—” She flicked a quick glance up at Leanne. “And then she never called back.”

“When did she call you?”

“Maybe a month ago. I don’t know. I can’t remember specifically.”

It was around the time Leanne’s dad lost his office and moved over to the library, based on what Leanne could tell from the conversation she overheard her parents having in the kitchen last week.

“Let me see your phone.” Leanne held out her hand.

Tasha reared back. “Why? What do you want with my phone?”

“I want to see if you’ve been texting with my mother. Or calling her.”

“That’s ridiculous! Come on. I’d do anything for you. I am doing anything for you. You’re my best friend. You should trust me.”

Greg wore a navy blue and white sweatshirt and cargo shorts. He spotted Leanne and Tasha as he stepped onto the sidewalk and flashed them a smile.

Leanne waved, and as her hand came down she snatched Tasha’s phone from her lap. Tasha protested, but Leanne was too quick, slipping it into her pocket before disappearing into the flow of students as they headed to their homerooms. The bell rang and Leanne sat down at a back desk in her homeroom classroom and clicked into the message app of Tasha’s phone.

She recognized her mother’s number, buried several weeks in Tasha’s phone log. There were several texts from Leanne’s mother, each one phrased exactly the same. Call me. We should talk. I’m worried about Leanne.

Tasha didn’t reply to any of them, just like she said she didn’t.

There was no reason Tasha wouldn’t want Leanne to see those.

But there were other messages, the latest arrived at 7.38am that morning, that Leanne realized Tasha was trying to hide.

I can’t wait until Saturday, the last message read. When we can finally be together.

They were from Greg to Tasha. Hearts, and photos, and sweet messages all through the conversation, which started several weeks ago from what Leanne could tell.

Leanne’s chest burned. Her left hand throbbed.

This changes everything, she thought. Leanne pictured her mother’s face collapsed in fear as she brought the poker down on her shoulder. While her homeroom teacher droned on about the homecoming pep rally, Leanne’s mind replaced her mother’s features with Tasha’s. Her fists clenched around the imaginary handle. Leanne wasn’t loved by anyone, she realized, and it broke her heart.

34

Damien

“Go back to New York,” they said. Even though his captor stood behind him, their voice was muffled as though they were wearing a mask. Damien tried to move his head down to look at their hands, but the sharp bite of the knife’s blade sliced into the fragile skin on his neck and stopped him from moving at all.

“Where’s Grace?” Damien swallowed. The bump of his Adam’s apple pressed against the edge of the blade and for a heartbeat he was certain his throat had been slashed open with a fit of coughing as he choked on his own spit.

Footsteps sounded from somewhere in the house. Where was Jordan? Why wasn’t she doing something?

“Go. Back,” the voice commanded, and as quickly as he was caught, Damien was free. He ran a hand over his throat, which was rough with stubble but unharmed. He whipped around, trying to see every corner of the yard at once, but all he saw was the fence and the tree. A gentle breeze rustled some leaves in the canopy of the oak, bringing down raindrops from earlier.

There was no trace of his attacker.

“Ready to go?” Jordan called from the sliding door. Damien looked up from his trembling hands. He took two deep breaths that filled his chest. Jordan gave him a tentative smile. “I’m sorry for bringing you here. It was a waste of your time.”

“What?” Damien suddenly couldn’t hear over the rushing of blood inside his head. “What did you say?’

He must have sounded slightly crazed because Jordan’s demeanor shifted immediately. In a split second, her shoulders tightened and her face went blank. “What happened out here?”

The whirring in his mind wouldn’t stop. “Did you plan this?” He advanced towards Jordan, who backed up into the farthest corner of the patio against the edge of the house.

“Plan what?” she asked.

Jordan’s right hand reached up against her belt, but her gun and holster were in the locked car. He’d seen them on the back seat before they got out.

Damien took another step forward. Jordan scanned the area behind him, but he didn’t care that her training gave her an advantage. The fear that coursed through him as the knife kissed his skin had transformed into a white-hot fury.

“You brought me here to intimidate me.” Spit flew from his mouth across the space between them.

Coolly, calmly, Jordan replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened out here, Damien?” She tilted her chin down in the slightest of nods. “I was only trying to help.”

“You were in the kitchen. How could you not have seen?” He pushed his fingers through his hair and spun around, hoping to catch some evidence of the intruder who’d threatened him at knifepoint.

“Seen what?” Jordan wasn’t losing her cool, but Damien caught an edge in her reply. He tried to think if he recognized her voice.

He closed his eyes, and told her, “Say something again.”

There was a heavy pause.

“I’m leaving.” Damien heard Jordan’s footsteps as they receded into the house. He had no idea if it was Jordan, or someone else, or his imagination on too much coffee and no sleep.

The fence had a gate at one side but surely he’d have heard it opening and closing if someone had come in. The fence wasn’t very high—standing maybe four feet above the ground—so someone could have scaled over it without Damien realizing.

Damien went in through the sliding door. He heard voices at the front of the house.

He rushed into a door at his left on the edge of the kitchen, thinking it was a pantry and finding himself in a small half-bathroom.

He closed the door and listened, but the house was silent again. He shook his head, hoping the movement would clear his foggy mind. Could he have imagined someone attacking him? The stress of Grace’s disappearance was like an iron vest around his chest, each piece of information he learned about Grace’s life turning a key to tighten it until he couldn’t breathe.

Damien splashed water on his face from the sink and dried himself with the towel hung beside it.

He stared at himself in the mirror above the sink. The man looking back at him was a stranger. Hollow cheeks, red-rimmed eyes. Two days’ worth of stubble darkened his features and emphasized the paleness of his skin and the deepening wrinkles at the edges of his mouth and eyes. Damien looked ten years older than he had at the rehearsal dinner a few days before.

He heard something through the bathroom’s door.

“I left him outside,” a female voice said. It could be Jordan. It could be any other woman he knew or didn’t.

“Why? He could have left. You’d never know,” another woman’s voice responded.

Damien couldn’t discern what they said next. Their voices faded as Damien assumed they moved outdoors.

He wasn’t sure what to do. He felt like his reality was cracking along the edges.

As he stared at his new self in the mirror, his eyes caught on something he hadn’t noticed before. He leaned forward.

On the ridge of his neck, just below his Adam’s apple, was a small cut that oozed a drop of blood. Damien reached up and wiped the drip away.

At least he knew he wasn’t going crazy.

A fist pounded on the door to the bathroom.

“Damien!”

35

Leanne

Sitting through class was agony. As Leanne’s teachers talked and assigned homework and led discussions, Leanne’s brain clanged and burned. Tasha was supposed to be her friend. So was Greg. More than a friend, she’d let herself hope.

None of it was fair.

She could barely hear the voices of her classmates as they chatted around her all through history class. Mr. MacDougal’s tenor buzzed in her ear for a length of time she couldn’t estimate, but based on the concern furrowing his brow she figured it must have been longer than normal teenage deafness. It was the end of class and everyone was funneling out into the hallway. They’d been assigned a one-page paper on the role of democracy in American history. Softball filler.

At least that’s what Leanne thought. She’d have to ask one of her classmates about it later, because she didn’t want to admit to Mr. MacDougal that she hadn’t been listening.

“Leanne, did you hear me?” he asked.

No, she had not.

“Sorry, I guess I’m a little preoccupied.” Leanne fiddled with the zipper on her bookbag. It threatened to gape open from the pressure of the books and folders she kept stuffed in there. She pulled it tight and forced her hands to her side.

“Anything you want to talk about?” The wrinkles at the corners of his mouth deepened, and Leanne found herself wondering just how old he was. He had gray streaks at each of his temples, a graying beard and he wore glasses and khaki pants every day. And then there were the sweater vests. But Leanne was at that peculiar stage of life where anyone out of high school seemed to sit in one category of ‘old,’ and to her Mr. MacDougal could have been thirty-two, forty-five, or sixty.

She shook her head. “No, just normal stuff.” She held up her bandaged hand. “I had an accident in the kitchen last night. It hurts a little, still.”

Mr. MacDougal murmured his sympathy and suggested Leanne go down to the nurse’s office. She demurred, saying really it was fine.

“Do you have the new version of your essay for me to look at yet?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been busy. I’ll have it for you on Monday.” It was Friday.

He gave her a warm smile. “I understand. Just don’t wait too long. The deadline is coming up quicker than you think.”

She thanked him and turned to leave the now-empty classroom, but something made her turn and look back from the doorway before stepping into the hall.

Mr. MacDougal was hunched over like his students, looking at his phone and then typing something rapidly before setting it screen-side down on his desk.

Leanne thought it was nice to see that Mr. MacDougal had a life outside of school. He’d always seemed like a loner. Some of the teachers at the school visited each other in their classrooms or hung out with each other on lunch duty. From what Leanne could remember, Mr. MacDougal ate lunch in his classroom, by himself.

Maybe he has a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend.

Which brought Leanne back to Tasha and Greg. She realized Greg wasn’t her boyfriend, technically. And they weren’t officially dating, besides going to the homecoming dance. She’d never mentioned Greg to Tasha except as a vague reference to her first homecoming experience.

In any other world, she’d bury the disappointment and be happy for her best friend.

But in this world, Tasha was the person she had put her trust in and Tasha betrayed her. By cutting herself and posting it online. They’d never agreed to that. Going behind her back and talking to Leanne’s mom. And now by secretly texting Greg.

How was Leanne supposed to go along with their plans for homecoming night if she couldn’t be sure Tasha was on her side?

It all made her feel sick. She turned into the girls’ bathroom at the end of the hallway. The bell rang and the small sprinkling of girls in there washing their hands and touching up their makeup left. Leanne would be late for class, but she needed somewhere that was safe.

She stood in front of the sink and splashed water on her face. Her cheeks were flushed when she looked in the mirror, and the room swirled around her. That acidic taste she knew so well rose in her throat.

She vomited into the sink. Leanne had barely eaten anything the last twenty-four hours, so it was mostly dry heaving and bile. Vile bile, her mind chattered. There was no way she could have stomached any dinner last night.

She heaved again. Something thrummed in her backpack.

After Leanne cupped cool water from the faucet into her mouth, she washed her hands gingerly around her bandage and dried them on a paper towel. The room held still. Her hands shook, but her stomach was settling.

She went to unzip her backpack and see what was making the noise, but as she caught the zipper it opened from the force of everything in her bag. Her papers and folders and books fell onto the bathroom floor.

Leanne knelt down, tipping her head from wooziness for a moment after changing her posture so quickly, and started to try and rescue all her schoolwork from the well-worn floor. A puddle from under the sink was wicking into the marked essay by Mr. MacDougal.

She snatched at it and tried to press out the wet portion of the essay. She read his comments in the second paragraph, which were written in green ink. Leanne felt a warmth bloom in her chest. She’d work on the essay tonight.

As she carefully placed everything back into her bag, making sure not to damage any of the papers that were wet on the edges, Leanne’s hand pressed against something hard and smooth at the bottom of the bag.

It was Tasha’s phone. She thought she’d put it in her pocket after homeroom, but she must have set it in the bag. Her mind wasn’t working properly. She couldn’t remember what she’d done.

The screen lit up when she pressed the home button. It had a notification from Instagram. Tasha had posted another photo last night, which Leanne had missed with all the events at home, and someone online had commented on it.

Leanne tapped into the app and brought up the post. It was of Tasha, covered in a smoky haze with what looked like a knife held up to the edge of her chin. Her expression on her face wasn’t scared, though. Leanne thought her friend looked excited. Ecstatic.

Leanne scrolled down to read the comment.

It was from a MacDaddy42. His profile was a picture of the bottom half of a man wearing a tartan kilt.

The comment read, Love this. But give it to me once more. With feeling.

Leanne read the timestamp on the comment. Then she clicked into the profile for MacDaddy42 and saw the account had been created several months ago.

It couldn’t be true. Leanne almost ran out of the bathroom and down the hallway. She didn’t stop until she had burst through the outer doors and stood in the fresh air and sunshine of the back parking lot.

He couldn’t know. It’d never work if he did. Mr. MacDougal couldn’t have guessed what they were up to.

She needed to find Tasha.

36

Damien

Damien hesitated. The hand hammered on the door again. He recognized the voice as Chloe’s. A muffled conversation followed on the other side of the door. The handle on the door jiggled.

Damien shot the lock back and threw it open. Standing in front of him was Chloe, still in her New York state of mind with sleek black slacks, her dark hair in a smooth low ponytail and a silk scarf tied around her neck to cover the neckline of her shirt. Huge sunglasses covered her face. But he’d know that moue of distaste anywhere, almost comic in how exaggerated it was. This time, it wasn’t directed at him or Grace, though.

“What the hell is going on here?” Chloe said to Jordan. Damien almost thought he saw a look of disappointment cross Chloe’s face as she took Jordan in. Chloe tugged the strap of her purse over her shoulder, which kept falling down. “Why is my son-in-law hiding in the bathroom of this ugly house?”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Damien replied defensively at the same time Jordan spoke.

“This house isn’t ugly.” Jordan’s jaw worked at something.

Chloe let out a little huff. “Trust me. I know an ugly house when I see one.” She moved further into the kitchen, allowing Damien to exit the bathroom. “Why did you have me come here in the first place?” she asked Damien.

Before he could answer, her face clouded with concern. “What happened to your neck?” She reached up a hand as though to touch his wound.

“What are you talking about?” Jordan shifted from the corner of the kitchen where she’d moved to let Damien out. Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t see that before.”

Damien bit down his instinct to get as far away from that house and both women as possible. He needed help finding Grace, and he had no proof that Jordan played a role in the intruder who attacked him in the backyard.

“Did you cut yourself on something in the bathroom?” Jordan poked her head inside the small room. Damien heard the sink turn on and then quickly off. “I don’t see any blood in here.”

“Damien, tell me what happened? Are you okay?” Chloe stood so close to him he could see three dark hairs sprouting between her perfectly shaped brows.

“I’m fine.” He ran a hand over his eyes. “I must have scratched myself while I was splashing water on my face in the bathroom. Too much stress and caffeine and not enough sleep.”

“It’s been a hard couple of days,” Chloe said kindly. She turned her gaze to Jordan, and her eyes cooled. “So who exactly are you and why are you here with Damien?”

Damien cut in before Jordan could offer her full measure of sarcasm. He explained how he’d met Jordan, her time spent with the Crosbys, and how they were searching for connections to Grace’s past by visiting her childhood home.

“You knew Grace when she was younger?” Chloe eyed Jordan appraisingly.

“I knew of her more than knew her. My older sister, Tasha, talked about her sometimes when she’d come to visit me at my foster home.”

Chloe coughed. “What about when you lived with the Crosbys?”

“They didn’t like to talk about Leanne—er, Grace—very much. By the time I moved in with them, they were trying to carry on with their lives and didn’t want to keep reliving the past. They took down pictures of Grace. You wouldn’t even have known they were parents if you visited them.”

“But that was at the other house,” Damien clarified. “Not this one.”

“That’s right.” Jordan sat down in a kitchen chair. “Now it’s your turn to tell me about you.” She tucked her chin at Chloe.

“I’m Grace’s mother.” Chloe took off her sunglasses and slid them into her bag.

Jordan laughed. “Marian Crosby already has that title. So, who the hell are you?”

Damien glanced between the two women. He couldn’t understand the intensity between them, but he knew it was going to erupt soon if he didn’t do something.

“I told you about Chloe,” he explained, holding his hands up between them. “Grace asked her to be her mother.”

“But you thought she was Grace’s real mother?” Jordan leaned back in her chair.

“She didn’t want anyone to know about her past.” Chloe scraped the chair out and sat down opposite Jordan.

Jordan let out a short bark of a laugh. “I can understand why.”

Damien glanced out the kitchen window. The backyard looked serene. No one would know he’d been attacked just a few minutes ago.

“It’s time to leave,” he said abruptly. He walked through the kitchen and toward the front door. He turned to Chloe. “How’d you get here?”

She turned and gave Damien a blank stare for a beat, and then it seemed as though she returned to the moment, and this house, and the fact that Grace was missing. “I took an Uber.”

“Then we can all ride in Jordan’s car,” he said. He opened the front door.

“Why should I give her a ride?” Jordan remained seated in the chair. Damien considered for a moment just how young she still was, despite her gun and her badge.

“Because she wants to find Grace too, just like you do.” He said it patiently, like he was talking to a child.

“Don’t patronize the girl.” Chloe stood up, and Damien saw something pass between the two women. A recognition of the other woman faced with a man telling them what to do.

They made their way into the front room, down the path, and out into the waiting car. Damien didn’t care whether they were ganging up on him for the moment as the common patriarchal enemy. As long as they got out of that house. Dread creeped into his bones as Jordan pulled out of the drive and down the street.

He turned back to make sure Chloe had enough room in the back seat. She was looking out the window, her mouth gaping open like her purse. She looked tired despite the superficial sheen and distressed despite her snarkiness.

Damien considered how scared Chloe must be for Grace. How much she might actually care for her pretend daughter, even if she had difficulty showing it.

And then his eyes skimmed lower, and he caught the sheen of metal on the inside of her bag. It was a pocket knife, with a mother-of-pearl handle. Nestled in next to her hand sanitizer and compact mirror.

Now isn’t that something, Damien thought.

37

Leanne

Tasha was nowhere to be found at lunch or when school let out that day, so Leanne walked over to her trailer alone. She still had Tasha’s phone in her bookbag, but she’d forced herself to stop checking the texts and notifications that pinged every few seconds. Tasha had it set to flash up a message anytime someone commented or liked her posts on Instagram, and her most recent one was getting a lot of traffic. She couldn’t tell from the Instagram handles how many were from classmates and how many were random people (mostly men) online.

There was a cool breeze blowing today and a crisp blue sky. It was the first day to feel like Fall and the sound of dry leaves crunching under her feet made Leanne nostalgic for her childhood, when her parents would rake a pile of leaves in the backyard for her to jump into. When she got older, Marian stopped letting her go outside to play, fearing Leanne would be exposed to something that might hurt her fragile constitution. She was already sick often enough, without having spores and fungi in the leaves clouding her lungs, her mother told her.

Leanne turned onto the side street running parallel to Village Green. Tasha’s trailer was just another block away. She kicked at a stray leaf blowing across the sidewalk, and then looked up. A shadow shifted behind her as the sun angled away into the late afternoon. Leanne heard the distinct crackle of tires on asphalt, moving slowly, before she realized what she was seeing.

Her father’s red pickup sat on the side of the road, idling gently. The passenger side window opened as she approached.

She felt in her pocket for her phone and glanced at it quickly. There were no messages, no missed calls. He had no trouble tracking her through her phone, so there was no surprise that he knew where she was.

But why was he here?

An icy finger traced her spine. Potential reasons raced through her mind.

He’d discovered she was draining her aunt’s inheritance while he was doing the same thing? Or he’d found the box of money under her bed. Leanne wanted to smack herself for being so foolish. Of course her parents would search her room. She didn’t have any privacy in her life—which was in part what she and Tasha were counting on.

Did he want to talk to her about Tasha? To stop Leanne from seeing her?

The engine turned off and the street went quiet. Leanne couldn’t delay any further, and finally her steps brought her up to the passenger-side door. She took a chance and leaned on the door where the window was open instead of getting inside. There might still be a way she could avoid having to go anywhere with her father.

“Hi Dad,” she said. He turned to face her at the sound of her voice, tucking his phone into the cup holder in the center console. Leanne caught the bright lines of the mapping app and a red dot, which she was certain was her.

Her father looked ten years older since she saw him that morning. His face was somehow pale and flushed at the same time, like he had chills from a fever. A large bruise was forming on his right temple, which it seemed he’d tried to hide with makeup foundation that was a shade too dark.

“Get in.” His voice was calm.

Leanne opened the door and climbed into the seat. She didn’t say anything. The truck was silent, except for the near constant buzzing from Tasha’s phone, which was inside Leanne’s bookbag. It was on vibrate, but that didn’t stop the distraction it made.

She should have turned it off.

“You’re still going to homecoming on Saturday, right?” Gene reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror. He wouldn’t look at Leanne.

A scream swelled in Leanne’s chest. How could this be her life?

“Yeah. I’m meeting at Tasha’s to get ready,” she replied, as though everything were normal. As though her father hunting her down after getting hit in the head was just an everyday thing.

“Good.” He paused. “Good,” he repeated.

He looked in the rearview mirror again. Fidgeted with the angle of it.

Tasha noticed scrapes on the backs of his knuckles.

“Were you going to Tasha’s?” he asked next.

She nodded.

“Okay. I’ll see you at home.” His voice cracked on the last word.

Leanne waited. She could ask him what was going on. How he’d hurt himself.

But she didn’t. Instead, she followed her father’s instructions and got out of the truck. She forced herself to walk calmly down the sidewalk without glancing over her shoulder. Leanne counted the paces until she reached Tasha’s street.

Her father’s pickup turned the corner and headed into the center of town.

It was only then, when she was out of her father’s line of sight, that she started to run towards Tasha’s house. The wind caught the scream leaving her mouth and threw it away.

Leanne knew her friend was no longer safe.

If she ever had been to begin with.

38

Damien

“Where are we going?” Chloe asked from the back seat.

Damien had no idea. He didn’t care. There was a knife in Chloe’s purse.

“Damien needs to get his car from the Vindicator parking lot.” Jordan kept her eyes on the road.

“What’s the Vindicator?” Chloe asked automatically, and then caught herself. “The newspaper. Never mind.”

Damien couldn’t turn in his seat without being obvious about observing Chloe, so he faced forward and watched the Ohio farmland roll quickly back into suburban sprawl. No one spoke for several minutes. The only sound was the tick of the turning signal as Jordan went left or right, and the quiet hum of the engine. There was little traffic on the road up until they got onto the freeway.

“Where are you staying…” The air caught in Damien’s throat. He cleared it. “Where are you staying, Chloe?”

“With you, I assumed?” She let out a small gasp of air. Damien couldn’t tell if she was annoyed, or angry, or simply tired.

Too much knife-wielding for one day, he thought.

“You’re both staying with me,” Jordan told them.

“What?” Damien replied, at the same time Chloe said, “Fine.”

“Chloe can stay in the same hotel I am,” Damien reasoned. He told them the address of the place he’d stayed in last night by the freeway. “We don’t need to impose on you, Jordan.” He felt an anonymous hotel was safer than staying with someone he wasn’t sure he could trust.

“I’ll drop Chloe off at the hotel then while you pick up your car,” Jordan replied.

They were passing the brown fields on their right. The metal skeletons of the steel mills looked more menacing as the sun angled into the late afternoon, casting long shadows over everything.

Jordan dropped Damien off at his car in the Vindicator parking lot, before heading out with Chloe now in the front seat. They seemed to have forgiven each other their earlier irritations, Damien noted. Both their faces looked relatively relaxed as Jordan pulled away from him.

A crow growled somewhere by the river.

It was late enough that the Vindicator lot was empty. Only the outside spotlights lit the building, which was entirely dark inside. This day seemed endless, Damien thought. His entire body ached. A breeze blew across the river and rustled the leaves in the trees along the asphalt of the parking lot, bringing with it a coolness that made Damien instinctively wrap his arms around his chest. As he did so, his hand grazed his neck and the thin scab that had formed over his wound cracked open.

He felt his blood drip down his neck, in between his collarbones. Damien couldn’t see but assumed a cloud of red bloomed from the collar of his shirt. He touched his fingers to his mouth and tasted the metallic tang.

Could Chloe really have been the one who attacked him in the backyard? Damien tried to steady his mind, but a storm was breaking inside of him. He thought of Jordan and Chloe, sitting in the car as they pulled away from him and leaning in towards each other like old friends.

He wondered if it could have been them together. Did they want to hurt him and Grace both? But how would they even know each other?

Damien shook his head. He needed a glass of water. He needed to sleep.

His phone sat silent in his pocket, and he didn’t dare take it out because he couldn’t handle calling Grace’s number again and hearing the recorded message instead of her voice.

A door creaked open behind him. He turned around and saw in the distance a woman coming out of the Vindicator building. Damien immediately recognized the gray hair cropped tight around the crown of her head and the red lunch bag hanging from her left hand.

It was the woman who called the police earlier that morning. He should have left as soon as Jordan dropped him off, but instead he’d stayed too long, wallowing in his misery.

Damien hurried from where he’d been standing on the edge of the embankment that led down to the river. His car was only a few long strides away. He could possibly make it inside and away before she recognized him and called the police again.

Jordan should have brought him to get his car earlier.

“Hey, you!” the woman called from across the darkening parking lot.

Damien ignored her and pulled the handle of his car door to open it. It was locked, and the handle jammed up into his palm.

“Stop!” she shouted. Damien saw her in the periphery of his vision coming closer. His heart pounded out a syncopated rhythm. What would happen if she called the police again? Damien didn’t know if he could keep himself under control through a night in jail. Each moment seemed to bring him closer and closer to some edge he didn’t know even existed two days ago.

All he wanted to do was find Grace.

Damien reached into his pocket and fumbled with his keys. Something beeped as his hand grazed the buttons.

“Please, I’m sorry. Don’t be frightened.” A hand gripped his shoulder and pulled. Damien spun around and locked eyes with the woman, who was so close to him now that he could see the color of her eyes.

They were an icy blue. “Sure, this is Youngstown, and I might keep a gun in my purse, but I’m not gonna use it on you.” She gave him a wary smile.

“I’m leaving,” he told her. He finally pushed the proper button and the door unlocked. Damien lurched the door open and ducked to get inside. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

“I know who you are,” she told him. Damien looked up at her again. “I’m Victoria Hoover. I wrote the article about the Crosby fire. I’m the woman you were looking for.”

Damien stood and closed the door to his car. She took a step backwards to give him space to stand.

A million possibilities of what to say swarmed inside him. “Why were you so frightened of me this morning?” he finally asked.

She considered him. Damien watched the lines on her face soften into some sort of acceptance. “Do you drink?” She walked to the other side of his car and sat down in the passenger seat.

Damien got in, started the engine, and let Victoria Hoover tell him where to go.

39

Leanne

The door wouldn’t budge. Leanne turned the knob, but it was solidly locked. It was probably the only solid piece of Tasha’s trailer.

Leanne jumped from the wooden platform of stairs leading up to the door and landed on the ground. Thistles scratched at the bare skin of her calves in the shorts she wore. Other weeds she couldn’t identify sprang from cracks in the dry mud beside the cement blocks shoved underneath as a makeshift foundation for the trailer. Leanne pounded on the wall of the trailer, calling out Tasha’s name.

She went around to the side, hoping to see something through the flimsy curtains on the small window above the sink in the kitchenette. Three blue plastic milk crates stood stacked alongside the trailer, and Leanne pulled out one, turned it over, and stood on it. The curtains were pulled back slightly. Through the crack in the fabric she could see the sink, a few dishes soaking in soapy water, and beyond into the small living area. The hallway to where Leanne knew Tasha’s bedroom was situated wasn’t visible from where she stood.

The trailer appeared empty, and there were no signs of struggle. Tasha liked to keep the trailer tidy, in case a social worker made an unexpected visit to check up on her. The counters were clear, the floor swept. From what Leanne could see, the cushions on the built-in couch in the living room were fluffed and in place.

She called her friend’s name again, but there was no answer. She needed to get inside the trailer. Her father was bruised and beaten. Something was happening, and he didn’t think Tasha was safe.

Leanne paused. Maybe he did think Tasha was safe, and that’s why he wanted Leanne to go there instead of heading home.

She stepped down off the milk crate and made a full lap of the trailer. There was one window open on the living area side, with a screen covering the opening. Leanne brought the crate over, slammed her hand against the wire screen until it ripped open, and shoved her body, headfirst, through the hole. She landed with a soft thud onto the cushions of the couch.

Immediately, she recognized something wasn’t right. There was a smell in the air, too sickly sweet to be pleasant. Another scent mixed with it that Leanne couldn’t identify. Not quite decay, but close to it.

Leanne stood up and walked quietly down the length of the trailer. The smell was coming from the bedroom side. The hallway leading to it was dark, with no light from the kitchenette’s window making it through the semi-closed curtains. The door to the bedroom was closed.

As she got closer, Leanne thought she heard the bright clink of metal on metal, like someone was dropping change from their pocket onto the floor. She pulled the accordion door on the bathroom to the side, but it was empty. A few beads of water dripped from the shower.

Leanne gripped the knob on the bedroom door and tried to push it open, but something blocked it on the other side.

“Tasha,” she called out. The smell was strongest here. Like a mixture of baby powder and uncleared drains. There was no need for quiet.

She’d have to break down the door.

Leanne slammed her shoulder into the cheap wood of the door, being as careful as she could to not jar the bandage on her left hand, but although it bowed inwards it didn’t break open. She stepped back and tried kicking it in. Her foot landed squarely on the door and there was the snap of wood cracking. She kicked it again, and the door pushed open about a foot, with the jamb attached where the knob and lock were seated.

The smell was overwhelming now. Leanne knew what it was. Cheap perfume, covering up the odor of human waste. She remembered something she’d learned on a crime show on TV once. How people’s bowels move after their death.

Panic rose higher in her throat. She slid herself through the opening of the door and surveyed the scene in front of her.

Tasha’s small dresser had been pushed against the door to the bedroom, and it sat askew behind it.

A woman lay on the twin bed in the center of the room. Leanne couldn’t tell at first if she was breathing or not, but she was certain the woman wasn’t Tasha. She was too old, too tall. Her hair was long and flowing around her face, which was bruised and bloodied. A large bloody pool spread out from the center of her chest.

Leanne put her hand up to her face to cover her nose as she breathed through her mouth, but the smell flavored her tongue it was so strong. She gagged in the back of her throat and retched uncontrollably onto the floor.

“Leanne?” a voice said from the other side of the room. She stood up, wiped her mouth, and carefully walked around the bed into the shadows of the far corner.

“Tasha!” she cried out, bending down to reach her friend at eye level. Tasha huddled in the corner. There was blood in her hair and streaked across her cheek. Her clothes bloomed with sweat underneath her arms and around her thighs and neck. Leanne realized she was sweating intensely. Someone had turned the heat up in the trailer’s bedroom.

“We need to get you out of here,” Leanne said. She put her hands underneath Tasha’s armpits and stood her up. That’s when she realized Tasha’s pants weren’t soiled with sweat. She’d messed herself.

Leanne took hold of her friend and they stepped through the bedroom towards the door. She didn’t want to look at the woman on the bed. All she could focus on right now was getting Tasha out of that hellhole.

“Wait,” Tasha said. Her voice sounded so weak.

“We need to get out of here,” Leanne insisted.

“We can’t leave her,” Tasha whispered. “Not after what she’s done.”

“Keep moving,” Leanne commanded. She refused to turn her head towards the figure on the bed. She didn’t want to know.

“It was your mother.” Tasha turned her face close to Leanne’s, almost as though she were going to kiss her. Leanne could smell the ripeness of vomit on her friend’s breath.

What the hell happened here? Leanne’s mind scratched across the surface of thoughts until she blocked them out into one solid message.

“Keep. Moving.”

“It was both our mothers,” Tasha said before collapsing in Leanne’s arms. She was forced to drag her friend’s unconscious body through the hallway, out into the fresh air of the street outside, and then go back into the bedroom to retrieve the other body.

She wasn’t certain of much after what she’d seen in Tasha’s home.

But Leanne’s mother would pay for what she’d done. Leanne would make sure of it.

40

Damien

The bar Victoria chose was one of those houses with soaped-out windows and a small plastic sign in front advertising cold beer. A bar for locals in the know, who were looking for quiet and something to ease them from a hard day at work into their second shift at home or a second job. Damien had never been to that type of bar before.

The bartender behind the counter seemed to know Victoria, giving her a quick nod as she walked to a back booth and slid inside. Damien followed and sat across from her. The bar was mostly empty except for a few men sitting apart from each other sipping at their drinks and glancing up at the baseball game on the television hung in the corner. The sound was turned down but Damien could still hear the familiar strains of a soda commercial as advertisements replaced the game on the screen.

The bartender brought over shot glasses and poured two fingers of whiskey into each. Victoria swallowed hers in one gulp and held her glass out for more. The bartender poured another for her and then walked away. Damien gingerly sipped at his.

He didn’t wait for Victoria to speak. Instead, he launched into explaining why he went looking for her at the Vindicator. He told her about Grace’s disappearance, the newspaper clipping he found in their apartment, and the package sent later with Grace’s ring. He didn’t discuss Chloe or Jordan. He didn’t mention going to the Crosbys’ home. He wanted to see what Victoria could offer before her gave her everything. She was a journalist after all.

When he finished, he waited across the table for Victoria to respond. She seemed nervous. More nervous than when he saw her that morning as he tried to get into the Vindicator offices. She fiddled with her glass, cleared her throat, but said nothing.

“You a regular here?” Damien finally asked out of desperation after another full minute of complete silence.

Victoria nodded and swept her eyes over the bar as though she was looking for someone. “You could say that.”

“Do you want another one?” he asked. She’d finished her second drink at this point.

Victoria ignored his question. “After this conversation, you’ll need a drink, too.” She took out a packet of cigarettes and gently rapped them on the table. Pulling one from the packet, Victoria lit it with a heavy metal lighter she pulled from her coat pocket.

She pulled on the cigarette, held it there, and let out a long sigh of smoke. “Want one?” she offered.

Damien tried not to look judgmental. The smoke caught in his throat and made him involuntarily cough. He shook his head. “I don’t smoke.”

“Filthy habit.” Victoria took another long pull.

Damien swallowed without breathing in. “You wrote the article about the Crosby fire.”

Victoria shifted in her seat and glanced around again. Damien watched as she folded her hands on the wooden table in front of them and leaned in towards him. “I didn’t just write the article. I was the lead reporter on the story, meaning that I wrote all the articles.”

A pit burned in his stomach. He hadn’t thought to look for other newspaper stories about the fire. Foolish.

“The investigation went on for six months. I wrote probably ten stories about the Crosbys, four of which were published in the paper. I interviewed anyone I could get access to, including the neighbors of the Crosbys, Leanne’s teachers at school, her cross-country coach. The police wouldn’t work with me beyond their normal press releases, but I had a contact who worked in the county morgue who helped. Gene and Marian Crosby gave me one interview. I still have the recording of it.”

Damien stopped himself from asking to hear it immediately. He didn’t want to break Victoria’s rhythm now that the alcohol seemed to be kicking in.

As though reading his mind, she continued. “I’ll play it for you later if you want. It didn’t reveal much of anything that I didn’t already know. They saw it as a horrible tragedy. The fire started in Leanne’s bedroom. They believed Leanne had come home and decided to light some candles and relax after the dance. Marian and Gene were out for the night. Leanne must have been distracted by something, they said, and not realized the candles were left on her dresser too close to the curtains in her room. Before she could put the fire out it overtook the house and she died from smoke inhalation. Her body was burned after she’d already fallen unconscious.”

“That’s horrible.” Damien couldn’t stop the words slipping from his mouth. He thought of Grace, how he’d hold her in his arms in the morning before they got up and started their day. He wondered who had died in her place, breathing in smoke until they couldn’t breathe anymore, and why Grace had run away instead of revealing the truth.

The family and friends of whoever died in that house had never had a chance to properly grieve. Jordan’s dark eyes and tense body floated into his mind.

“But here’s the thing,” Victoria continued. She shifted even further over the table, towards Damien. “My contact in the morgue said there was no way to tell whose body it was. Not clearly. It was badly burned. There were no identifiers. ID relied solely on the Crosbys, who didn’t want dental records checked. They were certain it was their daughter.”

Damien nodded and resisted the urge to glance at his watch. He already knew most of this. Tracking Victoria down might have been a waste of time. She didn’t even seem to know about the two front-door lock codes entered that evening at the Crosby home.

“That does seem suspicious.”

He must have sounded less than interested because irritation infused every word as Victoria replied. “Yeah, I realize maybe it’s no big surprise the Crosbys are hiding something. You may have already known that. I saw you get dropped off at our offices by that cop, the one that’s related to Leanne’s missing best friend. She’s been on top of this case too, ever since she joined the force.”

“How do you know that?”

Victoria spread her hands in a gesture of acquiescence. “I’m a reporter. I ask a lot of questions when I’m interested in something.”

Damien finished his drink. “Thanks for meeting me, but I should be going. Want me to call you a cab or something?” He didn’t want to drive her home. This entire meeting had been a waste of time.

“Wait, I’m not finished yet.” Victoria was starting to slur her words slightly. Great, Damien thought. Useless and drunk.

“I’ve got to go.” He started to rise from his seat in the booth.

A shadow passed over Victoria’s face. “No, you can’t. It’s not safe out there for you.” She reached out as though to grab his hand, and for a moment he let her fingers clasp his own.

Then he gently slipped out of her grip. He pulled out his wallet and lay two twenty dollars on the table. “Thanks for your help,” he said automatically.

“Listen to me,” Victoria said, raising her voice. “You have to listen.”

Something in her tone caught his attention. He stopped and turned.

“There’s something I wasn’t able to publish, but I know it’s true. My editor wouldn’t print it because he was afraid of being sued.” She took a short intake of breath. “Gene and Marian Crosby were the first people on the scene of the fire. They were there before the fire department. Before police. And Marian Crosby suffered second-degree burns over her hands and arms. Everyone said it was because they came home and saw the fire, and Gene couldn’t stop Marian from going and trying to rescue their daughter. But there’s another possibility.”

“What do you think happened?” Damien asked. He sat back down.

“I think Marian started the fire to cover up the death of whoever’s body was in their house. There was one neighbor, a Mrs. Miller, who reported hearing what sounded like a gunshot around the time the codes were entered into the lock—you might not know this, but there were two codes entered that night. Leanne’s code and Marian’s. I think Marian set the fire and didn’t realize how quickly it would spread. She burned herself, badly, before she could get out.”

“The police never followed up with the gunshot because Mrs. Miller was a client of Gene Crosby’s pyramid scheme and had a clear grudge against him and the family for the money he’d swindled her out of.”

“But you said you have proof of this?” Damien wished he hadn’t finished his drink so quickly.

“Yes. If you read the autopsy report, you’ll see that there were small pieces of metal—just a few shards—found in one of the burned areas on the left shoulder. It was dismissed as debris from some mini-explosion in the fire, but I’m certain it was shrapnel from a bullet wound.”

“So someone shot the woman who died in the fire.” Damien paused, remembering what Victoria had said. “But she died from smoke inhalation.”

“Whoever shot her wanted to wound her. Then they left her to suffocate in the fire.” Victoria looked up at Damien, her expression haunted. “The person who killed that girl is a monster. And I’m fairly certain it was Marian Crosby, but I suppose it could have been someone else. It’s possible Marian got those burns from trying to rescue someone she thought was her daughter, burning in a fire that was already raging. Whoever it was who shot that woman, they left her to die, bleeding out and choking on smoke as her skin melted on the outside. My contact in the morgue said it was one of the most gruesome deaths he’d ever seen.”

Damien and Victoria sat in the quiet. Eventually, after talking more about the details of the case, Damien rose and left the cramped bar. He drove to his hotel, where he collapsed into a dark and troubled sleep.

It was only afterwards, as he faced his killer, that he realized what he’d heard in Victoria’s voice at that dusky bar.

Not quite fear. Not quite anger.

But regret.

41

Leanne

After Leanne helped pull Tasha’s mom, Eleanor, from the trailer, she went inside and opened every window to air out the rancid space. She considered taking Eleanor and Tasha, who wasn’t as badly hurt as her mother, to Greg’s house or maybe trying to call Mr. MacDougal, but Tasha insisted they’d be better if they stayed at home and cleaned up themselves and the trailer, so that’s what Leanne did.

The story unraveled as Leanne filled a bucket with hot soapy water in the kitchenette and began scrubbing the linoleum floor in the bedroom. Tasha propped herself up on the kitchen counter and, after several minutes, eventually sunk onto the floor. Eleanor fell fast asleep on the couch in the living area once Leanne cleaned her wounds with the first aid kit Tasha kept underneath the kitchen sink.

Even with the windows open and cooling evening air moving through the trailer, the smell struck Leanne like a physical weight.

“After our fight this morning I left school early and came home. Your mother was already at the trailer, talking to my mom.” Tasha grimaced. “Marian brought lemonade.”

But Marian must have been waiting for Tasha, because as soon as the flimsy metal door closed behind her, Marian grabbed Eleanor by the back of her hair and shoved her head into the edge of the counter. The welt would eventually rise like a ripe fruit on Eleanor’s forehead.

“I didn’t have time to react,” Tasha explained to Leanne. She shook her head slightly from side to side. “Marian grabbed me and threw me to the ground. She was like a wild animal. I couldn’t get up or move or hit back at her. All I could do was scream for her to stop. I didn’t even have my phone, so I couldn’t call for help.”

Because Leanne had snatched it from her, Leanne completed the thought. Shame crept up her neck like a new and unwelcome crush. Leanne silently went to her bookbag and retrieved Tasha’s phone. Tasha took it from her absent-mindedly, not glancing at the screen even before shoving it into her pocket.

Leanne returned to the task of cleaning. She dipped her rag into the bucket, careful to use her right hand and keep the bandages on her left hand dry. She kept her eyes on her task, because Leanne couldn’t bear looking at her friend and what had happened to her.

“My mom managed to get up and pull Marian off of me before I lost consciousness, but that only meant she was going to hurt my mother more.” She cast a sidelong glance at Eleanor, whose mouth had fallen open as she snored quietly on the couch. She looked like some character in a movie who’d been through a battle.

Tasha kept talking, describing every horrifying detail in the monotone cadence of someone in shock. She sat perfectly still on the floor of the trailer. Tasha’s hands didn’t shake, although she kept them in her lap for most of the time. Leanne tried to focus on cleaning the stains from the floor because Tasha stopped talking whenever Leanne looked directly at her. But Leanne’s eyes always returned to the purple and blue welts on Tasha’s cheeks and neck.

It was hard for Tasha to breathe sometimes. She’d struggle to pull air in as she spoke.

Eventually, the floor was clean and Tasha was done talking. Eleanor continued to sleep. Tasha suspected Marian had put something in the lemonade that was having longer term effects on Eleanor, but there was no way to be sure. Leanne poured whatever was left of the mixture down the drain. There were small granules in the bottom of the glass that could have been anything. Leanne rinsed the glass out and set it to dry on the dishrack.

“It was like she was possessed,” Tasha told her. “Like she was someone else.”

“I’m so sorry,” Leanne told her friend.

“Sorry for what? This isn’t your fault.”

Leanne left Tasha’s house with a plan in place, bigger and deeper than the one they’d had before. Her jealousies over Greg seemed ridiculous and small compared to what Tasha had endured because she was friends with Leanne.

Nothing else mattered except getting them through the next twenty-four hours.

“At least I’ve got an idea for my next post,” Tasha quipped as Leanne paused at the trailer’s door.

Sure enough, as Leanne walked to the town with a mental list of everything she needed to do and buy, her phone buzzed in her pocket.

Leanne didn’t look to see what it was. She knew if it wasn’t Instagram announcing Tasha’s latest post, with her bruises on full display, that it would be her mother, checking in on her daughter as though everything were normal.

She thought about her father’s raw knuckles on the steering wheel of his truck.

And she thought about how wrong Tasha was.

All this pain was Leanne’s fault. Every wound, every hurt, every piece of trauma in the lives of the people Leanne cared about.

But she would fix it.

42

Damien

He woke to his phone buzzing beside his face. He’d fallen asleep in his clothes on top of the cheap polyester bedspread at the hotel. Damien opened and closed his mouth, which twitched from him clenching it as he slept. He shook his head, which still felt full of horrible dreams.

His heart leapt instinctively at the sound of someone calling him, but it fell again as he glimpsed the screen. It was his brother, Tim. Damien hit the dismiss button and sent the call to voicemail.

He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. A vise gripped both his temples. Part of Damien wondered if he was in some sort of withdrawal from the drugs Grace slipped him two days ago. He’d do anything for a cup of fresh coffee and a large glass of water.

Damien was considering getting up to drink straight from the tap of the small sink in the bathroom when someone pounded on the door to his room. It was too early for normal housekeeping, but perhaps they thought he’d already checked out.

Damien threw the door open, but instead of finding a cleaning cart and woman in uniform, he found himself face-to-face with his brother.

“I have coffee.” Tim held up a cardboard holder with two large cups, steam drifting out of the tops. He raised his other hand. “And bagels.”

Damien stepped aside to let his brother inside the room. “How’d you know where I was staying?”

Damien took in his brother’s appearance. Tan, lean, and well-groomed with a pair of dark designer jeans and a form-fitting black crew-neck shirt that probably cost more than most people in this hotel made in a week. Tim certainly didn’t look like sometime who’d driven through the night.

“You told Uncle Mike when you got here,” Tim replied.

Damien shook his head. He took a large sip of the coffee. It was dark and bitter, delicious. His stomach growled. Tim held out a bagel for him, which Damien grabbed and immediately bit into, eating almost half.

“I have no memory of any of that,” Damien said through a mouthful of bagel.

Tim sat down on the edge of the bed. He balanced his coffee on his knee and took a bagel for himself. “He’d called to check on you, and you picked up. He and Aunt Sandra were both worried about you driving overnight by yourself. They’ve started calling wedding guests, by the way. They’re handling all of that, in case you were worried.”

Damien was quiet for a moment. “I think Grace drugged me at our rehearsal dinner.”

Tim almost spat out the sip of coffee he’d just taken. “What?”

Damien explained how he was ill the morning Grace disappeared. The after-effects he’d been having ever since. “Something is messing with my memory. I woke up yesterday and today feeling like I’d drunk a bottle of whiskey the night before.”

“You’re under a lot of stress. People’s minds get clouded when they’re dealing with grief.”

Damien changed the subject. He didn’t want to talk about his lack of mental stability anymore. “Why are you here?” He leveled his eyes on his brother. Damien had almost drunk the entire coffee, and his hand shook slightly as he ran it through his sleep-mussed hair. He took another bite of bagel.

“Because you need me,” Tim explained. “Grace needs me.”

A sour cloud bloomed in Damien’s chest.

“I’m handling it,” Damien told him. “You didn’t need to come.”

“Chloe’s here, isn’t she?” Tim turned to throw the paper bag from the bagels into the hotel room’s small trash can. He ignored Damien’s rebuff. “I don’t trust her.”

Damien set his coffee down on the dresser and ran his hands over his face. “Of course you don’t. She’s been lying since the moment I met her.” Damien almost whispered the words. Chloe was staying in a room at the opposite end of the hotel, but he still felt self-conscious bad-mouthing her when she could be just outside his hotel-room door.

“She was lying for Grace, though, remember?” Tim wouldn’t meet Damien’s eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The sour cloud in Damien’s chest rose to his throat. He regretted eating breakfast and chugging his coffee so quickly.

Tim shrugged his shoulders, again ignoring Damien’s combative tone. “It means that this situation—this emergency, I don’t know, whatever you want to call it. This is all a lot to handle, and you shouldn’t have to do it alone.”

“I’m not alone,” Damien snapped. Tim’s face flushed and he turned away, pretending to look for something in his coat pocket. Damien needed to get moving. Time was running out for him, for Grace. He was certain of it. The longer she was missing, the more likely Grace would be gone forever from his life. He couldn’t consider the possibilities, although his mind was basically a running banner of all the horrible things that could happen to her.

Damien took a deep breath and tried to speak more calmly. Tim was here to help, he reminded himself. Tim’s past issues with Grace, and with Damien didn’t matter now. “There’s a police officer helping me. And the reporter I tracked down.”

He explained who Jordan was, and about his meeting with Victoria Hoover. His brother listened quietly the entire time, and when Damien was finished they both sat in an unfamiliar silence until Damien’s urgency overwhelmed him again.

“We need to go.” Damien stood up and grabbed his keys from the dresser, slinging his jacket over his arms.

“Where are we going?”

Damien had no idea, but he didn’t tell his brother that. He opened the door to the room and stepped out into the quiet hallway. He glanced at his watch. It was 7am.

They could go to the police station, or to Jordan’s apartment. And then there were the Crosbys. Damien was certain they knew something about Grace’s disappearance that they weren’t admitting.

Victoria told him she believed Marian Crosby was the killer and wanted to cover up the murder. If that was the case, then Marian was very dangerous. Gene Crosby might be in on it, too, and the couple could be planning right now how to make Damien stop searching for Grace. Going to see them might crack open information about where Grace was, or it could put him and Tim in danger.

It’d help to have Jordan—and her gun—there.

Just as Damien was debating whether to call Chloe now or text her from the car after they left just to have a bit more time to collect himself, he saw her slim figure appear at the end of the hall outside his room.

Chloe wasn’t typically a morning person. He thought he had more time.

“Dammit,” he whispered under his breath. He’d been too slow. Tim stepped out and closed the door behind him.

“Going somewhere?” Chloe said too loudly as she approached them. She looked rough around the edges. Her curls were flat and tangled, tied back at the nape of her neck. Her skin was flushed despite the dark circles under her eyes. Grace’s disappearance was putting a lot of strain on all of them.

His eyes fell on Chloe’s purse, which dangled from her arm. The same purse Damien had glimpsed the knife in on the car ride back from Grace’s childhood home.

After someone had held a knife to Damien’s throat. He reflexively raised his hand to touch the tender skin where the thin scab had formed. He was glad he hadn’t mentioned anything to Tim about that. It’d only make him look more paranoid, unhinged.

“I didn’t realize you were here, too.” Chloe gave an assessing look to Tim. “When did you arrive?”

Damien’s phone chimed in his pocket. He didn’t know the tone, and for a moment he thought perhaps it was Grace, calling from an unknown number.

As he glanced at the screen, he saw it was Jordan.

Damien moved past them both and towards the outer doors that would lead him to his car in the parking lot. He was too far ahead to hear Tim’s reply to Chloe. He held the phone to his ear.

“Where are you?” Jordan asked. Her speech sounded slurred. There was something hissing in the background on her side of the call.

“I’m still at the hotel.”

There was a low thud, followed by silence.

“Jordan?” He put the phone in front of him to confirm the call was still connected. It was. “Jordan, are you there?”

What if Gene and Marian had gotten to Jordan already, and she was in danger?

Damien felt Tim and Chloe approach from behind.

“What’s going on? Who is it?” Chloe asked. Her voice felt like it was physically scraping against his skin.

Damien pressed the phone against his ear. He couldn’t hear anything.

And then, someone else spoke.

“Come to Jordan’s apartment.” Their voice was distorted, as though they’d covered the microphone on the phone. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman speaking. The call ended.

Damien held the phone to his ear for a beat longer. Then he threw his body into the front seat of his car, started the engine, and began backing out of the parking space. It was only luck and the slight suspension of the laws of physics that Tim and Chloe were able to latch onto the door handles and climb into the back seats.

“You’re scaring me,” Chloe cried from the back.

Damien didn’t say it, but the word that crept to his lips in reply was a single syllable.

Good.

43

Leanne

She faced her mother the same way Leanne had faced most of her life. Sickened and weak to the outside observer, but with a solid core of steel running up her spine.

After dinner, which Leanne’s father prepared while neither Leanne nor her mother mentioned anything about his scrapes and bruises, she retched for several minutes in the bathroom next to the kitchen. A minute later, her mother arrived by her side with a wet washcloth to press to Leanne’s forehead and a comforting tone. Leanne noticed her mother had discarded her sling and was using both arms without issue. Of course, how could she have beaten Tasha and Eleanor with it in a sling?

It was a strange feeling for Leanne, to regret not having hurt her mother more when she had the chance with the fire poker.

Leanne let her mother guide her to bed and tuck her in as a cool breeze blew through her open window. Leanne’s mother believed cold air was good for the lungs; she’d air the house out each day even in the freezing dark of winter.

Leanne waited in her bedroom at least another half hour, until the clinking of dishes in the kitchen went quiet and she heard the television in the living room murmuring before she pulled the sheets of her bed over her head and checked the messages on the TracFone phone she bought at the convenience store in the center of town after she left Tasha’s earlier. There were four messages, all from the same number.

My mom is doing better, said the first.

The second and third were confirming plans for the homecoming dance.

The fourth, after no response from Leanne prior, was simply R U OK?

Leanne texted back that she was. And that she was glad Tasha’s mom was going to be okay, too.

A new message flashed up. Tomorrow?

Leanne replied with a Y, for yes.

She put the phone back underneath her pillow and rested her head against the cool fabric. Leanne resisted the urge to count the money in the box underneath her bed. Between her father’s withdrawals and her own, the account was almost empty. Doing anything with the money would have to wait until after homecoming. She’d planned to go to a different bank in Boardman, a nearby town about ten minutes down Route 224, but it was hard to get away from Canfield without her parents knowing or being with her. Too much had happened the last few days for Leanne to manage a cover story of needing to go get accessories for her homecoming outfit, and she had her dress for homecoming already.

She still hadn’t told Tasha she would be wearing that dress—the one Tasha had tried on and loved. It felt ridiculous, after what had happened to Tasha and her mom, to worry about things like dresses and boys. At least, that’s what Leanne kept telling herself. It didn’t matter that Tasha and Greg lied to Leanne. It wasn’t important that Leanne had been tricked into thinking Greg liked her. There were bigger issues to pay attention to right now.

Leanne repeated the logic of it all in her mind, over and over, willing the knot in her chest to go away.

It was dark outside, with a new moon that kept the sky a deep black. Leanne lay in bed and waited, listening for the sounds of her parents going about their evening rituals.

Her mother’s attempt to silently uncork a bottle of wine.

Her father’s visits to the threshold of her room. Leanne imagined him staring at her with a deep furrow of guilt on his brow, but she couldn’t be sure. It was dark in the hallway ever since she’d insisted on removing her night lights in seventh grade. She had preferred her dreams to what actually happened in her home in the long hours of the night. Seeing the silhouette of her mother through the light cast from the hallway nightlight as she came up behind her father. While he stood in the doorway to Leanne’s bedroom, watching his daughter, her mother slammed the heel of her hand into the back of his skull. That was enough for Leanne. She didn’t need to see any more.

It wasn’t enough for her father to stop visiting her in the evenings, watching her sleep. He just waited until Marian was a few glasses into her evening now instead.

Around 2am the house usually quieted down. Both Leanne’s mother and father were in bed, sleeping or pretending to. This was Leanne’s favorite time at home; when she could act without being observed.

Sometimes she’d listen to music quietly, or she’d dress in clothes she hadn’t worn for years. A few times she snuck sips from her mother’s wine, but she didn’t like it. Usually, though, Leanne sat in the quiet of her room, her legs crossed, and let her mind empty. It was the only time she felt secure in her small world, with no one judging her. No one coming on the threshold of invading her privacy.

Leanne sat in the center of her bedroom and closed her eyes. The breeze from earlier was even cooler and goosebumps rose on her arms. She breathed in, held it, and let it out steadily. Mr. MacDougal had shown her how to do this when she’d admitted to feeling anxious. He’d dealt with it, too, when he was younger, he told her.

Her mind jumped in jagged leaps from one thought to another.

Her parents. The money. Tasha. Her mother. The heavy scent of human shit. Her father’s bloody knuckles. Mr. MacDougal’s patient advice. Tasha’s bandage underneath her bracelets. Greg smiling at her. Homecoming. Bright bubbles of texts on Tasha’s phone. Her parents.

A soft rapping came from her window.

She opened her eyes. It was just something in the evening air.

But it came again, a little more insistent.

Leanne wouldn’t turn. She couldn’t face whoever was out there. This was supposed to be her time. Hers.

The night grew silent again. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

The front door’s lock chimed.

Someone was inside that hadn’t been invited.

44

Damien

By the time they arrived at Jordan’s apartment, a heavy silence had fallen over everyone in the car. Damien could hear a slight scratching coming from the back seat over the normal sounds of the engine and the road. Otherwise, it was quiet.

He preferred it that way. It gave him a moment to think. He didn’t know the voice on the phone. He could be certain it wasn’t Chloe or Tim, who were both in sight of him while he took the call.

It might be Jordan, but he had no idea why she would call and then pretend to be someone else, only to bring them to her apartment. There were several other possibilities he could consider, some more sinister than others.

They’d find out soon enough.

He pulled into the drive, and the three of them rushed to the front door. Damien expected it to be open with Jordan or someone else waiting at the entrance, but the condo appeared dark and unoccupied. The garage door was closed, so he couldn’t tell if Jordan’s car was there. Tim raised his fist and knocked on the door. Chloe pulled out a pack of cigarettes and started to light one. Her hands shook and she eventually put everything back into her purse while they waited.

Damien yelled Jordan’s name, but the door remained closed and locked. When he called Jordan’s number, it went to her normal recording stating her title as detective and instructing the caller to leave a message.

Tension bloomed in Damien’s chest.

“What should we do?” Tim asked. Damien noticed his brother’s lips were chapped. His skin had paled during their time in the car and a sheen of grease covered his face. He didn’t look well.

He thought about calling 911, but he didn’t know what he’d report. They wouldn’t send out police to investigate his gut feeling that Jordan was in trouble, would they?

Damien stepped around the side of the condo. The blinds in the windows were drawn and he couldn’t see inside. He walked around the side of the building, around the garage, and into the backyard. There was a small stone patio with a few flowerpots full of red geraniums. A glass sliding door opened onto the patio from the condo, but longer blinds covered it.

He didn’t remember Jordan’s place being closed up when she brought him there yesterday to pick up the Crosby file. The acid in his stomach churned.

Damien dialed Jordan’s number again, but there was no answer.

He knocked on the patio door. He thought he saw a shadow pass behind the blinds, but it disappeared after a moment. No one came to the door.

“What are you doing?” Chloe stepped around the side of the house. She’d successfully lit her cigarette sometime while Damien was walking around the outside of the house and took a long drag on it. She blew the smoke out in a long breath and leaned against the building. Damien thought she was trying to hide her panic with excessive calm. Her right foot tapped constantly.

“I’m trying to see if anyone is here,” he replied. “Where’s Tim?” His brother hadn’t followed him around the side of the house.

“He’s in the front. He wanted to call the police, but I told him your friend, Jordan, was already police.” Chloe shrugged. The corner of her mouth sank as she seemed to consider that she was referring to Jordan in the past tense already and she took another pull on her cigarette.

Damien saw movement again in the periphery of his vision. Something or someone was moving inside Jordan’s condo.

“We should get out of here,” Chloe stated matter-of-factly. She threw her cigarette stub on the grass and smothered it with her heel. “Jordan’s probably following up a lead and doesn’t want us to interrupt her.”

Damien resisted the urge to wrap his hands around Chloe’s thin, avian neck. Had she forgotten already that Jordan called them, slurring her speech, and then someone else instructed them to come over?

“We need to make sure she’s okay,” he stated instead.

“No one’s here.”

“I saw something moving inside.” He knelt and examined the lock on the patio door. It looked sturdy. He pulled the handle. It wouldn’t budge.

“Hang on. We’re in Ohio.” Chloe raised her eyebrows, a thought occurring to her. Damien watched as she knelt and began lifting the pots on the patio.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

Chloe smiled triumphantly as she held a key in her right hand after lifting the second, largest, flowerpot. “Don’t you just love the Midwest?”

Damien tried the key in the patio door, but it didn’t fit. They rushed around to the front door, where they found Tim doing something on his phone.

The key slipped into the lock effortlessly, and the sound of the bolt sliding back sent a surge of relief through Damien, followed quickly by a separate wave of fear.

As he opened the door, he didn’t see Jordan, or anyone else.

All he saw was blood, pooled on the floor and soaked into the carpet.

45

Leanne

“What are you doing here?” Leanne kept her voice low. She didn’t want her parents to wake up and find this visitor inside their home. She couldn’t be sure what her mother would do.

Leanne switched on a lamp in the living room.

Their neighbor, Mrs. Miller, stood at the front door holding something long and heavy in her right hand, which she hid behind her legs. In her left hand she worried three or four round pebbles from the front flowerbeds.

“I need to talk to you. I didn’t want to risk your parents seeing me talking to you. They both sleep soundly, the lights stay off most of the night—and based on what I’ve found in your trash at least one of them has some help with that sometimes—so I figured a night-time visit would be best.” Mrs. Miller appeared older up close. The light was dim and stark shadows stretched from the light of the lamp. Leanne thought she looked like a wraith with her slim body, flowing nightgown, and bags like two bruised plums under her eyes.

“You should go.” Leanne took a step towards her. “How did you even get in here?”

“I live on the same street as you. I watch you, your mother, your father coming and going all day long.” Mrs. Miller scoffed slightly. “It’s easy enough to see each of your codes, although my binoculars help.”

“What do you want? Is this about my dad, because he’s going to get the money for you. He just needs a little more time.”

Leanne had no idea if that was true. She wasn’t sure why she lied for her father, but the last few days had left her loyalties skewed. An image of her father’s raw knuckles and scrapes on his cheek rose in her mind. She pushed it away.

She stepped to the side and leaned her hip against the edge of the easy chair next to the lamp. Leanne was trying to get a glimpse of what Mrs. Miller held behind her legs, but it ended up seeming as though she were casually sitting down with her for a chat.

“Your father is a criminal.” Mrs. Miller whispered the words. “He got in a fight with someone right in your driveway. Another angry client, I’m assuming. The man was screaming in your father’s face, shoving and slapping him, and all your father did was cower like a frightened animal.” She cleared her throat. “It was pathetic.”

Leanne pictured her father’s bruises and his sunken eyes as they sat in his truck outside Tasha’s. She’d thought her mother had done that to him.

Leanne swallowed. She needed to get Mrs. Miller out of here.

Mrs. Miller shifted as well, almost echoing Leanne’s posture, and Leanne spotted what she was holding in her right hand. It was a tire iron, rusted on one end. She leaned towards Leanne. She was so close Leanne could smell the minty zing of her toothpaste on her breath.

“Why are you holding that?” Leanne tried to push further away from Mrs. Miller but perching on the edge of the chair left her no room.

“My husband always kept this in the trunk of our car. I never thought I’d need it, but it seemed a good choice for tonight.” She tightened her grip on the handle.

Leanne considered shouting in the hopes of waking her parents, but was worried it would only make the situation worse. Her phone was upstairs in her bedroom, so she couldn’t call anyone, like Tasha. She couldn’t believe how stupid she was, coming down from her bedroom without it. Leanne needed to figure out what Mrs. Miller wanted and get her out of there.

Her mind flickered to the shoebox underneath her bed.

“I can get you your money now.” Leanne put her hands down and pressed into the soft cushion of the seat to push herself up to a stand. Mrs. Miller backed up. “It’s right upstairs.”

“I don’t want your money.” Mrs. Miller blinked. The tire iron lowered to her side. “I’m here to warn you. I brought this in case I couldn’t get into the house. In case I got the code wrong.”

Leanne didn’t mention that it might have been better for her to break in. Now there’d be an entry in the app her parents used that she’d have to explain. Leanne would have to make up a story about a noise outside that she went to investigate, or maybe an animal.

Before Leanne could ask which code she’d used, Mrs. Miller trained her eyes on her. “I watch your house a lot, you know.”

Leanne did.

“I saw you throwing up outside my yard the other day. I remember you doing the same thing, a few years ago.” Mrs. Miller reached out and her nightgown’s sleeve slipped down to expose an arm that was thin and sinewy. Her wrist was the size of a doll’s. “And your parents used to fight a lot. But now things are quieter, and instead there are a lot more wine bottles in your recycling bin on Mondays.”

“I have a sensitive stomach,” Leanne explained. “I don’t see why you had to come over in the middle of the night to tell me any of this.” She tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice, but Leanne was so very tired. And she had much larger problems to deal with.

Homecoming was tomorrow. She could make it until then, as long as she got her deranged neighbor out of their house without waking her parents.

“I needed to wait until I was sure they were both asleep. What I need to tell you is private.” Mrs. Miller wasn’t going to take a subtle hint.

Leanne walked over to the front door. “It’s time for you to go.”

“Give me one more minute,” Mrs. Miller said. She dumped the pebbles from her hand into the gaping pocket of her nightgown. Leanne noticed she wore rose-pink slippers on her feet—the same color as the dress Leanne was wearing to the dance tomorrow. The tips of the slippers were damp, probably from walking around outside their house and throwing stones at Leanne’s window.

“I was watching when your mother came home yesterday. You were at school and your father was out.”

“You’re obsessed. You need to stop and get your own life.”

“Just listen,” Mrs. Miller snapped. “I’m here to help you, not hurt you.”

“If you don’t lower your voice, we are both going to get hurt,” Leanne countered. She caught Mrs. Miller’s eye with a knowing look.

“Your mother bought a gun,” Mrs. Miller said simply.

“What? How do you know that?”

“I saw the case. She brought it in the house yesterday. Just like she was bringing in groceries.”

Leanne paused. Her mother wouldn’t have been that stupid, would she? “So what? People buy guns all the time,” Leanne bluffed.

“Yes, they do.” Mrs. Miller stepped to the threshold of the front door and opened it. A gust of wind caught her gray hair and blew it across her eyes for a moment. She reached up to brush them away and almost lost her balance. Leanne held out a hand to steady her.

She looked Leanne steadily in the eye. Her mouth softened and Mrs. Miller gave Leanne a look as though she was seeing her off on a long trip. “But most people aren’t your mother, now, are they?” Mrs. Miller stepped into the dark of the night, her fingers once again wrapped tightly around the tire iron.

46

Damien

“Oh my God.” Chloe’s voice caught as she exhaled. She repeated the same statement.

“Damien, hold on.” Tim’s voice came as though from behind a mask. Damien could barely hear him. Drums throbbed in his ears. His eyes scanned the living room of Jordan’s apartment, looking for pieces of information that would help him make sense of the scene in front of him.

Blood was everywhere. So much that the air tasted metallic as he gasped for breath. He leaned over with his hands on his knees. There was a spatter of blood streaked up the front of the kitchen island. A pool of blood spread over the white tiles of the entryway and into the kitchen. It was viscous and darkened, the way blood does when it’s exposed to air for long periods of time. Smears of blood stretched from the front walkway into the kitchen, two long stretches that thinned into nothing as the tiles met the beige carpeting in the hallway of Jordan’s apartment.

But there was no body.

“We need to call the police.” Chloe stood frozen on the front porch. The screen door was balanced against her hip and as she took a step back it slammed shut. The metallic slap it made as it closed caught both Damien and Tim off guard. They flinched collectively.

Damien followed Chloe’s movements carefully as she reached into her purse, but all she retrieved was her phone as she dialed 911. He listened to her muffled responses to the dispatcher on the other line.

Tim’s hand came over and gripped Damien around the wrist. “We need to leave.”

Damien looked down and saw blood had begun pooling around the tip of his brown slip-ons. He was a piece of the crime scene now.

“No, we need to find her.” He stepped further into the apartment, shaking off his brother’s restraint.

The living room was filled with a chair, small end table, a love-seat couch, and a television hung on the wall. Nothing looked disturbed in there. A pile of magazines and what looked to be junk mail lay on the table in a neat pile.

He called out Jordan’s name, but the only response was the murmur of Chloe’s voice through the door and Tim’s heavy breaths. Damien looked through the kitchen, to the hallway. There were three doors, all of them closed. No blood trailed into the carpet or indicated where Jordan or whoever might have been injured would be.

“Damien, come on. We need to wait outside for the police.” Tim’s voice stretched into a pleading tone, but he ignored him and stepped through the kitchen and into the hallway.

He tried to avoid the blood as much as he could, pushing away the thought rising to the surface of his mind that no one could survive that much blood loss, and moved gingerly down the hallway. His feet made light-red impressions on the carpet, and although he knew he was infringing on the crime scene he couldn’t risk not looking for Jordan and finding her still alive.

The wail of a siren cut through the air. It sounded far away, still. The screen door slammed again. Tim must have stepped outside, washing his hands of what Damien was doing.

He turned the knob on the first door, only to find a tidy bedroom, with a white bedspread tucked neatly into a queen-size bed. The next door was the second bedroom, which was almost entirely empty except for a desk and office chair, scattered with papers and a small wire-mesh waste bin overflowing with crumpled pages from a yellow legal pad. No one appeared to be in there either.

Which left the last door, which Damien assumed was the bathroom.

At the end of the hallway he reached the door, turned the knob, and found it opened easily. There was no lock engaged on it, which made his heart sink. If Jordan was alive and hiding from her attacker, she would have locked the door.

If she were dead, her attacker would have left her in the room, the lock on the door unengaged.

He opened the door and stepped into the small full bathroom. A white sink with counter space underneath sat on the left. The toilet was in the back corner, and the shower stall was situated to the right. The shower curtain was a dusty rose color and pulled closed.

Damien reached up and stretched the curtain back. He blinked and felt himself retch at the sight in front of him.

Jordan was slumped inside the shower stall, her legs up against her chest and her face and head covered in blood. Her eyes were closed. Small gasps still came from her mouth.

She was alive.

Every breath seemed to be an agony for her.

Damien called out to Tim and Chloe that he needed help.

He bent down to assess her wounds and try to move her into the hallway where he could stretch her out and see what her full injuries were. It was then that he noticed her hands, clenched into fists, and what was dangling from them.

A strand of pearls, ripped at the clasp and covered in blood over the white sheen of the jewels themselves.

He knew those pearls. A memory floated back to him, of moving them aside so he could kiss her neck the night of their engagement party.

The pearls were Grace’s.

47

Leanne

The day of homecoming was cold and rainy. Leanne awoke shivering in her bed. She’d left the window open last night when she’d returned to bed after Mrs. Miller’s visit. It must have rained in the early hours because her sheets were damp and chilled.

Leanne put her feet on the floor as quietly as she could and listened for movement in the house. Her clock said it was 9am.

Clinks of dishes and water running came from downstairs. Leanne guessed it was her mother in the kitchen. Her father went into work on Saturdays, although now he’d admitted to not having an office to go to anymore she might find both downstairs.

Leanne took a quick shower, ran a towel through her hair, and pulled on sweatpants and a flannel button-down shirt. Tasha still wanted to do her hair, and she’d need a shirt that could come off without ruining her hair before getting into her dress. Her burned hand was looking a little better, but she still needed a full set of bandages to wrap around her fingers and wrist.

In the kitchen, her parents were sitting at the breakfast counter drinking coffee. They looked up at Leanne as she came into the room. Her father gave an almost imperceptible nod. Marian stared into the depths of her coffee cup.

“I’m glad you’re up,” her father said. “It was a late night for you.”

“I thought I heard something outside.” Gene had seen the code entry in the door-lock app on his phone, of course. Mrs. Miller must have used Leanne’s then. Leanne had prepared a story last night before heading to bed.

“Is that so?” Marian kept her eyes on her coffee cup, and then abruptly stood up, threw the remains of her coffee into the sink, and started washing it.

“I thought it was a dog, or maybe a cat. Something was howling outside.”

“I didn’t hear anything.” Marian’s back was to Leanne. Her mother’s jaw clenched. She could see the muscles in her neck pulled taut, even from behind.

Leanne silently cursed Mrs. Miller for making today even harder than it was going to be.

“It woke me up.” Leanne took her mother’s empty seat. Her father tapped Leanne’s shin under the table with his foot. The touch surprised Leanne.

“You should have woken one of us up,” he said. “What if you’d been hurt? What if the animal had rabies or something?”

Her mother was still attending to the cup in the sink, her back turned. Leanne locked eyes with her father. His bruises were smoothed over more today after a night of sleep. His knuckles had turned yellow-blue in some spots.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her stomach growled. She was very hungry.

Marian tilted her head at the sound, the previous discussion apparently dropped. “I’ll make you some eggs.” She took a carton out of the fridge and turned a stove burner on to heat the pan.

“Thank you,” Leanne murmured.

The three of them sat in silence while Marian cooked the eggs. They made a sharp hiss as she cracked each one into the pan.

She slid the plate of sunny-side-up eggs—three in total—in front of Leanne. “I’ll butter you some toast and get a glass of juice.” Leanne sat and let her mother control the kitchen. She knew it was safer than trying to get up and help, even if her mother was still favoring her one shoulder after their fight two nights ago.

Gene stood up, caught Marian’s eye, and came over to kiss her. He winced as a cut on his cheek brushed against her skin.

“Eat up,” Marian told Leanne.

Her mother’s shirt was loose around the waistband of her jeans. Leanne wondered if the gun was there, shoved in the gap between her mother’s T-shirt and pants. She thought about going up and giving her mother a hug to see if she could feel it, but she hadn’t hugged her mother in years. Marian would find it suspicious.

And if she did get close to her mother, she didn’t want Marian to think she was trying to hurt her, like the night with the fire poker, and to pull the gun on her.

Instead, she gave the dishes to her mother and silently went back upstairs to her room to get ready.

Two hours later, Leanne was ready to head over to Tasha’s place. Her mother and father were going to dinner at Troy Alto’s over in nearby Poland village for a fancy meal, and her mother decided to get her hair done at a salon in town before dinner. She would take Leanne in the car and drop her off at Tasha’s.

Leanne had everything she needed for the night, packed securely in her garment bag with her dress and the portable makeup case she kept in her closet. Her dress, shoes, purse, and shawl if the night turned cool. In her makeup case were different eye shadows, mascara, a curling iron, and the entire stack of bills she’d extracted from the ATM over the course of the last two weeks. She had almost fifteen thousand dollars.

Leanne couldn’t risk it being burned, in case the fire spread.

Her mother waited in her car for Leanne. Marian’s head was bent over her phone, and she quickly slipped it into the middle console as Leanne put her things in the back seat and sat down in the front.

“Thank you for the ride,” Leanne said politely. Once she got to Tasha’s, everything that was planned for today would become real. Until then, it was a glimmer in Leanne’s periphery. Something moving in the shadows.

A message flashed on her mother’s phone. Marian reached out and turned the screen of her phone down so it was hidden. She started the car and pulled out onto the street.

Leanne pretended she hadn’t seen anything, and stared out the window, commenting on the number of leaves that had fallen overnight.

But she had seen the message.

It was an alert from Instagram. Leanne knew her mother had a secret account. She found it on Marian’s phone one night during her midnight wanderings while her mother slept off a heavier dose of sleeping pills Leanne put in her mother’s wine.

It wasn’t fair for Leanne to be the only family member monitored. She’d learned from the best: her parents. There were lots of details about people’s lives you could uncover if you had access to their phone. Her mother wrote reminders to herself in her Notes app.

Pick up wine. Pay the electric bill. Passwords and access codes.

Leanne waited until she was inside Tasha’s trailer before she pulled her phone out and checked her mother’s account.

She could easily toggle between her account and her mother’s in the Instagram app. This way, she had access to her mother’s DMs along with seeing her posts.

Marian didn’t post much. She used her Instagram account like a private message center, although there hadn’t been much activity there for weeks.

Sure enough, there was a new DM in her inbox, just like Leanne thought she’d seen flash up on her mother’s phone earlier.

But it wasn’t from any of the admirers Leanne recognized, the strange men who sent pictures of their genitals to anyone who expressed a slight interest. Marian seemed to enjoy leading them on, although lately she’d ignored them.

No, this message was from MacDaddy42.

It was one word, in all caps.

STOP

48

Damien

He was outside on the bumper of the ambulance, being checked over by a polite emergency medical technician with a tight French braid and freckles on her nose. Damien insisted he wasn’t hurt, and the blood on his hands, arms, and chest were from trying to move Jordan, but they insisted.

Chloe and Tim stood over on the curb with two uniformed police officers who took notes and nodded their heads as if in slow motion. Damien lost track of Jordan once the police arrived, followed just ten or fifteen seconds later by the ambulance. He was gripped by the other EMT, who was about two feet taller than the woman now helping Damien, with arms the size of tree trunks and a tribal neck tattoo spiraling up his right bicep. A police officer barked out questions to Damien—Who else is here? Is she breathing? What did you touch?—which Damien couldn’t answer due to the tremble in his jaw as adrenaline surged inside him—until the EMTs took over. Jordan was swarmed by first responders as they escorted Damien down the hallway and out the door into the back of an ambulance. A uniformed officer tried to ask him questions but gave up when Damien only mumbled replies while watching the second ambulance race out of the driveway with Jordan inside.

The officer would be back, Damien assumed.

For now, he tried to take deep breaths like the EMT was instructing him. She listened to his heart and took his blood pressure. He had no idea what the readings were, but she didn’t release him so he figured his body was going haywire just like his brain was.

He needed to see Grace. To know what she’d done.

Or what had been done to her.

A detective in a gray shirt, tie, and dress pants with a high and tight haircut approached. He leaned in to say something to the EMT. She nodded quickly and stepped away, leaving Damien with the detective.

“I’m Detective Altera. How are you holding up, sir?”

Damien stared up at him. The metal bumper of the ambulance was cold and chill seeped into his legs. The rest of his body felt feverish.

“I realize the scene inside is shocking.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Could you explain how you came to be at Detective Henderson’s home today?” He stood close to Damien, his cologne overpowering the smell of blood still caught in Damien’s nose.

Damien explained the phone call he’d received, and before that about his missing fiancée. He told Altera about the newspaper article, and Grace’s supposed link to the Crosbys. Altera listened quietly. Blue and red lights whipped around the scene from the top of the ambulance and police cars parked at angles around Jordan’s condo building.

Damien did not tell him about meeting with Victoria Hoover. He didn’t mention he was attacked in the backyard of Grace’s childhood home, or that Chloe carried a knife in her purse.

Damien was at a point where he didn’t believe the police could help him anymore.

“Is Jordan going to be okay?” he asked.

Altera wouldn’t meet Damien’s gaze. The EMT stepped in. “She’s on her way to Saint Elizabeth’s. She’s in good hands.”

Damien had no idea where the huge EMT had gone. He wanted his muscular arms to wrap around him and squeeze the breath from his body.

Of course Jordan got hurt. Damien was cursed. He knew—had known for a long time now—that death followed him around like a stray dog. But he’d let himself forget for a little while, when everything seemed so perfect with Grace.

What a fool he’d been.

49

Leanne

“Be careful with that,” Eleanor called out to Tasha. Tasha flinched at her mother’s voice, and Leanne let out a yelp as the heat from the curling iron singed the baby hairs at the nape of her neck.

“Sorry,” Tasha murmured. She was concentrating on perfecting Leanne’s curls for some sort of up-do to complement the pink dress. Tasha hadn’t mentioned anything about Leanne wearing the same dress Tasha tried on at the store, and Leanne didn’t either. She had no clue if her friend cared or not.

Leanne felt Tasha’s hands at the nape of her neck, her finger sliding underneath the coil of hair as a buffer between Leanne’s skin and the curling iron. She wanted to point out that Tasha was risking burning her own finger to protect her, but she kept her mouth shut.

She hadn’t expected Eleanor to be at Tasha’s place when she arrived. Leanne felt foolish now for not realizing they’d have an audience. Where was Tasha’s mother going to go? They’d been attacked by Marian only yesterday. Leanne knew Tasha must still be in pain, but that her friend would pretend she was fine in order to help her.

Still, she wished her friend would have told her Eleanor would be there, too.

Leanne considered for a second if Eleanor may have been doing the same thing for the sake of Tasha. She had no other way to explain how quickly they’d both recovered from the attack yesterday.

Leanne secretly hoped her mother’s violence would drive Eleanor away, back into the arms of the rangy, stringy-haired men Tasha said she liked to waste her life with. Instead, she rested on the cushions in the living area of the trailer, drinking sweet tea through a straw and watching reruns of Grey’s Anatomy on television, while Tasha and Leanne moved from the bedroom to the small bathroom stall and back.

“Did you decide what you’re going to wear?” Leanne asked Tasha. She already had the pink dress on, but in the fluorescent lights of the trailer the fabric looked cheap and the wide straps made Leanne seem misproportioned on top. Neither of them commented on the fact that Leanne was wearing what should have been Tasha’s dress. Leanne wished she hadn’t bought it.

Tasha didn’t answer. She set the curling iron down on the dresser in front of the mirror and walked to the closet to pull out a sequined silver dress. It was short and stretchy.

“My mom said I could borrow it,” she explained, her voice flat. Her short hair was combed back from her forehead and she wore a pair of baggy gray sweatpants and a worn-out T-shirt from a charity 5K two years ago.

“It’s pretty.” Leanne shifted her eyes to the doorway, which was open. She heard beeping and the tinny recording of an ambulance siren. Ice tinkled in a glass. “Have you tried it on yet?”

“No.”

“Here, I’ll help you. You want to make sure it fits.” Leanne reached over and pulled the accordion door of the bedroom closed. And, as soon as the door was closed, she whispered, “I need to tell you something.”

Tasha’s eyes grew wide, and then narrowed. “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”

“It’s not that. It’s about my mom.” Something rustled outside the door. “And Mr. MacDougal.”

“Okay.” Tasha sat down on the edge of the bed.

“And you.”

The smell of bleach filled Leanne’s nostrils, now that the door was closed and there was so little air moving in the room. Underneath, she thought she could still smell a hint of bodies. Shit and blood. Although it might have been imprints on her brain from the last time she’d stood in this room.

“Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t know,” Leanne answered honestly. “Your mom’s already been hurt enough. I figure it’s better, the less she knows.”

Tasha didn’t respond but gave a slight nod. Leanne caught the wince at the corner of her friend’s jaw. She looked at Tasha’s arms but didn’t see any bruises. She wondered if Tasha had covered them with makeup. Her face, though, looked freshly washed.

Leanne took a breath and tried to organize the thoughts mixing inside her head.

“Mr. MacDougal is MacDaddy42.” She’d start with that.

“What? I don’t understand.” Tasha shifted her weight to her other side. The bedframe creaked underneath her.

“He replied to one of your posts on Instagram. He used the same phrase he wrote on my college essay.” Leanne explained the ‘once more, with feeling’ feedback he’d given her, and how she’d put the words together with his comment. She didn’t feel the need to mention she’d seen Tasha’s notification while she’d taken her phone, since anyone could see the comments on Instagram posts. All Leanne’s worries about Tasha and Greg were insignificant now, and Leanne was embarrassed by her own actions that day.

“But that’s a common phrase. It could be anyone posting that.”

“The same Instagram account messaged my mother.” Leanne didn’t stop to recount how she was able to log into Marian’s Instagram. “I saw it today, by accident when my mother didn’t think I was looking. His message said ‘stop’ in all caps.”

Tasha stood up. She walked over to Leanne, so close that their noses were almost touching. “What are you saying?”

Leanne stared into her friend’s eyes. They were a light brown from afar, but up this close she noticed a flicker of gold in the center.

“Mr. MacDougal isn’t our friend.”

Tasha reached out and put her hands on Leanne’s shoulders. The pressure felt good on Leanne’s skin. Tasha linked her fingers underneath the straps, stretching the fabric up and out in her grip. The bodice of the dress tightened around Leanne’s breasts.

“I’m sorry.” Tasha put her lips close to Leanne’s.

Leanne swallowed. “Did you know already?”

Tasha released Leanne’s dress and stepped back. “No. I thought he was someone you could count on.” She corrected herself. “We could count on.”

“I knew my mother spoke with him about college. I had no clue they were involved.”

“You don’t know they’re involved. Maybe he was DM-ing her about something else. Something she posted online, and he just happened to see it because of all those social media algorithms.”

A smell of burning overwhelmed the scent of bleach in Leanne’s nose. The curling iron was still on. It had melted the plastic coating on the fake wood of the dresser. Leanne unplugged it.

“Maybe,” Leanne said dubiously.

Leanne looked at herself in the mirror. Half of her hair was set in spiral curls. The other half hung limply along the side of her face. They had a lot of work to do still.

“What time is Greg getting here?” Leanne asked. She suddenly didn’t want to talk about Mr. MacDougal anymore.

“He’s not coming,” Tasha said nonchalantly.

“What do you mean?” Leanne’s fingers clenched at her side.

“I told him to meet us there.”

“Why would you do that?” Leanne tried to keep herself calm.

Tasha ignored Leanne’s question and opened the door. The sound of the Grey’s Anatomy theme song tinkled down the hallway. “He’s chaperoning the dance. Mr. MacDougal. I saw his name on the sign-up sheet in the principal’s office.”

Leanne didn’t ask why Tasha had been in the office. Instead, she replied the way her friend was expecting her to.

“So we’ll see both Greg and Mr. MacDougal tonight?” She needed to keep herself focused. There was no reason to get angry. She had to save her energy—her rage—for later.

50

Damien

He was in what he was coming to think of as Victoria Hoover’s bar. She had called his phone repeatedly during his questioning by the police officers until Damien answered while en route to the station. She said she’d wait for him at the bar until he arrived or until it closed at 2am—whichever came first.

Damien was questioned for only an hour at the station before they released him. Chloe drove Damien’s car over with Tim in the passenger seat because her nerves were steadier than Tim’s after seeing everything inside Jordan’s apartment.

Both Chloe and Tim were questioned too, but as all three of them were alibis for each other and neither Chloe nor Tim had any apparent reason to hurt Jordan, they were released rather quickly.

It was almost dark outside when Damien stepped into the bar and spotted Victoria with her short haircut and efficient manner sitting in the same booth they’d occupied yesterday. Chloe was driving Tim back to the hotel for a shower and a stiff drink, she said, so Damien was alone.

He was rather surprised at how easily he’d found himself alone after the events of the day. He thought Chloe and Tim would want to stay together with him for protection if not for emotional support. The police didn’t disclose to Damien who they considered their main suspects, and Damien didn’t tell them that the pearls were Grace’s. He didn’t mention them at all when he was questioned.

But he was going to tell Victoria Hoover about them.

“How is she?” Victoria asked, her eyes leveled on Damien from above her glass of whiskey.

The Crosbys were listed as Jordan’s emergency contact at the hospital. The nurse at the reception station wouldn’t let Damien in, although he’d stayed in the emergency-room entrance long enough to see Gene and Marian Crosby rush through the automatic doors, ask for Jordan’s room, and run down the hallway with a second harried nurse at their side. Whether they clocked Damien and ignored him, or didn’t notice him, he couldn’t be sure.

Detective Altera offered to keep Damien updated, but so far he’d heard nothing.

He told Victoria as much.

He felt like his entire world revolved around waiting for something to light up on his phone. Grace. Jordan. He was all questions with no answers.

Which is why he was meeting Victoria.

“How’d you hear about Jordan?” he asked.

A waitress came over and Damien ordered a soda and cranberry juice. Victoria raised her eyebrows but he shook his head. His mind was muddied enough without numbing it further.

The waitress returned with his drink before Victoria answered him.

“I’ve been a reporter for a long time.” She sat back in her chair and rested her head against the tall wooden seat of the booth. “I have contacts who keep me posted about cases Youngstown PD are working.”

Damien had figured as much.

“It was horrible,” he told her. Images from Jordan’s apartment flashed in his head. Blood and arms and legs. Jordan’s weak voice asking him for help.

He pulled out the pearls. He’d secreted them into the pocket of his pants before the EMTs and police arrived. Jordan was disoriented and Damien felt certain she may not have even realized what she was holding. They were still covered in her blood, now dried to a grotesque brown.

“Jordan was clutching these.” He held the broken necklace out to Victoria. She leaned forward again and narrowed her eyes. Her hands stayed wrapped around her drink.

“I’m assuming they mean something to you, since you felt it necessary to remove evidence from a crime scene.” She lowered her voice to a whisper as she said the last part.

“They’re Grace’s. My fiancée’s. They were the first real piece of jewelry she bought for herself after arriving in New York.” He stopped talking. A sharp pain shot through his chest, which he tried to rubbed away with his right fist, like he was working out a cramp in his calf.

“I thought they said there was only one victim…” Victoria began, but Damien cut in.

“Grace wasn’t there when I arrived. So either whoever hurt Jordan has Grace, too, or...” Damien choked on the words. He let Victoria fill in the rest.

“Do you think your fiancée is capable of beating someone like that?” Victoria’s gaze was steady. Damien realized, looking back into her calm face and cool, bright eyes that she wasn’t stricken by any of this. She was doing her job.

He didn’t trust her to do what was best for Grace, but right now their interests aligned, and he was grateful for that.

“I have no idea,” Damien replied. “I didn’t know Grace. Or Leanne.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure which name to use anymore.”

Victoria considered this. Her mouth pursed and she took another sip of her drink.

“Let’s say, hypothetically, that Grace is here, in Youngstown. That she was at Jordan’s home and that she hurt Jordan. Why would she do that?”

“Jordan’s investigating the fire at the Crosby house. She’s convinced her sister didn’t just run away, but that Tasha’s disappearance is linked with Leanne’s—Grace’s—death. Supposed death.” He paused, willing his mind to see into the darker corners of the possibilities spinning inside his head. “Jordan must have discovered something that would endanger Grace’s new life—something so critical that Grace would abandon her life in New York just before our wedding in order to avoid risking Jordan exposing her.”

An almost audible click rang through his thoughts. “Jordan was the one who sent the newspaper clipping.”

“You think so? You think Jordan was baiting Grace? That she had found her in her new life and was going to conjure her back to Youngstown with anonymous threats?”

“We don’t know if it was anonymous. There might have been other parts to the letter. Grace could have taken them with her and left the copy of the newspaper article behind.”

“But why would she leave something so incriminating in the apartment for you to find? You were bound to see the resemblance between her and Leanne, even with ten years in between.”

“Maybe she wanted me to find it and follow her here.” His leg jiggled up and down, shaking the table as his knee knocked into it from the bottom. Victoria snapped her foot at his ankle under the table. Pain surged up his shin. “Ouch.”

“Concentrate,” she ordered him.

“You’re the one drinking whiskey,” he pointed out.

“Why would Grace want you to come to Youngstown?”

His phone buzzed. Damien pulled it from his pocket. It was Detective Altera.

Damien didn’t have time to answer Victoria’s question, which he was glad of. Because the first answer that came to mind was that Grace hadn’t led him to Youngstown to help rescue her from whatever danger she was in.

His mind traveled back to the phone call he’d received at his aunt and uncle’s house, where she’d shouted and he’d heard sounds of someone possibly being attacked. He pictured the ring box with the lock of hair and her engagement ring she’d sent to their apartment.

What if she wasn’t leading him?

What if Grace—the woman he loved, the woman he was set to marry and share his life with—what if she had lured him here instead?

51

Leanne

It was hard walking in heels. Her toes pinched with each step as she and Tasha walked the few blocks to the high school from Tasha’s trailer.

Originally, Leanne was going to wear her Converse sneakers with her dress, but Eleanor magically woke up just as they were slipping out the door, just in time to insist Leanne wear a pair of her own six-inch heels. They were the same shoe size, after all, which Leanne discovered with an aggressive chip on her shoulder. She waited for Tasha to explain to her mom that heels weren’t Leanne’s style, but she just stood in the threshold of the door, frozen in place, with a blank expression. So Leanne was wearing heels.

They were also walking because Tasha needed one last post for her Instagram and it’d be easier to do it from the hill just above the high school, which they’d pass on their way to the dance. Leanne suggested it back inside the close air of the trailer’s bedroom. She’d pulled the props out of her oversized purse and, instead of being frightened, Tasha gave a yip of delight.

Now, the gun felt solid and cool in Leanne’s hand. She passed it to her friend and adjusted the strap on her borrowed heels. She could feel a blister starting on her right foot. She hoped it wouldn’t bleed down her heel, making the rest of her foot slick with blood.

She took hold of Tasha’s phone and framed the photo to have the high school in the background, with Tasha in her sparkly silver dress making duck lips at Marian’s gun. It was easy enough to get it. Turned out Marian kept it in the safe in her bedroom closet, and she kept the safe’s code in the Notes app on her phone. Click.

Leanne checked the lighting. She applied the gingham filter and showed it to Tasha.

Tasha scrutinized the photo for a few heavy seconds, took the phone back, typed out a caption, and posted it.

“What did you write?” Leanne asked. She put the gun back in her purse, next to the envelope of money she’d been saving from her daily trips to the ATM. The gun wasn’t loaded. She’d already checked. But she made sure the safety was on anyway.

Tasha smiled half-heartedly and started walking down the hill towards the school. The light was dimming outside. Bright lights from limousines depositing freshman and sophomores in their bright dresses and dark suits lit up the parking lot below.

“I put a heart emoji,” she finally said, calling over her shoulder. Leanne clacked along the sidewalk in her stilt-shoes, trying to catch up. “A black one.”

Tasha was acting tough, but she was still bruised and broken from yesterday. And there were the cuts she’d given herself earlier in the week.

Leanne thought, not for the first time, how their friendship was literally breaking Tasha down.

Leanne wound her arm through Tasha’s once they were side by side again. She stared straight ahead, because she didn’t need to look at Tasha to know what she was feeling.

“Do you think Greg is there already?” Leanne asked.

“He texted me a few minutes ago. He said he’s waiting for us at the back gym entrance.”

A sharp jolt of jealousy caught Leanne underneath her right rib, but she pushed it down. She reminded herself that none of that mattered. Not anymore.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Leanne asked. So much for her reminder.

Tasha didn’t pretend she didn’t know what Leanne was talking about. “You seemed so happy after you bumped into each other in the hallway that one day. I didn’t want to ruin that.”

“I don’t understand why he’d ask me to homecoming if he was into you?”

Tasha didn’t say anything. She turned her eyes towards a strip of weeds growing on the edge of the sidewalk.

Of course. “You asked him to do it.”

“I thought it would help through all of this. All the crazy stuff with your family, and everything going on with this.” She waved her hand back and forth between them. “What we were trying—are trying—to do. I just wanted you to feel good for a little bit.”

“And when I fell for Greg and it turned out he was really into my best friend instead, what were you going to do?”

Tasha shook her head, like she was trying to shake a thought loose. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I figured after tonight, maybe it wouldn’t matter. Everything was going to be different anyway.”

A small piece of glass hardened inside Leanne’s heart. “I wish…”

Tasha’s phone buzzed in her hand, reminding Leanne that now was not the time for this.

Leanne swallowed. “I bet it’s him,” she said, meaning Mr. MacDougal, not Greg.

Tasha clicked into Instagram, read the comment, and then passed it to Leanne. Her friend’s face was ashen.

Leanne’s account had commented on Tasha’s post with the gun. Running late. Be there soon, it said.

Leanne looked up at Tasha. Only two other people knew her account’s password. And she was willing to bet it wasn’t her father who had posted as her.

“My mother knows I took her gun,” Leanne realized.

Tasha was silent for a moment. Then she snatched her phone back and typed in a quick reply to the post. She held it out for Leanne to read.

See you soon, Tasha wrote. Another black heart punctuated her words.

52

Damien

Everything in Youngstown was gray. Gray sidewalks, gray buildings, gray clouds.

Gray hearts.

Damien hated this town. He hated the potholed streets and the derelict cars and the strip clubs next to sensory-deprivation bars next to porn shops. He hated the hospital parking lot at Saint Elizabeth’s, with its seven dollar parking fee and cramped parking spaces.

He hated the ticket gate and the litter on the sidewalks. His rental car and his caffeine shakes. His future fake mother-in-law, who was back at her hotel room napping off the stress of her missing pseudo-daughter. His gullibility.

After the phone call from the detective, Tim came to pick Damien up at the bar and then switched to let Damien drive. Now Tim sat next to him in the car, tapping away on his phone and looking up nervously at random intervals to scan Damien’s face.

Victoria said she’d drive herself and meet them there.

Jordan was out of surgery. When Detective Altera called Damien at the bar, he reported Jordan was expected to make a full recovery. Damien could come and see her soon, and in the meantime the police would meet him at the hospital to review the details of the case via a brief chat.

Tim didn’t buy it for a minute and insisted on coming with Damien.

The two brothers strode up to the main reception desk, Damien at pace and Tim lagging like a disconsolate puppy. Gray again, inside and out. Floor, ceiling, and desk all seemingly made from the same anemic linoleum.

The receptionist directed them to the fifth floor, where she instructed they’d encounter another reception desk and that they may or may not be allowed in once they arrived.

“I hate hospitals,” Tim muttered as they waited for the elevator in the side lobby.

Damien ignored him. There was nothing to say. After being told in another lobby by an emotionally-deficient ER doctor that their parents were dead, both of them were imprinted with an almost instinctive rejection of the medical establishment. It was probably why Tim was so fixated on fitness and health.

Damien’s eyes met Detective Altera’s when the elevator doors opened.

“It’s not good,” Altera intoned, stepping back from the elevator and letting Damien and Tim out.

“What do you mean? You said on the phone she was going to be fine?” Damien’s heart walloped against the inside of his chest. It was like five hundred volts of electricity streamed straight into his body.

“There’ve been complications.” Altera’s face was shadowed with stubble and his eyes were red. Damien realized the detective and Jordan may have been friends.

Maybe lovers.

“Can we go see her?” Damien asked just as Tim spoke over him.

“What kind of complications?”

Altera ran his hand over his face and sat down in a stiff chair next to a ficus and a coffee-vending machine. “There were some issues in medication. She was given the wrong dosage.”

“Of what?” Damien thought he might be sick. “You mean this didn’t have to do with her injuries? The hospital made an error?”

A thin woman in a dark coat and white shirt buttoned up to her neck came from behind them and handed Altera a Starbucks coffee cup. Damien could smell the coffee and sugar from where he stood. “Here you go.” Her voice rang in the sterile room like a bell.

She turned to Damien and Tim. “I’m Detective Sharner. I work with Altera and Henderson. I’m sorry for everything you’re dealing with.”

“Thank you,” Damien mumbled pointlessly.

Sharner gave her attention back to Altera. Her eyes were bright and clear. She looked well-rested and fit, like someone who ate five servings of vegetables a day and drank a gallon of water.

Damien’s skin seemed to shrink around him. He was so very tired.

“I need to talk to you,” she said to Altera.

“How could this have happened?” Tim paced back and forth in the small waiting area. Damien wished he’d left his brother back at the hotel.

Damien barely listened to the noncommittal answer Sharner offered to Tim’s question. He faced the hallway that led to the patient rooms. He realized he could walk down to Jordan’s room if he wanted to. The nurse at the desk was busy talking to other families.

He walked away from his pathetic group, ignoring the protests that grew louder as he made his way down the hall past each closed door. There were small windows in the doors for each room, and he glanced in at each. An old woman. An empty bed. A little boy.

All of them wrapped in gowns and blankets and covered in wires, tubes, or both.

He got to the last door on the right: Jordan’s room. He spotted her broken and bruised face from the hallway. A doctor stood near her bed, blue scrubs and a cloth surgical cap covered their hair. They adjusted something on Jordan’s chart, fiddled with the IV drip, and turned to leave the room.

Damien was ready to step aside to let them pass, hoping deference might help him avoid a confrontation where the doctor questioned whether Damien was allowed back there. The doctor turned. They wore a surgical mask over their face, obscuring most of their features.

Through the small window at the top of the door, though, Damien locked eyes with them and knew immediately the visitor was an imposter.

Those eyes, the deep green like a mountain pool.

He felt that electric jolt again deep inside his body.

It was Grace.

53

Leanne

The music thumped down the hallway of the high school. From the wind-blown entrance Leanne and Tasha saw strobe lights leaking through the doors of the gymnasium pulsing in time with the beat of the song.

Tasha held Leanne’s hand as they walked from the ticket table, where a nondescript father took their tickets and gave them a winning smile—“Have fun, girls!”—all while staring at Tasha’s breasts in her mother’s low-cut sequin dress.

“What a perv,” Tasha muttered as they neared the entrance to the gym. The hallway was peppered with small groups of students leaning against each other in their dresses and suits, talking or staring at their phones.

“Do you see Greg?” Leanne asked. She craned her neck to see above a group of emo goths staring forlornly at the streamers covering the double doors of the gym.

A slow dance started over the loudspeakers. The lights came up slightly and Leanne peered into the gym as her eyes adjusted to the brighter environment.

Tasha checked her phone. Leanne only let it bother her a little bit that Greg was texting Tasha instead of her. “Nothing.”

“Do you see…” Leanne let it trail off. Tasha already knew what she meant.

“I don’t see your mom anywhere.”

Something bright and hot caught in Leanne’s throat. If her mother wasn’t here yet, but she was on her way, where was Leanne’s dad? And why was her mom pretending to be Leanne on her Instagram account? She knew Leanne was with Tasha.

Both of them would realize her mom’s comment was a fake. Leanne tried to consider why her mother would be making a public timeline record that Leanne and Tasha weren’t together yet, but she didn’t have enough information to make sense of it.

“Should we go inside?” Leanne asked.

Tasha and Leanne paused in front of the formal photographers, who put them in couple mode with Tasha’s hand on Leanne’s waist as they looked at the camera. The lightbulb flashed, leaving Leanne blinded for a second. As her vision came back, a figured materialized behind the photographer’s fancy camera.

“Hi Leanne,” Greg said shyly. His hair was combed down with some kind of gel and his suit was a light gray. Leanne figured his father must have tied his tie for him, because it was some fancy Windsor knot almost half the size of Greg’s neck.

Tasha walked away to get soda for them at the refreshments table. Leanne found an empty table along the edge of the gym and sat down. Her feet were killing her.

Greg followed. “Do you want to dance?”

Leanne wasn’t sure. She glanced over Greg’s shoulder at Tasha. Her phone was held up high and angled to see her slipping a flask of liquor from her purse and pouring it into her cup. She slipped it back once she had the photo and came over to their table.

“Where should we go next?” Tasha’s face was expectant. Her cheeks were flushed, and Leanne wondered if she’d drunk some of the whiskey in the flask while Leanne was focused on Greg.

“Hold on,” Greg said. He took out his phone to take a selfie with the three of them. Tasha leaned close and pretended to lick Greg’s face. Greg promptly posted the photo to his Instagram. Leanne looked numb in it.

She scanned the dance floor. The lights had turned dim again and her classmates’ bodies thrashed against each other as the DJ played another dance track.

Tasha’s eyes leveled over Leanne’s shoulder at someone. “There he is,” she mouthed.

Leanne turned to see Mr. MacDougal sipping from a plastic cup on the side of the dance floor. He wore his usual plaid button-down sweater vest, and tweed jacket. He stood alone.

“Has he seen us yet?” Greg asked it as though he knew what was happening tonight. Leanne thought he was here just to be another audience member, but the thought occurred to her that Tasha may have told him more.

“No, I don’t think so,” Leanne said before Tasha could reply. “He’s just chaperoning.”

Mr. MacDougal stepped out into the middle of the dance floor and separated a couple who were grinding enthusiastically on each other.

Tasha’s phone flared in her hand. “People like the pic,” she announced.

“I liked it,” Greg replied just as Leanne suggested it was time for another photo. She grabbed Tasha’s hand and pulled her into the center of the dance floor. She needed to talk to her away from Greg.

Leanne leaned in close to Tasha’s ear to be heard over the music, which had shifted to a staccato rap from the nineties. A roar came up from the crowd of students and everyone around them started jumping up and down. “What did you tell Greg?”

Mr. MacDougal was just a few paces away from them, separated by a group of excessively tall and gangly basketball teammates.

Tasha leaned back into Leanne. She wrapped her arms around her so they were held in a tight hug. “Nothing. I didn’t tell him anything.”

Leanne rested her head on Tasha’s shoulder. They swayed back and forth, spinning as they went. She lost track of Mr. MacDougal.

For a moment, the music swelled and Leanne closed her eyes and imagined herself in a safe place, sinking down further and further into nothing.

“Ladies, are you enjoying your evening?” The deep voice rumbled from behind Leanne.

Her eyes snapped open. She turned.

Mr. MacDougal stood in front of them, the flow of classmates on the dance floor breaking around him like he was a rock in a rapid. He took another sip from his cup and smiled. In the next instant, his smile withered. He wasn’t looking at Leanne anymore. He was looking past her into the space behind.

Tasha’s grip on Leanne’s shoulders tightened.

“She’s here,” she whispered, her fingers icy on Leanne’s skin.

54

Damien

Damien didn’t have a chance to even say her name before Grace’s hand clamped down on his wrist and yanked him into the stairwell at the end of the hall. The metal door clanked shut behind him.

“Don’t say a word.” Grace kept her mask above her nose and mouth. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to keep him safe or threatening him.

Short wisps of her blonde hair escaped the edge of her surgical cap. Her forehead had a sweaty sheen.

Their eyes locked.

Grace was alive. She was here, in front of him. Some instinct of relief flashed through Damien. For a moment he allowed himself to think that maybe it was all going to be okay.

An alarm sounded in the hallway outside. Rubber-soled feet rushed down the hallway and voices shouted.

His eyes tracked Grace’s and her face answered his unasked question. The relief he’d felt dissolved like a spray of cheap perfume in the air.

“We need to leave now.” She tightened her grip on his wrist and pulled him down the stairwell. Damien’s foot caught on the edge of one stair and his ankle twisted uncomfortably as Grace pulled him down to the ground floor.

They exited the stairwell at the bottom and entered a darkened hallway connecting them to the parking garage. Grace’s hand slipped from around Damien’s wrist to intertwine her fingers with his. They ran together through the parking spaces, holding hands like two young lovers, until Grace let go and climbed behind the driver’s seat of a gray sedan.

Damien opened the passenger-side door and got in. He forced himself not to think about what Grace had been doing in Jordan’s room. To not picture Jordan, bruised and bloody in her bathroom. A few moments of relief together was all he was asking for.

Grace drove out of the parking garage and out into the street. A pop station blared from the radio, swallowing the silence inside the car.

They drove for several minutes. Although Damien’s heart pounded, his mind was calm. Temporarily in the eye of the storm erupting around them.

Damien’s phone pinged and buzzed and beeped. Messages flared from his brother, and Chloe, and Victoria. His aunt and uncle eventually called.

He ignored them all. Grace said nothing, but as she pulled the car onto the on-ramp for Route 11, she reached over and gripped Damien’s hand. He squeezed back. She was there. He felt her skin under his.

Grace let go of his hand and reached to switch the radio off.

“You have questions for me.” She said it as a statement.

He asked his most immediate one. “Is Jordan going to be okay?”

Grace stared ahead. Her left hand came off the steering wheel and fiddled with the surgical cap’s strings. She’d removed the mask already when she got into the car. The cap came off and she stuffed it into the center console.

“Yes.” Grace’s voice was soft.

“What did you do to her?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

The rubber band twisting tighter and tighter inside his chest since he woke up drugged in his own apartment three days ago snapped.

“What did you do to her?” he shouted.

Grace flinched and jerked the wheel. The car’s tires skidded over the rumble strip. She steadied the car in the right lane of the highway before answering.

“I was trying to help her.” A tear streaked down Grace’s cheek.

“No, you weren’t. I saw you. You were tampering with her medicines. You were trying to hurt her.” He stretched his legs straight into the footwell so he could reach into the pocket of his pants. “She was clutching your pearls when I found her, barely conscious in her apartment earlier today!” A fleck of spit flew out of his mouth and onto the windshield. He felt like an animal. “I took them to protect you.” The necklace felt heavy and hot in his pocket. He wanted to fling them out at Grace, like retrieving the rogue coals that escape a fireplace before they set the house on fire.

“I thought I may have lost them there,” Grace murmured.

“Are you even listening to me?” Damien regretted getting into the car with her. What was he thinking? He had no idea where she was taking him. He’d left all his ties to reality back at the hospital. Damien looked at his phone. There were five texts and four calls from his brother. Tim left a lengthy voicemail with his last call, so long it wouldn’t transcribe automatically when he clicked over to the message.

A ramp for a rest area appeared on the right. A warning added to the highway sign indicated it was closed for repairs. Grace swerved over and sped down the curved road, behind the copse of pine trees lining the highway, and into a rest center that was empty. Caution tape and a sign on the small outbuilding confirmed it was under construction, though Damien couldn’t venture a guess as to when it was last worked on. It was abandoned.

Damien’s mind whirled back to the phone call Grace made to him, with the sound of traffic and then, before the call ended, of someone screaming. Of birds, blue jays, calling their alarm.

“We’re here,” she said as she killed the engine.

Damien blinked and realized he was wrong. The rest area wasn’t entirely empty.

A figure sat alone on the top of a picnic table, hunched over in a dark coat. Their head lifted as Grace slammed her door closed.

A blue jay screeched above them.

55

Leanne

“Hi honey,” Marian said. “You look gorgeous.”

Leanne turned around and looked at her mother. Leanne realized she’d left her purse with the gun and her money at the table when she pulled Tasha away to talk. Like a fool.

“I didn’t know you were chaperoning this dance.” Mr. MacDougal’s words cut sharp through the fog of Axe body spray on the dance floor. Leanne had never heard him sound cruel before.

Leanne’s mother ignored him. She turned her attention to Tasha. Tasha’s body tensed as Marian scanned her from top to bottom.

“You also look lovely, Tasha. I wasn’t expecting to see something so…” Marian paused, a cool smile playing at her lips. “So sophisticated here at a high-school dance.” The way she said ‘sophisticated’ made it clear she thought Tasha’s dress was anything but.

“Where’s Dad?” Leanne asked. She craned her neck to see around the room, but her classmates were all dancing around them, unaware of the danger that had entered their school.

“He’s out in the car,” Marian replied. “We’re off to dinner soon. I just needed to stop by and give you this.” Her mother reached into her purse and pulled out a creamy white envelope, the size of a business letter. The paper looked luxe and expensive. Leanne didn’t recognize it. “You forgot it at the house,” she said simply.

“Now wait just a second.” Mr. MacDougal stepped between Marian and Leanne. Greg, who’d been standing off to the side the entire time watching with his mouth open slightly, took Tasha’s hand and held it. She let him.

“What?” Marian wore a look of total bemusement, but Leanne caught her eyes unfocused for two or three heartbeats.

All of them turned to Mr. MacDougal.

“This is meant to be a safe space for students. A place for them to come and enjoy an evening where they are relaxing and finding comfort in each other’s company.” Mr. MacDougal’s voice had lost its edge, and it seemed clear to Leanne he was rambling towards some sort of point. But his words kept a commanding volume, leading the students dancing around them to turn and pay attention to their small mismatched group. Teacher, mother, and three friends.

“My daughter needs this.” Marian held out the envelope. It bulged in the center slightly.

Mr. MacDougal scrutinized the package in Marian’s hand. He reached out to take it from her, but Marian snatched it back. “This is none of your business.”

Leanne noticed a bead of sweat dripping from her mother’s brow. She wasn’t wearing the dress they’d bought earlier in the week. Marian wore sweatpants and a boxy gray sweater. Overly tinted foundation had been smeared over her cheeks. Her outfit looked hasty and ill-matched, like Marian had snatched the clothes randomly from her closet in a rush. Her mother certainly didn’t look like she was going out to dinner for a special night with her husband.

“I’m going to call Dad,” Leanne said. She instinctively reached for her purse, but of course, it was back at the table. Along with everything else important to Leanne.

“He’s out in the car,” Marian repeated through clenched teeth. “He wanted you to have this.”

“I thought you said she forgot it.” Tasha caught at the discrepancy in Marian’s explanations, and then Leanne saw her friend regret her words as Marian leveled her gaze on Tasha. Greg let go of Leanne’s hand and shifted his rangy body in front of Tasha, making a physical barrier between the two women.

“It’s time for you to leave.” Mr. MacDougal placed his hand on Marian’s shoulder as though to guide her gently off the dance floor and out the door. Leanne watched in horror.

“Don’t touch me!” Marian snapped.

Mr. MacDougal quickly leaned in close and whispered something into Marian’s ear. She listened briefly, took the envelope, and walked over to the table where Leanne’s purse sat like a small toddler slumped over in their seat. With her back to the group, she bent over and set the envelope on the table.

“Have fun tonight, sweetheart.” Marian blew a kiss at Leanne and slinked out the door.

“All right, everyone. Show’s over,” Mr. MacDougal called out to the group of students who had gathered to watch. Leanne’s face burned hot underneath the blue light as another slow song came over the speakers.

“Leanne.” Tasha followed her friend to the table, Greg just a step behind.

Leanne barely noticed Tasha slipping in beside her. Her eyes were focused on her bag and the envelope beside it.

She reached her hands into the center of her purse, but she knew before she even tried to feel for the gun or the money that both would be gone. She felt Tasha tense beside her as she realized the same thing.

Her mother had taken them when she put the envelope down, hiding them both in her own purse. Leanne could barely bring herself to look inside the creamy paper.

But she did look because Tasha and Greg and Mr. MacDougal were all watching her intently.

Leanne opened the envelope, and inside, as expected, was a folded piece of paper.

YOU LOSE, it read. And then below the capital letters, in a shaky cursive: Never forget.

Alongside it was the string of pearls her parents gave Leanne on her sixteenth birthday. Leanne shoved them both deep into her purse.

56

Damien

The figure on the bench moved to stand. Mist shrouded the rest area, as though a cloud had been caught in between the groups of trees and settled on the small outbuilding and its surroundings. Damien couldn’t tell if the figure was a man or a woman.

Grace was three or four yards away from Damien. She’d discarded her doctor’s scrubs and was pulling on a dark overcoat from the back seat of her car. Her hair was now loose and hung down to her shoulders. Damien held his phone in his hand but noticed quickly there was no signal in this isolated place. The voicemail he received from Grace back when this all began must have come from the payphone affixed in a small cubicle on the side of the outbuilding—no wonder he hadn’t recognized the number.

Grace strode across the empty parking lot and grass towards the picnic table. Damien followed her. It was far enough set back in the woods that no sound of traffic came from the highway.

As Damien walked closer to the picnic table, he recognized who was waiting for them.

“Hello,” Gene Crosby said to Grace.

Grace shook her head infinitesimally. Gene looked over at Damien and gave him a curt nod. “What happened?” he asked.

“She’d already been there by the time I got to Jordan.” Grace’s voice broke on Jordan’s name.

Who had been there? Damien wondered.

“It was horrible. Damien was there, he can tell you,” Grace continued.

“I… uh, I found her.” Damien stumbled over his words. He wasn’t sure what to explain. Were they talking about Jordan at her apartment, with Grace’s pearls clasped in her bloody hands, or were they talking about Jordan at the hospital, Grace standing over her, posing as a doctor who had the right to make life or death decisions?

Gene ignored what Damien said. His eyes stayed focused on Grace. “What did she do?”

Damien wanted to scream, “Who?!”

“I was too late at Jordan’s apartment. I fought Mom, but she turned the knife on me, and even though I tried to fight her, I had to back off eventually or get stabbed. Which is how I got these scratches and how my necklace broke.” Grace looked at Damien, who reached into his jeans and retrieved the pearls. He held them out to Gene, the slight tremor in his hand clicking the jewels against each other.

“I remember buying those for you,” Gene said quietly. He reached out and took them in his hand and rubbed a single pearl between his thumb and forefinger.

Damien blinked. He’d known for several days Grace wasn’t the woman he thought she was when he asked her to marry him, but it was different to have Gene Crosby confirm that she was his daughter. A daughter he bought pearl necklaces for.

The pearls weren’t Grace’s way of showing the world she was a new person in New York. She wore them to keep herself connected back here, to Ohio and the family she left behind.

Moved away from, Damien corrected himself. Because it appeared she never really left.

“I was able to get back inside once she left and I was certain she wouldn’t come back. I was searching around for first aid materials—bandages, rubbing alcohol—to help stop the bleeding, but I couldn’t find anything. Jordan said she was thirsty and needed water, so I went to the kitchen to get a glass for her to drink from. When I came back with the water, she was on the phone. Jordan had called Damien, but she passed out while she was on the line with him. I got on and told him to go to Jordan’s apartment. I couldn’t tell him more, though. I didn’t know what she’d do.” She paused. “I should have fought her harder. I should have stopped her when I had the chance.”

“You couldn’t take that risk,” Gene replied.

“No, I could have.” Grace looked up at her father. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. Her hands fidgeted inside the thick fabric. “But I was scared. I was a coward.” Grace shook her head and returned her eyes to the ground.

Gene cleared his throat. “And the hospital?” Gene asked. Not the most emotionally intelligent man, Damien thought. Of course, he wasn’t a model of insightfulness himself, what with a fiancée who may have faked her own death and killed her best friend.

Damien looked at Gene clearly for the first time since they’d arrived, not blurred by fog and dim lighting. He appeared to have aged years in the two days since Damien last saw him. Pale, gaunt, disheveled.

In contrast, Grace looked radiant despite the scratches on her cheek and neck, which Damien could see now that she’d removed her mask fully and wasn’t sitting to his left inside a car. Her eyes were bright and the sweaty sheen of perspiration he’d noticed in the hospital had shifted to a glow in the waning light of the crisp Fall day.

“I couldn’t risk talking to the nurses or doctors. Based on what I could read in her chart, it seemed like Jordan’s pain medication had been set to triple what it should have been. Somehow they caught it early enough—I overheard something about a nurse double-checking the chart with the pain med levels on the IV and noticing the discrepancy. I still needed to see Jordan’s IV connection, make sure Mom hadn’t done anything to rupture or block the catheter. She likes to have fail-safes. But that was all fine, so she failed with that at least. Unless…” Grace trailed off.

She reached out and leaned onto the picnic table. The wood looked rough. He heard it catch on Grace’s skin as she skimmed her hand against the board and abruptly sat down.

“Oh God.” Grace held her left hand up to her forehead. There was a glint of light as the setting sun caught on her engagement ring. He hadn’t noticed it before. It was nondescript, just the way Grace had preferred it to be.

How did she still have it?

Grace sent it to their apartment, along with a lock of hair. Chloe took a photo and sent it to Damien when he was at his aunt and uncle’s house.

“Dad, what if she was planning on me going to the hospital?” Grace fidgeted with her hands. The heel of her boot scraped in the gravel underneath the table.

“I’m sure she was,” Gene replied.

“I mean what if she wanted me to go to the hospital. What if she timed it just right?”

“Why are you wearing your engagement ring?” Damien cut in.

“What?” Grace caught the question and tossed it away with a flick of her wrist. The sleeve of her coat slipped down as she did so, revealing scratches along her arm and a long purple bruise forming below her elbow.

“What if she wanted me to get caught?” Grace said. “She wanted me to be the one caught tampering with Jordan’s medication. Then she has two of us out of the picture at once—Jordan dies from an overdose, and I’m arrested for impersonating a doctor and killing her. If the nurse had happened to double-check the dosage when she did out of her own diligence, that’s what would have happened.”

Gene, who had been sitting on the edge of the table, turned to look at Grace. A wave of recognition traveled over his features and set in his jaw. Damien could almost hear Gene grinding his teeth from where he stood.

“Your mother wouldn’t risk it,” Gene said definitively.

Grace nodded slowly. “Yes, she would. You don’t know her the way I do.”

Damien felt a buzz in his pocket. He pulled his phone out. He had one bar of reception standing near the edge of the clearing. Tim had texted again. Where r u?

And then, Damien suddenly saw it all so clearly. Grace knew her mother better than Gene. Of course.

Damien stood still and held his phone as high as he could. He dialed his brother, praying that it would connect.

Nothing. A dropped call.

He tried to send a text. The green bar on the top of his screen stuck on the last quarter inch before completing its delivery.

A door clasp rattled in the cooling air. The hairs on the back of Damien’s neck stood up. They weren’t entirely alone here.

Footsteps rustled through dead leaves and their visitor appeared around the side of the outbuilding. Marian wore a bottle-green coat that hid some of her gaunt frame. She wiped her hands on a towel as she approached them. Her face was grim.

“I’m sorry,” Marian said. “Everything in there is out of service. I could barely get a drip of water from the faucet.”

Fear rippled through Damien’s body. He stared at his screen. The green bar appeared to have moved, but he couldn’t confirm that Tim had received it.

“What are you doing? There’s no service this far out,” Marian chided him. “Your pearls.” She noticed them dangling from Grace’s fingers. She put a protective hand on Grace’s shoulder.

Damien had never felt so frightened or so alone.

He read his message to his brother again, willing it to go through the ether.

Chloe is dangerous. Get as far away from her as possible. Find me at rest area 14 on RT11. Hurry!

57

Leanne

“What does it say?” Greg stood behind Leanne and peered over her shoulder.

“Nothing.” Leanne shoved the paper back into her purse. “It’s just an inside joke between my mom and me. Where’s Tasha?” Leanne realized her friend wasn’t beside her any longer.

The dance floor had cleared while the DJ took a break. Students stood around drinking punch from plastic cups. Leanne still wasn’t sure if Tasha had spiked it for real. The glow of dozens of cell-phone screens brightened the gym. Mr. MacDougal had moved to stand watch at the refreshments table, where a long line snaked around the back of the gym. Leanne couldn’t see Tasha anywhere.

“She went to the bathroom.” Greg ran his hand through his hair, which had flopped onto his forehead from the humid heat in the gym. “Is something wrong?”

Leanne smiled. “No, nothing.” Realizing Greg needed something to do, she added, “Could you get me something to eat from the table? I’m starving.” She pressed her hand to her stomach. “We were so busy getting ready that I forgot to eat anything today.” She didn’t wait for Greg to reply, but instead grabbed her purse and walked out into the hallway towards the furthest girls’ restroom. She knew Tasha would avoid the busier ones closest to the dance.

The noise of the dance softened as she moved down the long, deserted hallway. It was dark, with only a few ambient lights inside classrooms lighting the way. She turned on the flashlight mode on her phone, but it made her feel more conspicuous—like she was holding a homing beacon in the dark—so she turned it off and kept walking.

Her heels tapped on the linoleum and her feet ached. Once again that night, she regretted wearing heels.

After her mother’s visit, Leanne’s mind buzzed with interference. Stay focused on the tasks at hand, she reminded herself. She needed to find Tasha, they needed to get back to Leanne’s house, and then, once everything was finished, she’d call the police. Step by step, like climbing a ladder.

She could do this, Leanne reminded herself.

“Where are you going?”

Leanne whipped around. A figure loomed at the end of the hall, next to the bathroom entrance. She couldn’t make out their face in the dark, and their voice was distorted by the metal lockers lining the hallway and the thump of music from the gym.

Leanne realized her mistake all too late. She assumed her mother had left the building. That they’d meet again back home.

She walked towards the figure, trembling. Remembering what she’d seen in Tasha’s trailer. The bruises, the blood. All that her mother had done.

Leanne should have never taken her eyes off Tasha. Instead, she’d let herself get distracted by her mother’s big entrance.

As she stepped closer, though, Leanne’s mind registered that whoever it was couldn’t be Marian. They were too tall, almost looming.

“Are you going to answer me?” A few more steps and she recognized the figure to match the voice. It was Mr. MacDougal.

“I’m sorry,” Leanne replied instinctively. “I’m looking for my friend. I think she’s in the bathroom.”

It felt ridiculous to act like Mr. MacDougal hadn’t been a part of the drama on the dance floor just a few minutes ago, or that he somehow wasn’t mixed up in this convoluted mess with her mother.

Something scuffed against the floor behind them. Leanne glanced back over her shoulder.

“She’s not here.” Mr. MacDougal stepped into the soft light coming through a classroom doorway. His face was tense, but kind. “Your mother. You don’t need to worry.”

“How do you know she’s not here?” Leanne swallowed the million other questions that rose in her throat.

Mr. MacDougal waved his phone in the air.

“I can’t track her, and I’m her daughter.”

“She follows me on Snapchat. The app has a map showing where everyone is constantly. Modern technology. It’s a boon and a curse.” He shrugged at Leanne’s questioning look. Nobody she knew used Snapchat. She’d never heard of it. Leave it to her mother to be more in touch of trends than Leanne was. “They were talking about it in my freshman English class. What can I say? My students keep me young.”

“Where did she go?” Leanne asked.

Before Mr. MacDougal could answer, Tasha appeared in the bathroom doorway holding a clump of paper towels on her right arm. “You found me,” Tasha said.

“What did you do?” Leanne rushed over to her and removed the towels. Beneath her arm looked fine. No new cuts or bruises. “You’re okay.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry for disappearing. I needed a break from…” Tasha paused. “From everything,” she finished.

“Mr. MacDougal is tracking my mother,” Leanne informed her. “On Snapchat.”

“What’s Snapchat?” Tasha replied.

Leanne turned around from her friend but found the hallway empty. “Where’d he go?”

“He probably needed to go back to the dance.” Tasha started walking down the hallway. “He is a chaperone after all.”

Leanne didn’t understand why so many people in her life kept walking away from her without an explanation.

“I need to talk to him more.” Leanne’s feet were throbbing. She bent to take off her heels so she could walk more freely. Her phone buzzed.

“Stop worrying about him. He doesn’t have anything to do with tonight.” Tasha pulled the skirt of her dress down from where it’d hiked up along her thighs. It was still uncomfortably short for her, Leanne realized.

“He’s been commenting on your posts,” Leanne stated plainly.

“That could be anybody—you don’t have any real proof that’s Mr. MacDougal.” Tasha flicked a hand at Leanne. “We need to get over to your house. It’s almost eight o’clock.”

In their planning, they’d set everything around the fixed time of eight thirty pm for Tasha’s final post. But that was before Leanne’s mother had ambushed them at the dance. Before Marian had the gun.

Leanne’s phone buzzed again with its second text reminder. She read the message, realizing as she did that they weren’t going to get a chance to find Mr. MacDougal at the dance.

It was a message from her father. Get home now, it said.

Tasha’s eyes met Leanne’s, Tasha standing up and peering down at Leanne’s crouched figure, her fingers still linked in the clasp of her shoe’s ankle strap. The phone screen glowed in the dark of the hallway.

Another message followed.

Hurry.

Greg caught up with them as they headed for the parking lot.

“Where are you going?” He was sweating under his arms and had swung his suit jacket over one shoulder.

“We have to leave,” Tasha replied, linking her arm through Leanne’s. “Sorry to have to go early, but I’m not feeling well. Leanne’s going to take me home.”

“I can drive you,” Greg offered. “Didn’t the two of you walk over?”

Leanne didn’t hesitate. She was already worrying about how she was going to get to her house in time. If her father was texting her to hurry, it was already too late. “That’d be really helpful,” she said. “Thank you.”

They walked past the ticket table, which was now deserted. A few ticket stubs blew across the table and onto the floor as Leanne pulled the door open. Leaving the heady atmosphere of the dance and walking out into the cool evening air felt like crossing a threshold. There was no turning back now.

In the car, Greg made everyone buckle their seatbelts and pulled slowly into the roundabout to turn left towards Tasha’s trailer. Leanne wanted to scream, but managed to calmly instruct, “Turn right. I’m not feeling well either. Could you take me home first, and then drop Tasha off?”

Tasha cleared her throat in the back seat.

There was no way Leanne was going to let Tasha near her mother again. Their original plan wasn’t a viable option anymore. Leanne needed to go this alone.

Greg put his turn signal on.

Leanne was thinking they should have just walked home. She took the time to finally unbuckle her shoes and slip them off. At least she was using the extra seconds productively.

Her mind whirred with possibilities of what she’d find at home.

Two minutes later, Greg pulled into Leanne’s driveway. The house was dark except for the light on the front porch and one lamp on in her parents’ bedroom.

Leanne pulled the door open before the car even came to a full stop and called a “thank you” over her shoulder. Maybe Greg would think she was sick. She didn’t care. She just needed to get inside.

The headlights for the car stayed still for a second while Leanne punched her code into the front door. She held her breath, but the lights swung out as Greg drove away in the direction of Tasha’s place. She didn’t know it then, but it would be the last time she saw him.

The lock hissed as it scraped back. Leanne pushed the door open. As she stepped through, a hand wrapped around her mouth.

“Don’t scream,” her mother whispered in her ear.

58

Damien

It was too late. He could sense it in his gut. Somewhere, his brother was hurt and Damien needed to get to him.

He jabbed at the screen of his phone, pressing the button to send his message and then, when it wouldn’t go through, onto Tim’s contact entry to call him. But the signal was failing. Damien thought about running into the woods to get better reception but realized as the light faded from the day that he’d only find himself lost and without a signal, unable to help Tim at all.

Damien turned from the cabal of Grace and her biological parents and ran towards the cars parked in the lot. He thought Grace had left the keys in the center console. He could drive to the hotel now, they were only fifteen, maybe twenty minutes away. Maybe Chloe had decided to focus on himself, Grace, and Jordan, and to leave Tim alone.

His thoughts scattered. He didn’t know if Tim was still at the hospital, waiting for Jordan to wake up. If Chloe had decided to make an appearance at the hospital as a visitor, rather than an attacker, as though she cared about Jordan surviving.

“Damien! What are you doing?” Grace ran up behind him and pulled him back by the shoulder. “Where are you going?”

His eyes locked on hers. In the fading light they looked pale blue, almost gray, rather than green. In that moment, Damien hated Grace for what she’d conjured back into his life with their shared happiness. He’d let his guard down, and now another person he loved was going to die.

“I can’t stay here. I need to find Tim.”

“It’s too late,” she said, echoing the voice inside his head.

Hearing her say it, though, shocked him.

Behind her, Marian and Gene began to walk towards them, their shoes kicking up small pebbles from the gravel path leading from the picnic tables to the outbuilding.

“Not if I get there before she can hurt him,” Damien replied. He turned and opened the car door to search for the keys. They weren’t inside the car.

“I said it’s too late,” Grace repeated. Damien resisted the urge to turn and smack her in the mouth. He curled his fingers into his fist.

“Stop saying that. Where are the keys?” he demanded. He heard footsteps on the gravel shift into scrapes against pavement.

And then everything around him went silent. He felt rather than heard Grace’s body freeze. The restless fidgeting of her hands ceased. Marian and Gene’s footsteps were still. Not even a whisper of a breeze swept through the air around the car’s open door.

Damien looked over his shoulder. Both Grace and Marian’s faces were set in grim lines of determination, but Gene looked pale and frightened. Like someone had just walked over his grave.

“Look,” Grace said. He followed her gaze.

Standing at the edge of the clearing where the surrounding trees gave way to lawn, about fifty feet away from their small group, was Chloe. She’d changed into a heavy winter jacket, almost two sizes too big for her. A dark stocking cap fit snuggly over her hair.

Her cheeks burned a bright red, which Damien could see even from the distance where he stood. It wasn’t cold enough outside to chafe skin and Damien assumed it was from the blood rushing inside her. Excitement.

He realized she looked thrilled to the core.

And next to her, with a blade to his throat, stood Tim. Damien recognized the blade from Chloe’s purse, its handle glinting in the draining sunlight. Tim stood a foot taller than Chloe and easily weighed fifty pounds more than her, but he seemed supple in her hands.

Tim blinked slowly. A lazy smile spread across his face when he spotted Damien.

He raised a hand to wave but his arm was uncoordinated and his fingers flexed crudely before Tim’s arm fell back down at his side. His legs seemed to be under control, although he leaned heavily against Chloe.

He was drugged, Damien realized. Chloe had drugged him with something.

Just like Grace—or, he realized, Chloe—had done to him, the night of their engagement party.

Grace’s hand gripped the inside of Damien’s arm. Pressure pulsed through her fingertips. He wanted to know whose side she was on.

But before he could think any further through the possibilities of how he was going to get himself and his brother out of this situation alive, Chloe yelled out and sliced the blade across his brother’s throat.

Blood poured from Tim’s neck in an arc of bright red. It lasted only a few seconds, until his heart finished pumping the remains of his life. Tim had worked so hard, sculpting his muscles to be efficient, honing his heart to beat furiously.

Tim’s body fell limp onto the grass with a sickening thud, like a sack being dropped into dirt.

Damien screamed. Chloe’s words echoed in his ears.

“I warned you,” she’d said as the blade severed his brother’s life.

59

Leanne

Leanne tried to shove the door closed with her bare foot, but it fell open again. She whipped her mother’s arm away. “Don’t touch me!”

“Don’t talk to me that way,” Marian shot back. The porch light streamed through the front door’s slit of glass and created a halo around her mother’s head. Marian’s face looked soft and maternal. Leanne hated her more each second that passed.

“Where’s Dad?” Leanne asked for the second time that evening.

“Your father is fine.” Marian stepped towards the kitchen. “Come sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”

Marian snapped the light on in the kitchen. Leanne heard a noise behind her and turned around. Her father hovered in the doorway, his eyes wide and shoulders hunched. Leanne hadn’t seen him standing outside.

“We just got home,” he said in a dazed voice. “Your mother made us park further down the street and walk.”

“So she wouldn’t see us. Let’s go,” Marian ordered. Gene stepped gingerly over the threshold and crossed into the kitchen. Leanne followed.

Marian sat at the table, tapping her fingers on the surface. The gun lay flat next to her hand, the barrel pointed out towards them.

“It’s not for you, don’t worry. And it is loaded now,” Marian said. Her eyes leveled on Leanne. “I said sit down.” Leanne sat at the table next to her father.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your plans with Tasha,” Marian continued. “I know the two of you are close.”

Leanne said nothing. Her father sat silently beside her.

Marian laced her fingers together and then, thinking better of it, put her left hand on top of the handle of the gun. “I never told you about your Aunt Nora, did I?”

“She was Dad’s sister.” Leanne thought she heard a scraping sound somewhere outside, by the back patio door. Her father cleared his throat and stood up.

“I don’t want to talk about her right now,” he said.

Leanne’s mother spoke like a fox snapping its jaws at a rabbit. “We need to talk about her now before it’s too late. We can’t do nothing. That’s not an option.”

Gene slumped his shoulders and settled back into the seat beside Leanne.

A pit threatened to swallow Leanne from the inside. “I thought Aunt Nora was dead. She left all that money to me in her will.” She turned her head to her right so she could look at her father fully. “You said she’d been sick for a while.”

“Oh, she’s sick, all right,” Marian said. “But not in the way that’ll kill her. Sick in the way that kills everyone around her.”

“Shut up, Marian,” Gene murmured, but Leanne’s mother ignored him.

Marian stood up, the gun in her left hand, and poured herself a glass of water from the sink with her right. It was quite a process, and Leanne wanted to shout that her mother looked ridiculous, but she kept her mouth shut.

That same scraping noise came from the backyard. Marian looked through the window above the sink, then turned abruptly, sipped at her water, and glanced at the time on the stove clock.

It was almost eight thirty pm. The light above the kitchen sink glowed warm and bright. Leanne realized it would be hard, if not impossible, to see out the window into the backyard. But anyone looking in would have a clear view of their small family gathering.

“Your Aunt Nora isn’t dead. She is very much alive.” Marian looked over Leanne at Gene. Something passed over Marian’s face. Gene nodded his head, just slightly. They seemed to have agreed on what would happen next.

“I’ll make you some tea,” Marian said to Leanne. She clanged around the kitchen, gun still in her left hand as she filled the kettle with water and set it to boil on the stove.

Gene shifted in his chair so he was facing Leanne. “My sister was always getting into trouble. You need to understand this about her. People loved her, and my mother and father—your grandparents—had a blind spot when it came to Nora. She was very good at making people like her and tricking them into thinking she wasn’t as cruel or as selfish as she really was. I was the only person in her life who saw her for what she was.”

“A sadist,” Marian said.

“Sick. Ill. Your Aunt Nora has a sickness that makes her treat people like objects, like toys she can play with and then discard.” Her father paused and swallowed hard. “I could use a drink.”

“There’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge,” her mother said offhandedly.

The kettle hissed on the stove.

“Is that why I’ve never met her?” Leanne asked. “Is that why you don’t have pictures around the house with her in them? You were trying to protect me from her?”

“That’s the thing,” Marian said. “You have met her before.”

Leanne wracked her memory. She’d only known about Aunt Nora’s inheritance for a little less than a year. “I didn’t even know I had an aunt until you told me about the money she left me.”

“You weren’t supposed to ever know about that money. We weren’t ever going to touch it.” Gene had poured himself a generous glass of wine. He drank down half a glass in one swallow. “But my business is failing and we needed the money. Nora set up the funds to make it impossible for me to get them by myself. You had to approve any withdrawals.”

“Or add your father to the account,” Marian said.

“So when did I meet her? Was it when I was really little? Why did you tell me she was dead?” Questions shot around in her head. The backs of Leanne’s eyes burned.

“I didn’t realize what was happening—that Nora was back—until I saw you running with your friend, Tasha, that day out by the high school.”

Leanne remembered. The day her father stopped in his truck, when Tasha told her Leanne needed to get away from her family.

“I don’t understand,” she said. Because she really didn’t.

“It was seeing Tasha. I hadn’t seen her before that day.” Gene stared out into the distance, like he was looking at someone vanishing in front of him. “You’re so secretive with your friends. And the posts on Instagram your mother showed me—” He glanced at Marian. “She always had so much makeup on, and the filters changed her features. But in person, outside in the natural light…”

“She looks exactly like her,” Marian contributed.

The tea kettle whistled. Steam flew out the top in an angry plume. Marian moved it from the stove and poured some water into two mugs she’d set out on the table. The gun remained in her left hand.

“Like who?” Leanne asked.

Gene’s phone vibrated. He looked at Marian. “It says you’re entering the house.”

They waited, on edge in the kitchen, to see who would step through. But the door didn’t make its typical creak of open and close.

She listened for the strange scraping from the backyard she’d heard earlier, but the house remained silent.

Leanne realized too late that it was the second alert, giving a reminder a few minutes after the first. They’d missed the initial text while the kettle boiled.

Someone was already inside their house.

Footsteps approached from the side of the kitchen, and their three heads swung in unison towards the sound.

“She looks like me,” Tasha’s mother said, standing in the entryway to the kitchen. She held Tasha by the hair, a knife poised at her throat. The handle glinted iridescent in the light of the kitchen.

60

Damien

“I’m going to kill you.” Damien didn’t shout the words. They exited his mouth carefully. He lurched away from Grace, around the open door, and somehow found his footing as he curved around the hood of the car and into the open space in front of Chloe.

She’d stepped away from Tim’s body. The knife remained in her hand, Chloe’s fingers gripped firmly around it. Damien was close enough now that he could see the white of her knuckles.

“I told you to stop, but you wouldn’t listen. Now, look what you’ve done?” Chloe chided him. Damien lunged towards her, but she was too quick and darted past him to the open space in between Damien, Grace, and her parents.

Tim’s face was smothered in the grass, his shoulders propped up at an odd angle due to how his body had fallen when Chloe dropped him. Damien couldn’t stop himself. Leaving Chloe behind him, he ran over and picked up Tim and turned him onto his side. Blood soaked into the hem of Damien’s pants as he crouched down. He felt its warmth creep through the fabric and touch his skin.

It didn’t last long. Already, the skin on his brother’s face and neck was cooling. Damien held his hands. Tim’s fingers were turning pale at the tips. He kept his eyes on his brother’s face, not letting his gaze travel down to the gash at Tim’s throat.

Damien settled Tim’s body and ran his hands over Tim’s eyes to close them. A sob formed deep in his gut and rose through his chest. He screamed until his lungs were empty and then Damien collapsed beside his brother’s body. He retched into the grass, only bringing up a small puddle of liquid from his stomach.

A pair of delicate feet in black ballet slippers hovered at the top of his sightline. Chloe wasn’t leaving. She stood in the middle of the field, the outbuilding behind her. Chloe was the top of a triangle, the bottom corners and edge linking Damien to Grace and her parents. Grace faced her from the back of the car, and Marian and Gene stood on the far right at the edge where the path met the asphalt of the parking lot.

“It was almost too easy, slipping something into his coffee at the hospital. I was going to call an Uber, just like I used to get to Jordan’s house, but he still had your car keys in his pocket. It was like it was meant to be.” Chloe couldn’t hurt anyone from where she stood. Not with her knife, at least. Only her words.

He didn’t know if she had a gun. He didn’t know if Marian, or Gene—or even Grace—had a weapon on them.

Part of him hoped they didn’t, and another part prayed they did.

The group fell into a tense silence. He had no idea what to do or who he could trust.

Finally, Chloe started to edge back towards the outbuilding, keeping herself facing forward so she could see their sad group arrayed in front of her.

A large black bird circled overhead. Damien recognized the broad wings of a turkey vulture. They scavenged the decaying corpses of dead animals. Damien realized with horror the bird was waiting for them to abandon Tim’s body.

“Chloe!” He screamed in instinctive fury and despair. Her name scratched like blades over his throat.

“Her name is Eleanor.” Marian said it calmly. She moved towards Chloe, who took a step backwards. She was only two or three feet away from the door to the outbuilding. “She’s Jordan’s mother.”

“I always hated that word, you know.” Chloe sneered. “Mother. I suppose that’s why you insisted on making me your pretend mother, right, darling?” She turned her attention to Grace. “It was your secret way to stick your thumb in my eye. I mean, I could have been your aunt, or a dear family friend, but instead you wanted everyone to believe I was your mother.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grace replied. “Please, stop this. No one else needs to die.”

“She’s never going to stop,” Gene said. “She’s been waiting years for this moment.”

“Mom and Dad would be so proud, wouldn’t they?” Chloe snapped. Her hand reached for the handle of the door.

“I said, stop!” Grace raised her hands level with the ground. She held a gun, small and black. She couldn’t have hidden it in the medical scrubs. Damien realized it must have been nestled in the pockets of the coat she wore.

Where did Grace get a gun?

“Why would I stop? You betrayed me, Grace. You’re the reason Tim is dead,” Chloe replied. Her hair had fallen out of her tight chignon at this point and dark curls framed her face.

“That’s not true.” Grace’s voice broke.

“Yes, it is.” Chloe bit the last syllable with her teeth.

Damien screamed, a guttural sound that stretched across the space.

Grace flinched. The sharp report of the gun echoed through the air.

61

Leanne

“Let her go.” Leanne tried to make her voice sound commanding, but it came out more as a whimper than a force.

“I won’t hurt her unless you make me.” Eleanor held onto the knife and steadied her other arm across Tasha’s chest. “I hope you don’t mind me letting myself in. I used Marian’s code—it seems silly thinking they make your home more secure, since anyone watching the house for long enough can see what each of yours is. I figured, one mother to another, you wouldn’t mind sharing it with me.” She looked pointedly at Marian, who stared back at Eleanor unflinchingly.

Leanne looked into her friend’s eyes and saw terror. Anguish. And rage.

She shifted her eyes away, staring at her feet. Her mind raced from explanation to explanation.

Leanne clenched her fists to keep her body from shaking as her heart pumped furiously and adrenaline surged through her body.

“Let her go.” Gene echoed Leanne’s words.

“We need to talk,” Eleanor said smoothly. She stood steady in the center of the kitchen, Tasha pulled tight next to her.

“Okay, but let Tasha go first.” Marian held up her hands as she backed up. The gun was gone. Leanne didn’t know if Eleanor had spotted it before Marian managed to tuck it away somewhere, probably in the back of her waistband. Gene and Leanne followed Marian, moving away from the entrance to the kitchen until the side counters pressed against their legs.

Eleanor laughed, so shrill it made the hairs on Leanne’s arms stand alert. In that moment, if Leanne could have killed Eleanor without risking her friend’s life, she would have.

“Your daughter looks confused,” Eleanor said instead of responding to Marian’s plea. “Do you want to explain what’s happening, or should I?”

“Your daughter looks terrified,” Leanne heard Gene say under his breath. Eleanor didn’t appear to hear him.

“Eleanor is your aunt,” Marian cut in, perhaps to cover up Gene’s reply before it registered with Tasha’s mother. Marian kept her body turned towards Eleanor, her back to the stove. “Tasha is your cousin.”

Leanne had figured as much by then.

“Why are you threatening to hurt your own daughter?” Leanne worked to keep her voice level. She couldn’t dare meet Tasha’s eyes. She stared at the handle of the knife, which was inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The beautiful colors were the only thing in the room that seemed to hold any shred of care.

Tasha breathed in sharply. “Let’s not be dramatic,” Eleanor chided. “Go on, Marian. You were doing so well.”

Marian’s face held a sharp sadness that hollowed her eyes and the space under her cheekbones. The tea had been forgotten, the hot water in the kettle sitting on a cold burner and quietly steaming out the spout.

“When you were a baby, Leanne, your father and his sister had a huge falling out. Eleanor—she went by Nora then—was using drugs and had started selling them, too. Not just pot, but harder stuff. Heroin, OxyContin…”

“Cocaine, Crystal Meth,” Eleanor interrupted. “I was an equal opportunity pusher.”

Marian pressed her lips into a slim line. “She showed up at our apartment one night, high on something⁠—”

“Probably drunk, too, let’s be honest.” Eleanor adjusted her hold on Tasha. Leanne caught her friend slipping her hands behind her back.

“She was aggressive, banging on the door and demanding that your father come out and give her money or else she’d go to the cops and say that he’d molested her when they were children.”

“Lies. All of it was lies, just her trying to provoke me into opening the door.” Gene stared at the ground as he spoke.

“He opened the door eventually to get her to stop screaming. We didn’t want the neighbors to call the police. Your father stepped out into the hallway, gave his sister all the cash we had, and told her he never wanted to see her again. I was standing behind the door, holding you in my arms and trying to get you to stop crying—all the loud voices and the angry faces had frightened you.” Marian shifted on her feet. Her hand rose to wipe a bead of sweat from her forehead, but Eleanor caught her eye and made a soft click in the back of her throat, as though she were chiding a dog. Marian continued.

“After that, we didn’t hear anything of Eleanor for over ten years. Your grandparents had disowned her well before that night at our apartment, and they passed away when you were in elementary school. I’m sure you remember that. First, Grandpa and then your grandmother a few months later. I always thought it was the stress of what Eleanor had put them through.”

Gene cleared his throat. Leanne flicked her eyes up to his and saw they were glassy. She’d never seen her father cry before.

“Then, a police officer came to the door while you were in school to tell us that there’d been a fire in a squatter’s house in St. Louis and that multiple people died in the fire. It had been used by a rotating group of addicts for several months, and it was assumed most of the people who were inside were high and didn’t realize there was a fire until it was too late. It seemed like someone’s cigarette butt had caught on makeshift curtains and the rest of the building went up quickly. It was a newer row of townhouses that were supposed to be part of a public housing initiative that lost its funding, so it stayed vacant.

“The officer told us it was difficult to ID the bodies because of the fire, but that they’d found an expired driver’s license for Eleanor in a part of the house that didn’t burn as badly and there was a body that matched her description recovered from the scene of the fire. We didn’t have any recent adult dental records for her to identify the body, but the officer said their colleagues in St. Louis had asked around the addict community and it seemed likely that Eleanor died in the fire.

“The officer said they were sorry to bring us such difficult news. They didn’t ask us any questions, and a few minutes later they left. A week after that, we received a letter in the mail from an insurance company. Eleanor had a death benefit that was being processed. She’d put you, Leanne, as the beneficiary for the policy. It would go into a bank account designated for you.

“This was just when your father’s business was starting to have difficulties again, and seeing that money made it seem like finally something good had come out of your father having a sister.”

“I never wanted to use the money,” Gene interjected. “I wanted to do everything on my own. I didn’t realize I’d have so much trouble getting investors.”

“But you couldn’t. You didn’t. And so here we are.” Marian held her anger like an unexploded mine in her hands. She pressed her fingertips together, leaving her palms open.

“We never knew Eleanor had a daughter. We didn’t know Eleanor was even alive, until I saw you running with Tasha that day. She looked so much like my sister, especially when she was a teenager. I knew immediately that something was wrong.” Gene’s voice faltered. Leanne found herself feeling slightly disgusted by her father’s weakness.

All this was taking too long. Tasha was still in danger. All this talking was like a bedtime story that would never end, numbing and pointless. Leanne didn’t care about the details. She just wanted that knife far away from Tasha’s throat.

62

Damien

The bullet didn’t fly true. It skimmed Chloe’s shoulder and embedded in the brickwork of the outbuilding. Chloe let out a short yelp and then retreated inside through the door.

All this happened in less than three seconds. The report of the gun distracted Marian and Gene, who’d crouched down instinctively when Grace fired the shot. Damien ran towards Grace and placed both hands on her shoulders. He shoved her hard, and because she had turned her attention to Chloe as she fired, Grace didn’t brace herself for the impact. She crumpled immediately onto her side. The asphalt below gave out a thud as her shoulder slammed into it. The gun fell out of her grip and to the side.

Damien ran his hands along her arms and legs through her long coat, feeling for any other weapons. He felt a large rectangle, which must have been her phone. He didn’t have time to check. Instead, he lunged for the gun and felt the smooth steel of the trigger slide over his index finger and the rougher material of the grip across his palm. He ran towards the outbuilding.

“Damien!” Marian called out, but he ignored her.

Gene sprang towards Damien from his position on the side path, but Damien was faster. He leapt over Gene’s outstretched hands, landed firmly on the sidewalk, and entered the outbuilding.

Inside was dark and smelled of damp. The only light was dimly straining through the window. Once the sun set it would be pitch black inside. Two vending machines rose on the right-hand side. He peered around the sides of each quickly, determining Chloe wasn’t hiding behind them. A grouping of three doors appeared on the left, which was the only other space in the building. Damien could still make out the lettering for Men and Women on the two opposing doors, despite the limited light. The center door was unlabeled.

He tried the center door’s handle, which opened onto a janitor’s closet. A quick scan revealed Chloe wasn’t there. Damien knew he didn’t have any time to waste. No one had entered the building yet, which meant Gene and Marian must have gone to check on Grace or they were conferring with each other. It wouldn’t be long before someone came inside.

Damien considered his two choices. He decided on the Women’s door. The door opened effortlessly, and the inside of the bathroom was entirely dark except for a small window at the back that was letting in a thin stream of light. The door swung closed behind him.

He bent down onto his knees and moved forward slowly, feeling the space in front of him. Water dripped from a faucet somewhere to his left.

A soft scraping sound issued from the back corner of the room. He made his way forward, opening doors to stalls as he passed them. Each door he snapped open such that the metal of the door clanged against the metal of the stall. If Chloe were hiding inside one, balanced on top of a toilet, the door would be softened when it made contact with her instead of the stall wall.

Nothing so far. He was at the final stall, where the scraping sound repeated itself. The window was in the far back corner, just above.

He opened the door and heard a soft thump. He lunged into the stall. Fingernails scratched at his face and neck. Damien somehow managed to keep the gun firmly in his hands as Chloe fought him.

She let out a screech and jammed her thumb into Damien’s eye.

Pain ripped through his skull and he lost his hold on Chloe. Bracing herself on his shoulder, she shifted up into the well of the window, slid the glass open, and threw herself outside.

Damien tried to follow, but without another person to stand on he couldn’t get enough height to make it up to the window well and through the window. He turned and ran out of the stall and towards the outside door.

Before he could reach the exit to the bathroom, he slammed into someone, and the gun fell from his hand on impact. Arms wrapped around him.

He smelled Grace’s perfume.

“Let her go,” she whispered into his ear.

63

Leanne

“Why won’t you let her go?” Marian stepped closer to Tasha and Eleanor. She held her hands up in surrender. “You don’t need her. We can go to the bank right now and get your money. And then you can leave. No one needs to get hurt.”

Silence followed. Leanne heard water drip from the sink faucet. A car drove by outside, the sound fading as it passed down the street.

Until it was broken by a sharp bleat of laughter. “You don’t have the money.” Eleanor shook her head. The hand that held the knife by Tasha’s throat shifted as she laughed. “My idiot brother spent it all. Or almost all of it. What he didn’t spend on his failing business my niece took out herself, for some other reason.”

The color drained from Marian’s face. Leanne watched her try to recover quickly, but she knew Eleanor’s words had caught her by surprise. Her mother thought that stack of bills was safe. She’d taken it to help Leanne, or Gene, or just to hide it from Eleanor. Marian didn’t think Eleanor knew about it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marian bluffed.

“Yes, you do. It’s here, somewhere in this house. Leanne was emptying the account, a little bit each day. Tasha told me. It took some lies. A little conniving on my part. But she told me.”

Leanne thought about the bloody scene in Tasha’s trailer, and how quickly Tasha and Eleanor had seemed to recover. “You faked it! It was all a trick.” The words burst out of her mouth before she could stop them.

“Means to an end,” Eleanor replied.

“I didn’t know.” Tasha’s voice was pleading. “I wanted you to be safe. I didn’t know.” Eleanor pressed the blade further into Tasha’s neck, and Tasha stopped speaking.

The rest of her statement didn’t need to be spoken anyway. Leanne knew what Tasha wanted to say. It all made sense now—or at least this part did. Tasha didn’t know her mother was Leanne’s aunt. She didn’t know Eleanor was a violent psychopath. She didn’t know telling her mother Leanne’s secrets would hurt her best friend, or herself. She thought she was helping Leanne.

“I told Tasha we needed to convince Leanne her mother was violent and dangerous, once and for all. Leanne wasn’t safe. She was already taking out money from her account, and now she’d have the final motivation to plan her escape from her family and this town with her money. Well, my money.” Eleanor gave a knowing grin to the room. “Homecoming was the perfect time. Tasha told me about your plans.” Eleanor cut her gaze towards Leanne. “Homecoming seemed the perfect time for everyone, though Tasha didn’t know that. I was going to come to the house with everyone else gone, get my money from where Tasha said Leanne had it hidden, and get out. I’d be fifteen thousand dollars richer, which doesn’t seem like much unless you only have ten dollars to live off. But of course, you all had to go and ruin it. Tasha sent me a panicked text from the dance, explaining Marian’s surprise visit and the missing money and gun. She was worried about Leanne. I told her to stay at the dance while I figured things out, but she came home early anyway. So I’ve had to improvise a bit.”

Tasha’s eyes caught Leanne’s. They flicked quickly to the side. Leanne shifted slightly and moved back, pressing her hip into the counter. She felt the warm metal on her side. The tea kettle was behind her, right where Marian had set it.

“That’s enough,” Gene said, but cowered when Eleanor turned her gaze on him. Leanne’s fingertips tingled. She wanted to smack him in the mouth. He was worthless.

Worse than worthless. Selfish, weak, pathetic.

Thank God she had her mother. She may have hated Marian at different points in her life—maybe even still hated her now—but at least her mother managed to command with her presence. If she hurt someone, it was intentional. Not because she didn’t have the strength to do what was necessary.

“I’ll get the money for you.” Leanne stayed against the counter. Marian took a step beside her. Leanne didn’t dare look away from Eleanor.

“No, tell me where it is. I don’t want anyone leaving this room until the absolute right time.”

“The right time?” Marian said.

Tasha blinked. Leanne grabbed the tea kettle by the handle, opening the spout, and the boiling water arced out. Eleanor screamed. Gene ran through the other door and out into the backyard. Leanne heard the sizzle as the water made contact with the skin of Eleanor’s arms. Her face was untouched.

In the chaos, Tasha managed to get out of Eleanor’s grip and duck to the floor. She started to crawl away across the kitchen tiles and disappeared around the corner.

Marian pulled the gun from the back waistband of her pants and aimed it at Eleanor, who was cowering now in a crumpled mass on the floor.

“Don’t shoot her,” Leanne begged. “Not yet!”

64

Damien

“Don’t touch me!” Damien shoved out of Grace’s embrace.

“Please. I’m trying to help.”

“My brother is dead because of you and your lies.” He didn’t stop to see the effect his words had on Grace. He needed to follow Chloe. He couldn’t let her get away now.

He pushed past Grace and out the door of the bathroom. After exiting the exterior door to the outbuilding, running past Marian and Gene—who were just standing there, doing nothing—and avoiding the field where his brother’s body was slumped on the ground, Damien whipped around to the side of the building with the window to the women’s restroom.

He was too late to catch Chloe there on the ground from where she would have fallen after pulling herself through the window, but as he rounded the corner he caught a crash of branches and brush at the edge where the grass turned into forest.

Damien’s mind reeled back to less than one hour ago, when Chloe had come through the forest and into the field with a knife at Tim’s throat. She was small, and although Tim was drugged he couldn’t have been easy to move through the undergrowth of the forest. Wherever she came from before, it must be relatively close.

Damien ran into the woods, shoving aside branches of trees and maneuvering around sticks that littered the ground. It was getting darker by the moment as the sun set, and he could barely make out the figure of Chloe rushing ahead.

He could still see her, even as her dark coat blended in with her surroundings. He followed the bright white of her pale skin. Her hands were two ghosts wrenching aside the nature around them. He could only see her neck, with her hair flying out underneath her stocking hat. She kept herself facing ahead.

Damien didn’t pause to see if Grace or her parents were following him. He didn’t care. His mind was focused on Chloe, on what she’d done to his family.

He couldn’t tell how far he’d run, chasing after Chloe, but it could have only been a few minutes. There was still light skimming over the horizon. Damien blinked and lost sight of Chloe, but as he moved forward he realized why she’d disappeared from his view.

Damien stepped out into a clearing that was familiar. The long gray building of The Vindicator sprawled out across the other side of the Mahoning River. He recognized the stairs leading down the cliff edge to the riverbed he’d walked down to earlier that week. From this side, he couldn’t spot any stairs that would take someone down to the river. It was an uninhabited cliff face.

The rest area must have butted up against this slice of the industrial section of Youngstown, with only a scraggly wood separating the two.

Chloe stood next to the edge. The wind whipped around her, ruffling the dark curls of her hair that had come loose. If she wasn’t a murdering, conniving sadist, Damien may have thought her lovely in that moment.

And also if she weren’t pointing the blade of her knife straight at him.

It was only then that he realized the emptiness of his hands. In his rush to follow Chloe, he’d forgotten to pick up the gun from the floor of the outbuilding.

Which meant he had two options. He could run towards her, with no weapon but his own body, and put an end to the horrors she’d created. He’d probably die.

Or he could walk away. Back to his brother’s cooling body and his lying fiancée.

He knew his answer before he even asked himself the question.

There was no chance of him walking away.

65

Leanne

“It would fix everything if she was really dead,” Marian argued. She kept the barrel of the gun leveled on Eleanor, who had managed to crawl up on her hands and knees on the kitchen floor.

“But it wouldn’t.” Leanne stalled for time.

She had no idea where her father had run off to, like a coward. Leanne strained to hear Tasha somewhere in the house. She wouldn’t leave Leanne alone. Something was going to happen. Tasha would think of something.

The skin on Eleanor’s arms had become bright red. Leanne’s left hand throbbed thinking about her mother doing almost the same thing to her just a few days ago. Blisters rose in small swirls over Eleanor’s wristbone and in a crest along both forearms. No one moved to pour cold water over Eleanor’s burns, not like Marian had rinsed Leanne’s hand under the cool stream of water from the sink after she scalded it.

“Do you want the police to come?” Leanne continued. “Do you want them to investigate everything that’s been happening in this house? You shoot her with that gun—the one that Mrs. Miller saw you bring into the house—and she’ll definitely hear it. She’ll call 911, and what will we do after that? How are you going to explain shooting a defenseless, burned woman begging for her life on the floor of your kitchen?”

“I’m not… begging,” Eleanor spluttered.

“We could hide the body. We could burn it. Burn this entire house and leave it all behind.” Marian’s eyes went fuzzy and out of focus for a moment. “Your father’s ruined everything here for us anyway.” She blinked. “When did Mrs. Miller see me?”

Leanne ignored her mother’s question. She needed a moment—just a moment—to think.

“I don’t want a new life.” Leanne realized how true it was as she spoke the words. “Mr. MacDougal thinks I can get into Harvard.”

“Mr. MacDougal. I can’t believe you call him that.” Eleanor let out a whimper after the last word. Leanne couldn’t believe how much she was speaking still. If they didn’t kill her tonight, she’d need to go to a hospital to treat her burns. Or take a lot of pain medication for a long time until they healed on their own, with the scars to match.

A crash came from somewhere in the house. Upstairs, near one of the bedrooms. Marian and Eleanor turned their heads in unison towards the sound.

Tasha.

Leanne needed to keep them talking. “What do you mean? Mr. MacDougal’s a wonderful teacher. He loves his students.”

“Mr. MacDougal is a pervert.” Marian’s mouth curled like she’d eaten a rotten piece of fruit. “I didn’t know he was teaching at the school until he called me to talk about your applications for college. You never mentioned him by name before. He actually thought I’d be glad to hear that he was your teacher. I should have ended everything then.”

“I always liked him,” Eleanor said. She’d laid down on the floor. Leanne had seen enough medical shows on television to figure Eleanor’s body was going into shock.

“You would.” The gun jolted in Marian’s hand as she coughed. She set it behind her back on the counter.

“What are you talking about?” Leanne thought about MacDaddy42. Had her mother made the connection to Mr. MacDougal and his messages and posts, or was she referring to something else—some other reason to mistrust Leanne’s teacher?

Marian answered Leanne’s thought in her next breath.

“He likes them young,” Marian said. “He likes teenage girls way too much. We were in school together. Eleanor, your father, Eric—Mr. MacDougal—and me. Eric graduated years before us, but he still hung around the high school.”

“Did he like even younger girls then?” Leanne spoke to her mother, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Eleanor. She’d slumped onto the ground again, her arms and legs splayed out like a squashed insect.

“No, it’s always been teenagers. He grew up, but they didn’t.”

A different sort of panic rose in Leanne’s chest. How many young women had Mr. MacDougal seduced into believing they were special? How close was she or Tasha to being tricked into becoming more than a student to him? Why didn’t her parents tell the school or report him? Why would they let her, or Tasha, or anyone else get so close to him and trust him?

But she didn’t have time to ask her questions.

The fire Tasha set had already started to spread.

66

Damien

The river roared below. A fractured thought crossed Damien’s mind. Maybe the river was swollen from the rain that had traveled east to New York earlier in the week. A memory flashed up: sunlight streaming through raindrops on their apartment window as he kissed Grace’s neck before their rehearsal dinner.

“Don’t come any closer,” Chloe yelled. She slashed her hand out in a feint of attack.

Damien stepped closer. They were six feet apart. He was close enough to see the red rims of her eyes. He shifted his right leg closer to her, and she moved to her left.

“I said stop moving.”

Damien ignored her, and they continued to dance in a circle. His pulse beat a steady drum inside his skull. He wanted to finish this.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“No one you want to know,” she replied plainly.

“How long have you known Grace?”

“Since she was born,” Chloe stated, as though she were repeating her order at a restaurant. Damien couldn’t comprehend how she compartmentalized. Like she operated on a switch, shifting from terrified to terrorist.

His calves stretched as they leaned towards each other, ready to lunge. Damien kept his hands in front of him, prepared for Chloe to spring towards him.

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m her aunt. Gene’s sister. They all thought I died.”

“But obviously you didn’t.” Damien tried to keep her talking. He couldn’t focus much beyond the tip of her knife, but he tried. A small sliver of his mind scratched out the question of what Grace was doing. Of whether Gene and Marian would follow him through the woods.

“No, and that was a long time ago. Then there was a fire, and Leanne became Grace and I became her mother.” Again, she could have been reading from a pharmacy pamphlet about the importance of taking your multivitamins.

“Why would you pretend to be Grace’s mother when she already had one.”

“Why do people do anything?” was her quick reply.

“People have lots of reasons for what they do.” Were they really about to have an existential discussion? This was insane.

“Not really. Everything comes down to survival. And what do people need to survive?” Chloe tapped the tip of her knife against her palm.

Damien stared at her. He wished he had a weapon. She was almost close enough for him to snatch the knife from her while she was distracted. If he could distract her.

“Money.” Chloe finished her own thought. “People do almost everything for money.”

“You pretended to have a daughter for the money?”

“Well, yes and no.” Chloe reached up and wiped at her right eye. The knife stuck out at a sharp angle from her face, almost cutting into her nose. It was a surprisingly clumsy gesture. “I needed to keep Grace close to me, to keep an eye on her. I wanted to be part of her new life, so I could know how to persuade her if it ever came to that. Who were the people she was closest to, who did she care about? Gene and Marian weren’t options for the longest time, because they didn’t know Grace was still alive and I didn’t want to blow the lid off the entire scam.”

“Scam?” The word caught in his throat.

Chloe’s eyes bored into him. “I mean, really, if we’re going to have this conversation, let’s have it and stop acting as though we’re going to knock each other over that cliff at any moment.”

Damien realized they’d circle around each other such that Chloe was closer to the woods and he was almost to the edge where the ground dropped into the river.

“Okay.” He shifted his weight to the back of his feet. Damien let his hands drop to his side. “Let’s talk.”

67

Leanne

Chaos. Marian ran down the hallway towards the flames. Eleanor started to shuffle across the floor, propped on her elbows and trying not to touch the skin on her hands and arms. She didn’t seem stable enough yet to stand up on her own.

Leanne had to decide whether to keep track of her friend’s would-be killer mother or to go in search of Tasha. A glimpse down at Eleanor made the quick decision for her. Leanne turned right and headed upstairs. Towards the fire.

She heard voices. The smoke turned the already darkened hallway black and seamless. Leanne got down on her knees and began to crawl, leaning more on her right hand and arm. She gulped at the fresher air lower to the floor and pulled up on the skirt of her dress to try and cover her mouth. The lacy material sucked inside her mouth as she breathed.

There was a quick movement somewhere to the far right. A red square arced through the air and out the window, almost propelled by the force of heat and smoke.

Before she went too far into her own bedroom Leanne’s hand bumped into something slick and smooth. She felt the movement of the two figures, one carried by the other, before she could see them. They shifted over her, toppling in a tangled set of limbs down the stairs. A hand caught on the fabric of Leanne’s dress and pulled her down with them.

The air was clearer at the bottom of the stairs, but Leanne heard the hiss and crackle of the fire as it spread.

She looked across the room and registered the state of her mother and her friend for the first time. Marian’s hands and arms were blackened and the smell of burnt skin and hair flooded the space between them. Tasha was breathing, but her eyes were closed. Her hair had been burnt along one side of her skull, and her skin was covered in black soot.

“What happened?” Panic seized Leanne firmly in its grip. “What did you do?” She wasn’t sure if the ‘you’ was directed at Tasha, or Marian, or herself.

“She set the curtains on fire.” Marian gasped after each word. Her breathing was shallow. “She waited too long.”

“We need to get out of here,” Leanne said, stating the obvious. She took the blanket from the couch and wrapped it around Marian and grabbed the corners. She hauled her across the room, packaged like a baby in a swaddle, and through the front door. Opening the door, Leanne heard the rush of the flames as fresh air entered the house.

She pulled harder and tugged her mother over the threshold, across the concrete porch, and into the grass of their front yard. It wasn’t far, but it was outside.

Leanne ran back into the house, hooked her arms underneath Tasha’s shoulders, and hauled her across the floor with her feet dragging. She thought she heard Tasha moan slightly as she moved. Smoke rolled down the stairs in a viscous cloud.

She pulled Tasha over the smooth tiles of the entryway. The door blew shut. Leanne screamed and hauled up on Tasha’s body, which was slipping out from her grip with their combined sweat. Leanne repositioned her hands and grasped at the straps of Tasha’s dress instead.

The doorknob was already hot and it burned the palm of Leanne’s hand as she twisted it, yanked as hard as she could, and hurled herself and Tasha out into the fresher air outside.

Breathing hard, sweat laced with soot dripped into her eyes and made her blink as it burned. Leanne stood as high as she could, pulled up on Tasha, and practically threw herself down the stairs of the porch and into the grass.

She sensed, rather than saw, Marian wasn’t sitting in the place where she’d left her.

Leanne turned her head up and saw through her blurry vision two figures standing above her in the front yard. Smoke rolled out the front door.

On the right was her mother, and on the left stood someone she hadn’t expected: Mr. MacDougal.

But her father was missing.

And Leanne realized something else as she collected her thoughts.

She hadn’t seen Eleanor in the kitchen when she pulled Tasha to safety. She didn’t know where Eleanor was. Or what she had found.

68

Damien

Chloe leaned back on her heels slightly. The sun cut a sharp slant across the horizon. It’d be dark in just a few minutes.

Damien thought he saw a figure move behind the line of trees leading back to the rest area. He allowed himself another glance to the treeline but saw nothing except the light playing along the dry leaves.

He blinked and Chloe’s pallid face filled his vision.

“I’d always wanted to live in the big city,” she began. The more she spoke, the more her demeanor changed. Her voice pitched higher, her g’s dropped from the ends of words. It was like she was remembering herself from a different life, which Damien supposed she was. “At first, I was stuck in the middle-of-nowhere USA with a bad meth habit and a revolving door of boyfriends who kept overdosing, getting locked up, or pulling a runner. I never meant to have a kid, and I couldn’t believe it when I found out I was pregnant. I don’t think I really believed I was going to have a baby until I was literally delivering Tasha in the hospital. She came out perfect, an angel with a mouth on her. She could cry with the best of them. I tried, but I couldn’t be her mom. Not really.”

Chloe reached into her pocket and pulled out a lighter and a loose cigarette. She looked up at Damien as though to ask if he minded, all the while keeping the knife tip pointed towards him in her left hand. Damien nodded his assent, as though it actually mattered. Back in New York, she’d smoked whenever and wherever she wanted. He clenched his jaw tighter. A tendon popped just below his right ear, but he didn’t reach up to rub it. He listened to Chloe.

“Years went by. I was stringing along. Tasha was in and out of foster care. I had another baby—birth control isn’t much of a concern when you’re an addict. The baby ended up in care, too. Nothing special. And then one night I’m sleeping in this squat in St. Louis and Tasha’s in some group home because I was once again deemed an unfit mother by the state—this time the state of Missouri—and someone almost catches their bed on fire because they shot up before they finished smoking their last cigarette and it caught the mattress on fire while they were passed out. Someone else just happened to be walking by the room and smelled smoke and was able to smother the fire before it spread, but it gave me an idea.”

Chloe lifted her index finger. Ash hung from the end of her cigarette.

“I could light that entire place up, pretend to die in the fire, and be born again. But rich this time.” Something caught in her throat and she coughed.

Damien watched. And waited. He didn’t need to say anything.

“I took out the insurance policy through one of those online ads you see for affordable life insurance with no medical exam. I took out as much as possible, given the money I could get my hands on to pay upfront. And then I waited as long as I could, not that it really mattered. No one was going to think that some druggie had purposefully set themselves on fire to have their estranged brother recoup the life insurance money. That was the one good thing about being an addict, besides how good it felt when you were high. Nobody expected much from you. Ever. So if you were a smart addict, you could get away with a lot.”

She flicked the long cone of ash from the tip of her cigarette onto the ground in one fluid motion. Like a bird snapping at an insect.

“I left my driver’s license out far enough that the fire probably wouldn’t spread to it, lit the match, and let the rest take its natural course. There were a few women staying in the squat at that point, strung out and estranged from normal life. I figured the cops would decide any one of their bodies was mine, and I was right.” She got a soft look on her face, her hair blowing in the breeze. The last rays of sunlight caught on her chin as she tensed it. “I don’t even know the name of the woman who changed my life.”

Chloe shuddered and shifted her shoulders. She tossed the cigarette butt on the damp grass and ground it under the heel of her boot.

“Then I simply needed to figure out how to get my money from my worthless brother and his bitch of a wife. Luckily, I’d already thought ahead and put their daughter—Leanne, but you know her as Grace—as my primary beneficiary. I knew if I didn’t that my brother would spend it all on a business scheme that would eventually blow up in his face. I didn’t tell Tasha what was happening, and she was just a teenager and didn’t read the news so I figured she wouldn’t read some small-print article in the paper about a bunch of druggies burning up. And she didn’t.

“Before I faked my death to collect the money, I told her to try and get her sister and move back to Canfield, Ohio. I hadn’t seen my baby girl for a few years at that point, which was as much my fault as the child welfare system. I think Jordan had just turned nine or ten years old. I can’t remember. Anyway, I look a lot different now compared to when I was getting high every day, but Jordan wouldn’t have remembered me now even if I looked exactly the same. She was just a toddler the last time I saw her, and I doubt Tasha kept any photos of me around.”

Chloe clicked her lighter open and shut a few times while she stared at Damien. Her expression was almost serene. She continued.

“Tasha was getting older and even if she had to take Jordan across state lines without permission, I was confident that they’d let Jordan stay in Canfield, even if she wasn’t allowed to live with Tasha. Canfield is a nice place to live, and safe. I gave Tasha as much money as I could get my hands on after buying the policies. She didn’t expect much from me either, but I was certain she’d listen to me. I was her mother, after all, and somewhere deep down she still trusted what I had to tell her.”

“So it’s her fault for trusting you.” Damien could have taken a pound of flesh with his words, and he considered it an accomplishment that he didn’t say everything ricocheting around his mind. And that he hadn’t killed Chloe yet with his bare hands.

But they’d called a truce for now. He needed to know why his brother was dead and the pieces of this story that led up to it.

“No, nothing is Tasha’s fault, except for setting the Crosby house on fire that night. And being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Tasha brought herself and her baby sister to Canfield⁠—”

“She told me she hopped on a bus to Youngstown.” Chloe felt the need to interject.

“Set up in a trailer, enrolled in school. And then you showed up?”

“I needed the insurance money. I went cold turkey, got clean puking up my guts in some shitty motel in the middle of Indiana, and showed up to find my oldest daughter was best friends with my niece. It was almost too perfect.”

“And then what happened?” Damien squinted. The sun sunk low over the horizon. It’d be dark soon. He made a note of how far behind him the cliff edge was.

“I beat the shit out of Tasha one night, told her she needed to lie and say it was her friend’s crazy mother. That it would help convince Leanne to leave her crazy family. That’s the only reason Tasha went along with it; because she thought it would help her friend.” Chloe paused. “It didn’t feel good hurting Tasha, but the bruises needed to look realistic. We both agreed on that.

“Anyway, I grew up with Marian Crosby, saw her relationship with my brother over the years before I finally left town after I got pregnant. She’s just dangerous enough that I figured Leanne—Grace—wouldn’t have any trouble believing she’d hurt both of us. That threw Leanne off my scent, and once the night of homecoming arrived I had the perfect opportunity to get the money from my insurance payout. Tasha told me the timing of their plans, and when Marian and Gene would be gone. But then she texted to say that Leanne had brought the money with her to the dance, and that Marian had surprised them and taken it with her. That changed things. It ended up meaning I needed to confront everyone, but I got too cocky. Tasha came back to the trailer looking for my help, and when we arrived at the Crosby house I caught her and held her at knifepoint as a safeguard—she didn’t expect me to turn on her. I had to do it, though. Marian had a gun, after all. But even still, I ended up underestimating my enemy. I didn’t expect to be attacked with a tea kettle.”

“Is that how the fire started?”

“No. I’ll get to that.”

“Why did you send me the picture of Grace’s engagement ring, along with her lock of hair. Or what looked like them,” Damien asked, trying to make connections with the jumbled pieces of information swirling inside his head.

Chloe seemed bored. “Why do you think? To keep you guessing. To distract you. Misdirect you. It’s not hard to find a simple gold ring, with or without diamonds, and a lock of blonde hair in New York City.”

Damien felt stupid.

“You let your own daughter die in the fire. And then you made it seem like it was really Grace who died… I mean, Leanne. So no one remembered or looked for Tasha.”

“It’s more complicated than that.” Chloe cut him a withering look. “And I remember Tasha. I’ll always remember her. And so does her sister. Jordan will never forget her.”

“But then you tried to kill Jordan because she was recalling and learning too much.”

Chloe said nothing. Just stared into Damien’s eyes with a hate so fierce he had to look away.

“Did you get your money?”

“Grace and I took it together. We started our lives over. Together.”

“So you mean Grace and you have been partners this entire time?”

“Like I said, it’s complicated.” Chloe appeared agitated for the first time in their conversation.

“I’m still listening.” Damien took a small step forward. He hoped the descending darkness would mask it.

“No, I’m done talking. It’s time to finish this.”

Chloe moved towards him. Close enough that he saw the pupils of her eyes, dilated in the dark like a wild animal’s.

69

Leanne

“Why is he here?” Leanne stepped towards her mother. Her eyes stayed on Mr. MacDougal. She recalled what he’d said at the dance—how he could track Marian through an app they shared. “Why are you here?”

Mr. MacDougal looked unsettled. He pulled at the edge of his sweater vest and then tucked his hands into his pockets. Leanne wanted to strangle him for wasting precious seconds on his own misery.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Leanne bent down to Tasha and placed her ear on Tasha’s chest. Her heartbeat gave a steady but soft thump. The smell of burnt hair and plastic clung to Tasha’s skin. Leanne leaned over Tasha’s mouth and heard the whisper of air going in and out. “She’s breathing.”

“Oh, thank God.” Mr. MacDougal fell to his knees.

“Get away from her!” Leanne shoved him.

“What? No, oh no. I’m so sorry. Marian! Marian, please just tell her.” Mr. MacDougal’s small gray eyes flickered between Leanne’s mother and herself. “Leanne, you don’t understand. Oh, my baby.” He threw himself over Tasha’s torso and wrapped his arms around her. Leanne fought him back. She slapped Mr. MacDougal on the crown of his head where his hair had begun to thin.

“Stop it! Don’t touch her.” Leanne turned her attention to her mother. “Call 911. I don’t have my phone.”

“Enough.” Marian’s voice boomed. Leanne took in her mother’s soot-stained face, the burns on her hands, and yet saw how powerful she still was. She was hiding her pain. “Eric, tell them now or I will. And then get the hell out of here.”

Leanne heard her teacher whimper. “I’m her…” He gulped down a sob. “I’m her father.”

“What?” Leanne gasped. She trained her eyes on Mr. MacDougal, but she saw no resemblance. He was an old man, dusty and spent. Tasha was vibrant lightning. It made sense to Leanne that Eleanor was Tasha’s mom. They were both forces to reckon with. But Eric MacDougal? “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.” Marian swayed on her feet before slowly kneeling on the ground. She glanced around the yard. No one was out on the street yet. The fire hadn’t caught in the attic. Only the smoke through the front door, which had closed again, was a clue that something was wrong.

That, and a young woman unconscious on the front grass. And her burns. And Marian’s burns. But their neighbors’ porches were dark, their front lights unlit, and it was possible that their group hadn’t been spotted by even the nosiest of neighbors, Mrs. Miller.

Leanne failed to think about where her father was. Or where Eleanor had limped off to.

“I used to be an addict. Almost ten years in recovery now. I knew Tasha’s mom a long time ago. She told me she was pregnant, and I basically ran off to avoid any responsibility. Back then, all I cared about was getting high. I thought for sure Eleanor would have an abortion.”

“But she didn’t.” Leanne stroked her friend’s forehead. Tasha murmured something quietly. Her eyelids were half open, and then closed again. Leanne couldn’t distinguish any words.

“Yes, of course. I know that now. I lost touch with Eleanor, moved around, and finally went back home to Youngstown to be with my parents. I got clean, went back to school. And I got a job teaching high-school English. Life was narrow, but good. I had to be careful every day to keep my sobriety. And then, well…”

Tasha’s lips moved again. Her right eye scraped open and then shut.

Leanne bit down a scream.

“And well, I had a student in my class who looked just like Eleanor did when she was young. I couldn’t believe it. It almost threw me over the edge. That first day after school, I was so jittery I thought I was going to lose my mind. I thought I’d already lost it. But I went home and thought it through and realized that maybe this was a gift. A miracle, really. I had a daughter.

“So first, I had to get some more information about Tasha. I started following her on Instagram. I thought my account was a good fake profile.”

“It wasn’t,” Leanne added meanly.

“And I asked questions about her. I got to know her friends, including you, Leanne. And all the details fit. I was certain she was mine.”

“You didn’t care that she was your daughter. You’re sick. A sick bastard.” Marian coughed, and it shook her entire body.

“Shut up. When you last knew me, I was on drugs, getting high all the time. I made a lot of terrible decisions. I’m better now.”

“Sure you are.”

“I was sick back then.”

“At least we can agree on that.”

“Stop bickering like children,” Leanne ordered.

Mr. MacDougal continued with his explanation. “Tasha wasn’t in any of my classes after those first few months when she moved here in her junior year. I kept in touch with Tasha through her Instagram posts, but then her posts started getting darker and darker. I thought something was wrong. You know, addiction tendencies are inherited. And both her mother and me were addicts. I was so worried. I decided to confront her at the homecoming dance. But it didn’t work out.”

“Why were you messaging my mom?” Leanne had to ask. “You told her to stop.”

“I wanted him to stay away from you.” Marian cast a dark look towards Mr. MacDougal.

“She had been sending me nasty emails ever since I called her about your college applications. If she kept it up, she was going to get me fired.”

“You should be fired.”

“I’m not that person anymore.”

Tasha suddenly sat bolt upright, shoving Leanne off her. Leanne fell to the side clumsily.

“She’s got it.” Tasha pointed her hand where Marian stood. Marian turned around, her eyes going wide with fear. And certainty.

Eleanor was there, something in her hands, pointing it at their small grouping. It was the gun Marian had left on the counter. Somehow, despite the chaos and her injuries, Eleanor had been able to grab it as she escaped the burning building.

In the darkness a bright burst of fire came out as Eleanor shot the gun, but even from a distance Leanne could see the tremor in her hand as she aimed. The pain from her burns must have been excruciating.

Tasha’s shoulder jerked back as the bullet passed through. She collapsed onto the ground, blood seeping from the wound.

A light turned on in Mrs. Miller’s second-story window. Finally.

Time paused and stretched as everyone’s minds caught up to what had just happened. It was Eleanor’s primal scream that snapped everything back into motion.

Leanne wasn’t sure who Eleanor had been aiming for, but she was certain it hadn’t been her daughter. Tasha wasn’t meant to get hurt, any more than she already had.

With the tail ends of her scream still caught in the air, Eleanor pushed into their group, shoving Marian to the ground and flinching as her burns brushed against the material of Leanne’s dress. She seemed immune to any further pain as she picked up Tasha in her arms and ran into the burning house.

Without a second thought, Leanne followed her.

70

Damien

“I was supposed to get married today.”

This statement didn’t sway Damien’s attacker in the slightest. Chloe took a step closer. The weapon balanced carefully in her grip. Its sharp edges gleamed.

Water whispered around the rocks in the river below. Damien could only take one, maybe two steps back before he’d tumble over the cliff edge. He didn’t have to look to know the drop-off was at least fifty feet.

Enough to kill someone.

Enough to kill Damien. He realized the knife could just be insurance to push him over the edge, a way to do the job but avoid more bloodshed. There’d been so much of that already.

“It didn’t have to end this way.” Damien heard the catch in her voice. Chloe wasn’t certain she wanted him dead.

Or perhaps this was his own wishful thinking.

He’d been wrong before. About so many things.

Damien took a half step back. The ground crumbled into soft pellets that fell into the water and rocks below.

Chloe lunged and the knife’s edge rushed past his skin, catching Damien’s wrist. A bite, like a bee sting, ran up his left arm. The blood came a second later, a small correction mark across his body. In his life before all this—only four days ago—he’d been a teacher, marking exams with his red pen.

Now he was so many things. A pursuer, an investigator. A danger. A victim.

A criminal.

All of them, he’d done for Grace. Because he loved her, and Grace went missing. She was in trouble. She needed him.

But was he willing to die to keep her secrets?

Damien brought his feet together, as close to the edge as he could go.

He needed to go forward or fall back. Either way would hurt him. Maybe—most definitely—kill him.

He took a deep breath.

The two of them locked eyes. A moment passed and some new thought gentled Chloe’s face.

Maybe, Damien hoped. Just maybe, there was another option.

He hadn’t even finished the thought when the knife sliced through him.

71

Leanne

The smell of woodsmoke mixed with the bright burning of plastic hit Leanne like a wall. Smoke rolled across the ceiling of the living room. Somehow she spotted the outline of Eleanor carrying Tasha in her arms.

Leanne fell to the floor and crawled on her hands and knees towards the kitchen. Her hands moved into a warm, wet pool. Looking down quickly as she continued to move forward, Leanne realized it was blood. She prayed that Tasha might still be alive. She’d been hit in the shoulder. People could survive that, couldn’t they?

Leanne pulled herself across the floor, ignoring the searing pain in her left hand, and over the threshold of the kitchen where the air cleared slightly. She didn’t dare glance up the stairwell to the upstairs bedrooms, which crackled with heat.

The figures in front of her shifted again. They were moving towards the dining room, which connected to the sliding door and patio.

“Stop,” Leanne tried to call out, but her voice caught on the particles in the air and her voice became a croak. She wasn’t sure why she was commanding Eleanor to stop inside the burning house. It was hard for rational thought to overcome the mixture of terror and anger surging through her body.

Leanne hoped Mrs. Miller had noticed the fire and finally called for help.

Eleanor ignored her and kept moving into the dining room of the house. The trail of blood colored Leanne’s hands. Her ears were full of the sound of her heartbeat. “Tasha,” she cried. “Tasha, are you okay?”

“Shut up.” Eleanor was suddenly at Leanne’s side, Tasha alongside her. Tasha’s skin was cold despite the heat surrounding them. Her eyes flickered underneath her lids.

“You are a monster. A monster.” Spit flew out of Leanne’s mouth as she spoke.

Eleanor ignored her. She started shifting Tasha’s limbs across the kitchen floor. “Help me,” she barked.

The heat of the room rose. Sweat prickled every edge of Leanne’s body. Her mind couldn’t make sense of the options available to her.

Tasha was unresponsive. Blood pooled around her wound across the kitchen floor.

“You’re going to leave her here.” The realization struck Leanne like an electric shock.

“Yes. I have no other option.” Eleanor’s voice cracked, a sob rising out. “I hate her so much, but I shouldn’t have risked it. And now, look what I’ve done.”

Leanne realized Eleanor was talking about Marian. She’d wanted Marian dead, not Tasha.

“I was going to take her with me, start fresh. Maybe they’d even think we’d died in the fire. But now…” Eleanor swallowed, keeping close to the floor, and turned her gaze directly on Leanne. “You’ll have to do.” She pressed the barrel of the gun at Leanne’s forehead.

“No.” Leanne shifted as though to lie down with Tasha.

“Get up. Get up and help me.” Eleanor’s breath stunk in her face. Leanne smelled alcohol and something tinged with death. “Tasha isn’t going to survive her wounds. But if you don’t help me I’ll kill your parents next. And then Eric. And maybe even that cute boy that took you to the dance. I’ll save you for last.”

Leanne didn’t question if Eleanor would really do it. She knew what she was capable of.

She also knew there were probably only seconds left before the fire engulfed the kitchen and their lungs gave out to the toxins in the air.

Leanne followed Eleanor’s instructions, and she went through the back sliding door with Eleanor in front of her. Tasha was left behind, Leanne praying that her body would give out before she could feel the tight, hot pain of the fire.

The air outside was surprisingly cool and the night dark enough to see the raised points of Cassiopeia in the sky. Leanne followed Eleanor out of the backyard and into the trails behind the school. As they made their way over the lawns of her house and her neighbors, Leanne saw the figure of her father huddled behind the large oak tree that stood at the back of their property. He held his head in his hands, sobbing. She was certain he hadn’t seen her, or Eleanor, as they made their escape. He was too focused on his own fear.

She forced herself not to run towards her father and rage against him. If he’d done anything other than fall apart—called 911, come back to help fight the fire or stand watch for Eleanor—Tasha might still be alive. But, despite his faults, she didn’t want him to die, and so she followed Eleanor instead.

Sirens wailed from the roads leading to Leanne’s house as she covered ground behind Eleanor, following her skulking figure and heavy hand, the glint of the gun beside Eleanor, into Leanne’s new, duplicitous life. A life that Leanne would decide, her mind whirring in the endless nights that followed as rats scratched inside the walls of that awful boarding-house room, that she deserved. She’d picture her mother’s face, streaked with fear as Leanne brought the fire poker down on her. She’d think about walking past Tasha’s body, learning only later in the newspaper articles she read online at the library that the autopsy had revealed the young woman who died in the fire succumbed to smoke inhalation. Tasha was still alive when she left her in the burning house. Her friend had burned to death.

Years later, she’d lie awake in bed next to Damien and feel the same confirmation that she was rotten at the core. She’d marvel at how willing she was to endanger another person she loved and know that she didn’t deserve to be happy.

As they moved through the night, Eleanor and Leanne passed under Leanne’s bedroom window.

The box was charred but intact. The money laid crisply inside where Marian had placed it, thinking it safe, after retrieving it from Leanne’s purse at the homecoming dance.

That’s what Leanne had noticed just before finding Marian and Tasha clenched together underneath the flames. She watched her mother throw the box of cash from Leanne’s inheritance out the broken window. Even in crisis, Marian knew money was the only protection any woman in her family could hope for.

72

Damien

Warmth soaked into his shirt and down the front of his jeans. For a few seconds, he didn’t feel pain. Instead, a sort of elation coursed through him. The pain slammed him soon enough, though, and he doubled over onto himself, grabbing at his stomach.

Chloe looked annoyed. As though she’d suspected all along that he was weak, and now he’d proved her right.

“Grace was always tempting fate with you. She knew she couldn’t get close to anyone. But suddenly, she was in love. Then engaged.” Chloe’s hot breath invaded his space, hinting the air with the scent of menthol. It mixed with the iron taste of blood in Damien’s mouth.

He couldn’t stand any longer and instead crouched on the ground. There was so much blood. His hands were slick with it as he pressed on the wound to slow down the bleeding.

“You were the one who made her leave?” he asked.

Chloe pulled back in surprise. “No. I was ready to take care of the situation after you were married. An accident of some sort. Or I’d pin Grace’s real estate fraud on you, with a well-placed tip to the police. I hadn’t decided yet.”

“You didn’t send Grace the newspaper clipping?”

“Why would I do that? I didn’t want Grace to run away. I needed her with me. Especially with the cops asking questions.”

“Grace is a criminal?” Damien’s lips felt large and numb. His words slurred into each other.

“She’s an organizer for me. Grace has the real estate license. I find the properties in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania. Rust belt towns that are dying, full of crime, and with plenty of cheap properties to snatch up. Just like the one that I burned down years ago, where Nora Crosby died. We did it at first just with the money she took from my insurance death claim. The clever duck had over fifteen thousand dollars in cash she’d been taking out in smaller chunks from the bank. Buy a property for cheap, fake the sale for a much higher price, drive up demand and property values. When I realized how easy it was, I told Grace to keep doing it, except we bought the properties for cheap and found someone else to pay more. We controlled the paperwork, so we could pocket the difference between what our customers paid and what we said they paid in the official paperwork Grace filed. It made us both rich. Well, it made me rich first. The way I saw it, she owed me a lot of money after Gene wasted so much of it on his failing business. But once she paid me that back, she made a comfortable living. I made sure of that.”

Damien thought of their chic apartment, the expensive dishes and high-thread-count sheets on their bed. Everything they couldn’t afford on his teacher’s salary, but Grace assured him was fine, because she’d take care of it. “Until Grace left.”

“We’d already hit a snag. I got sloppy. After years of everything being so simple, I tried it out on a few properties over in Brooklyn. One piece of missing paperwork somewhere in the chain brought the different prices to the wrong person’s attention, and the NYPD were on us within a few days, sniffing around Grace’s real estate office and trailing her around the city.”

Chloe seemed to assess Damien, although it was so dark out that he could barely see her even a few feet from his face. Something clicked in his mind.

“You were the woman who visited Grace’s office the day before she disappeared,” he said.

Chloe nodded. “I called earlier trying to figure out Grace’s schedule and when she wouldn’t be in the office, but when I got there that twee front desk assistant wouldn’t let me in. I even spoke to her boss, but they refused to let me wait in her office for our supposed appointment. I wanted to see if Grace had any evidence she was going to hand over to the cops, but it was just a wasted trip in the end. And then Grace disappeared the next day and I had bigger problems to deal with.”

“Who sent her the newspaper article?” Damien asked. He had to stop in the middle of the sentence to breath in. He tried to hold the air inside his lungs. Every time he exhaled more blood leaked from the wound in his side. Delirium caught at the edges of his consciousness.

Chloe ignored his question and lit a cigarette. The end flamed bright orange in the darkness as she sucked in on it.

“Are you dead yet?” she said calmly. Damien watched her eyes in the glow of her cigarette roam over his crumpled body. “No, still there, aren’t we? I suppose I need to finally finish this and stop playing with my food.”

She took one more puff on her cigarette, gripped the knife in her right hand, and raised it above Damien. He was so weak now he could barely lift his hand to shield his eyes from the final slash.

He’d let Tim down. He’d let Jordan down. He’d failed everyone.

Damien waited for the knife to tear through him, but it didn’t happen.

Instead, a shot rang out in the air, and Chloe gave a quick yelp as the bullet sank into the side of her cheek. Damien heard rather than saw Chloe collapse beside him. The knife’s tip jabbed into the fabric of his jeans and then rolled into the grass.

“Nasty habit!” a woman shouted from across the river. A flashlight clicked on and Damien caught the cropped gray hair of Victoria Hoover in its beams, standing on the cliff face by the Vindicator building.

She waved sanguinely. “I’ve notified the police,” she called over.

Damien gave a filthy scream of defiance and managed to kick Chloe’s body off his own before passing out.

73

Grace

Her feet pounded in the leaf litter as she ran. It was dark, the only light from the screen of her phone. She’d waited too long to go after Damien. She should have followed him as soon as he disappeared behind the line of trees, Chloe not far in front of him.

But she’d needed to think. Something she hadn’t done ten years ago, when she followed Eleanor—now Chloe—out of the fire and into the big city. When she’d walked by the body of her best friend, who she didn’t realize wasn’t yet dead, and let her burn up in the flames.

The newspaper article. She hadn’t thought through that either. She’d just left. Of course, Damien had discovered her past and come to find her.

Now he was in danger. Because of her.

Grace checked her phone, but there was no reply to the frantic text she’d sent to him—the man who was the final piece in their morbid puzzle—after Damien disappeared into the woods. She’d waited as long as she could. She needed to find Damien. He wasn’t safe with Chloe.

Having picked up the gun from the floor of the outbuilding where Damien dropped it, Grace tucked it back into her coat while she explained to Marian and Gene that she needed to follow her fiancé. As she ran towards the woods now, she felt the weight of it heavy in her pocket.

She purposefully turned so she couldn’t see Tim’s body in the grass as she passed by. Her stomach heaved with regret and guilt. None of this should have happened. Tim was only trying to help his brother. She pushed down the rush of panic rising in her throat and forced herself to focus.

She couldn’t wait for him to arrive any longer than she already had. Her mother and father could meet him at the rest area and explain everything. They’d recognize him, even after all these years.

Grace thought she was walking in the direction of the river, but everything looked the same in the dark. A crow cawed above her and she reached her right hand out to snap a slim branch back from scratching her face.

She thought she felt her phone buzz in her other hand, but nothing showed on the screen. Grace fought down the panic. If he didn’t show up, she had no idea what would happen.

She should have never let herself fall in love with Damien.

Damien. Her chest ripped open at the thought of him, somewhere ahead of her, battling Chloe’s hatred.

She stumbled forward and her foot caught on a branch. Grace fell forward, only managing to catch herself with her hands a few inches above a musty log before her face smashed into it. The scent of decay rose up her nose.

Grace didn’t dare call Damien’s name out. Anything could provoke Chloe. Grace had already shot at her once and missed. Hearing her voice might make Chloe kill Damien even quicker, just out of spite.

Finally, she found herself in the clearing. A figure stood across the river with a flashlight propped on the ground, putting them in a silhouette. In front of her, a dark crumpled mass spread across the ground near the cliff face.

A yelp escaped her mouth.

Grace bent down. Her hands quickly found the wetness of their blood—her fake mother mixed with her real fiancé’s. She put her fingers against the smooth skin of Chloe’s neck and felt nothing. Next, she felt for Damien’s rough stubbled chin and the slightest of beats pulsed under her fingertips.

Something hard unclenched in her stomach. He was alive.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Grace pulled Damien up into her arms and tried to carry him away from Chloe. He was far heavier than she was, all six feet two inches of him, and she could barely shift his weight more than a few inches.

Grace pulled harder, but her grip gave way and she fell onto the ground, Damien’s unconscious body falling heavily against her side.

Blue lights glowed over the treetops. The police were coming.

A light shone out from alongside the trees to her left. The flashlight on the right, across the river, was dark again.

“Grace,” her mother called. “Are you there?”

She held a flashlight in her hand—she must have taken it from the trunk of their car.

“I’m over here. Damien needs help,” she called out to her.

But it was three shadowed figures who ran towards her in the dark, not two.

Close-up, she finally saw who they were. It was her mother and father. And next to them, with fresher wrinkles and a graying beard, was Mr. MacDougal.

He’d finally come, and Grace prayed that it wouldn’t be like ten years ago, with more death trailing behind him.

74

Grace

“You need to leave.” Marian gestured to Gene to stand closer to their group. He’d been hanging back, avoiding looking at Chloe’s body or Damien’s injuries as Grace cradled him. “You can’t be here when the police arrive.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Grace insisted. She wrapped her arms tighter around Damien’s body, taking comfort in the shallow rise and fall of his chest beneath her.

“If you stay, you’ll be arrested. If you take him with you, he’ll die.” Marian was matter-of-fact. She crouched down next to Grace.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. MacDougal said. “You were getting careless. That young police officer, she was sniffing around. She actually came to the school, interviewed me in my classroom. No one had shown any interest in years. You needed to be warned.”

A dog barked in the distance. Voices, sharp and clipped, traveled from somewhere too close.

“Stop it.” Marian’s voice was a slap. “We don’t have time for this.”

Ten years ago, when Grace was shivering in a drafty room in a boarding house while she worked through her real estate classes and Chloe sold drugs to afford the rent and class fees—they weren’t touching the cash until Grace had her realty license—she’d sent a letter to Mr. MacDougal. She told him where she was, that she trusted him, and that she needed him to keep her informed if anyone from Youngstown started asking too many questions. It was a gamble, but she was so alone and frightened, with Chloe always lurking in the background, threatening her, that it felt as though this small lifeline was worth the risk.

They’d agreed he’d send a signal if she ever needed to run. A different signal if she needed to come back.

And then one day, on the eve of her wedding, it arrived in the mail.

She left, meeting Mr. MacDougal at a rest area somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania. She’d allowed herself one phone call to Damien from a pay phone they found next to a diner in some unnamed town’s main street. Two meth-heads had sauntered up as she called Damien, and she’d had to shove one of them off her before Mr. MacDougal came back from buying an energy drink from the gas station on the corner. There were blue jays in the trees outside, just like she’d heard at the rest area behind her.

She’d ended the call afterwards, her heart cracking open like a broken eggshell. All her insides liquefied as she headed back to the rental car Mr. MacDougal drove that night. She was sick along the side of the road three times as they made their way back to Youngstown.

He took her to Marian and Gene’s house first. He’d told them everything before he left to meet Grace. That Leanne was alive, living in New York City as Grace, under Chloe’s thumb. It was purposefully a short meeting.

The rest of the time she’d hidden at his home, trying to decide what to do. She’d had less than twenty-four hours to figure out about how to keep Jordan away from the trail of clues, because then Damien came, followed by Chloe.

Mr. MacDougal was a fool. He should have sent the signal for her to run. Not come back.

But Grace also knew why he’d done it. Like so many men in her life, he’d been weak. He was frightened by having the police show up, especially at a job he loved so much. He wanted Grace to come fix everything for him.

Grace didn’t want to think about why he loved it, the darker reasons underneath his gifts as a teacher. She had no explanation for why her mother hadn’t forced him out of their school long ago.

God, how could she have trusted such a selfish man? None of this would be happening if he’d just taken care of things himself and told Grace to run.

It was too dark to see Mr. MacDougal’s face, but she could picture the relief in his eyes that Marian was here and in control once again. She may hate him, but she’d make the decisions for him.

True to form, MacDougal broke the silence with a question rather than a command. “What happens now?” he asked.

“Good question.” Marian paused for a second. Her shoulder pressed into Grace’s. The moon had risen above the treetops, and in the light it cast, Grace watched her mother shake her head in a tidy movement.

Before Grace could stop her, Marian reached inside Grace’s coat pocket, retrieved the gun, and shot Mr. MacDougal in the forehead. A small bead of blood traced its way down his face, set out against his skin, which was visibly pale now in the rising moonlight.

Grace suppressed the sound that wanted to escape her lungs. The sound of an animal so frightened it might be laughing.

A second passed, and then his willowy body fell onto the grass.

“He wasn’t going to let you leave,” Marian explained to Grace.

“Oh my God! Marian?” Gene cried out. He lunged from his spot outside the circle towards his wife. In the moonlight, Grace recognized a rekindled rage in his expression. “You bitch. You stupid bitch! Now you’ve ruined everything.”

Marian turned from MacDougal’s body towards Gene, the gun still poised in her hand. “What did you say?”

But Gene didn’t back down. He kept coming for her. This time the gunshot didn’t surprise Grace, and Gene collapsed with a sickening thump in front of them.

Grace’s mouth hung open. She couldn’t steady her thoughts.

Perhaps Grace had seen it coming, well before this night even. No family could survive what they’d been through. No marriage had room for happiness when it was so crowded with cowardice and resentment.

Marian appeared stunned. Voices in clipped tones traveled over the distance. Now two dogs barked in the forest, calling to each other. But as the sounds filtered their way into Marian’s thoughts, Grace saw the firm set to her mother’s jaw return. Her eyes turned back to Grace, steel in her gaze.

“He ran away, the night Tasha died, because he squandered his sister’s insurance money, which was supposed to be for you. Because he ruined our lives, one too many times. He deserved it.” Marian’s words were rushed, as though she were convincing herself as much as she was convincing Grace. “Even after he recognized Tasha as Eleanor’s daughter, he couldn’t pull through. We were supposed to kill Eleanor that night, while you and Tasha were at the dance. We knew she was coming to get her money. She’d always been clever—far too clever—and selfish. She wouldn’t have left her money to you without a good reason, one that benefited her. I was certain she was planning to have you withdraw all the money, and then kill you, maybe me and your father, too. And Tasha’s posts on Instagram were getting more and more reckless. I thought Eleanor was forcing Tasha to do it, so that she could blame the murders on her own daughter in the end.

“So, I bought the gun, I made the plan, I did everything. Except stop drinking. I’ll never forgive myself for that. Sometimes I think, if only I’d been sharper, more focused…” She trailed off for a moment, but then Grace saw Marian’s steadiness return. She’d never been one for self-pity. “All your father had to do was be there to help me, but he backed out at the last minute. After I realized you took the gun, I’d hoped commenting as you on Tasha’s Instagram post was enough to make you cautious and to hold off on doing anything unsafe before I got to the dance.” Marian shook her head, her mouth a grim line. “As if anything I did that night could have kept you safe.

“After I confronted you at the dance, your father lost his nerve entirely. He refused to go to Eleanor’s trailer. He was like a child, a baby. Weeping, sobbing. We had to come home. I’d prayed you’d stay at the dance, especially since I took the money along with the gun. You know how the rest of it turned out.”

A distant memory surfaced in Grace’s mind. Her mother telling her father she could always be a widow instead. Now she was one.

“They all deserved to die.” Marian offered the words up like a prayer.

“Not Tim,” Grace replied.

Marian paused. “No, not Tim. But Chloe.” Marian’s mouth puckered with disgust and she spit the syllable of her name out. “Him.” She tossed her head to the side towards Mr. MacDougal’s body. “And yes, even your father. They made the world a more dangerous, selfish place.”

“And what about me?” Grace bit her bottom lip and stood. “What about you?”

“I’m saving my daughter.” Marian reached her hand out, as though to touch Grace, and then let it fall along her side. “We’d always hoped you’d gotten away. When Eric told us you were alive, I couldn’t believe it. It was one of the best moments of my life.

“Eric—Mr. MacDougal—was inconsolable that night of the fire, but I convinced him to leave just before the police and fire department arrived. Afterwards, the police thought there was only one victim, but of course, we knew the math didn’t add up. Three women and only one body. We didn’t know if it was you, or Tasha, or Eleanor, but we’d always hoped you and Tasha had made it out alive somehow, and that it was Eleanor we buried. I’m sorry we were wrong.”

Grace’s eyes welled with tears and she blinked them back so Marian wouldn’t see.

“I’m not leaving Damien.”

“You have to. You can’t go back to the way it was. Ever. You need to start a new life.”

“Again.” A vise gripped Grace’s throat. She could just lay herself across Damien’s body and wait for the police. She could go to jail. Just for a few more minutes with him.

But inside she knew her mother was right. Damien loved Grace, the successful, beautiful, normal real estate agent. He didn’t love Leanne, the girl who faked her death, followed a con woman and murderer to New York City, and did that woman’s bidding to avoid facing the fact that she was a coward who left her friend to die. Or the young woman who stayed connected to Mr. MacDougal because she knew she could attack his weakness—his predilections, she hadn’t split hairs about whether they were in his past or still in his present—if he ever betrayed her. He didn’t love Leanne, who chose the special message she and her dead best friend, Tasha, had used in their make-Leanne-a-hero plan as the signal Mr. MacDougal would send if she needed to come back to Ohio and clean up her mess further. Tag. You’re it.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in this life. I know that.” Marian paused briefly. “But the one thing I can be proud of is raising my daughter to be brave and strong in a world that is going to constantly try to beat her down. Being a woman is a risky life. I needed you to know that every place we go, we are by default the losers. It’s only through strength, anger, and yes—sometimes violence—that you’ll protect yourself from this world.”

Grace was speechless. She thought of the constant battles she’d had with her mother. Her unexplained sicknesses growing up. Marian’s recitation that Grace was the loser, that she’d always lose. Even Marian’s slight approval, mixed with fear, when Grace would fight back. Marian didn’t wait for Grace to respond. She turned suddenly and held her hands in the air in surrender. “I’m over here,” she yelled to the disembodied voices.

“I’m so proud of you,” Marian whispered over the soft rush of Grace’s footsteps as she ran down along the edge of the cliff and towards the darkness stretching ahead of her. Away from the sirens and the sharp edges of officers. Into her future. Alone.

Epilogue

DAMIEN

“Do you need a hand?” Damien asked as she took a step down the hallway.

“I told you, I’m fine. And shouldn’t I be asking you the same question?” Jordan gave a soft laugh. Her face was still a patchwork of healing bruises, purples, deep blues, and the hint of yellow at the surface of some. She couldn’t stretch her lips into a comfortable smile yet.

Damien recognized perhaps neither of them would for a while. But it wouldn’t stop him from trying.

“Mine was merely a flesh wound. You were bludgeoned, poisoned…”

“And don’t forget the subcranial hemorrhaging.”

“How could I?” he replied and gripped her arm. They were both allowed to wear soft, elastic-waisted sweatpants underneath their hospital gowns now that their wounds were healing so well. Damien had to keep his nestled against his hip bones to avoid the bandaging over the top of where Chloe had stabbed him.

They’d fallen into a pattern once they both realized they were the only survivors after the string of days and nights that left four people dead, including Tim, that put Marian in police custody, and Grace missing again. Neither of them talked about it with each other, except in broad allusions. Damien assumed her colleagues had told Jordan everything that had happened.

Instead, they talked about the horrible hospital food, the indignity of the hospital wardrobe, and the lack of privacy for anything. Neither of them mentioned, although both felt, that the constant bustle of nurses and doctors and janitors running in and out of their rooms was a gift. Neither Damien nor Jordan wanted to be left alone for long after what had happened.

They rounded the corner of the hallway and the smell of coffee accosted them. Their ritual was to turn back at the vending machines. Damien would drop Jordan off at her room, and a nurse would escort him back to his wing of St. Elizabeth’s. His aunt and uncle came later in the day, during visiting hours. They were still reeling from the news that Tim was dead, that Grace was an interloper and gone, and that Damien had been near death. Damien could barely look at their faces without collapsing inside.

Their grief was raw and beating, but Damien’s grief was all those things mixed with suffocating guilt. He never should have sought out his brother’s help.

He never should have trusted Grace in the first place.

He never should have believed that his life could be anything other than a tragedy.

Jordan let go of his arm and turned to look at him. “Have you heard from Victoria?”

Damien bit the inside of his cheek. Their unspoken code was to speculate about what was for dinner as they neared Jordan’s room. Then Jordan would make a joke about mystery meat or Nurse Jacobs’s latest nail art, and Damien would leave for the day a little lighter—infinitesimally lighter—than he’d been before.

“She sent flowers and a card. She said in her note that the police will need her to testify, but that she wasn’t being charged with anything. Clear self-defense.”

“Is she going to write about it?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t know,” Damien answered. Although he was certain Victoria Hoover would get more than a front-page exposé in The Vindicator. Book deal, movie rights. As far as Damien was concerned, she deserved it all.

“I hope she does.” Jordan gave him a soft look. “I hope she tells the world about Tasha. About all of it.”

Damien nodded. He reached out and touched her hand. Part of her wrist was still bandaged from a sprain. He gave a gentle squeeze, and his heart opened slowly.

He turned without saying another word and walked the rest of the way back to his room on the floor above. Alone.

The next day, when the nurse came to escort him to visit Jordan, he declined the offer.

He didn’t explain his absence to Jordan. He knew, in time, she’d understand.

Delia

She should have come west from the very beginning. The sunshine, the longer days. The citrus fruit glowing off tree branches in the golden light.

California. Los Angeles, suburban LA.

There was a feeling, even more than in New York, that you could become anyone out here. Everyone was an actor, or an actor’s best friend. Everyone in this town was already pretending.

Delia tried not to think of Damien too often. She didn’t want to wonder who he was with, whether he was happy. Peripherally, and usually from a library computer, she’d follow the case of her mother’s trial. Marian had pled self-defense. The reporter, Victoria Hoover, testified about her own part in saving Damien, and Delia felt intense gratitude every time she saw Victoria’s byline above the articles she scoured online.

No one seemed to be searching for her. Grace Dupree, née Leanne Crosby, was a fugitive. Delia Penditt was a lowly waitress living paycheck to paycheck in a boarding house that catered to movie extras, old commercial actors, and recently rehabbed alcoholics.

At the library, she’d sometimes go onto her fake Instagram account and check Damien’s profile to see if he’d added anything. Two months after she left for the second time, he deactivated it. Delia couldn’t find if he’d started a new account. She tried all the different options of his name combined with his interests and hobbies. She couldn’t find him.

Tasha’s old account was still up. No one had bothered to deactivate it. Ten years later, Delia could scroll through her friend’s pictures. They’d thought they had the world figured out. Tasha was going to tumble out of control, with drugs and guns and self-harm, and then Leanne would come and save her best friend. They’d always planned the fire. Tasha would start it, and Leanne would rescue her from the flames. Leanne would be a hero, and she’d be in the papers. It’d be hard for an Ivy League school to ignore the type of copy they’d get for admitting a teenage hero who risked her life to safe her friend from a burning building.

Tasha was convinced it’d give Leanne the edge her personal statement needed.

And if Leanne’s house burned down, maybe it could reset her family’s system. Burn the sickness out.

Leanne had gone along, because Tasha was brilliant and her friend and she loved her. And also, Leanne needed to get away from her family. She wouldn’t survive another year in that house with them. Not without killing one of them, or herself, first. With the house burned, the two friends thought it might be possible—just possible—that Leanne could come live with Tasha while it was rebuilt. And if not, at least Leanne would have a certainty that her freedom would be coming soon, when she finally left for school. She’d get to start a whole new life. She’s even told Tasha that she might like to start going by Grace instead of Leanne. Grace was her middle name, and she’d always liked the calm that settled on her anytime she spoke it.

The last time she was at the library, Delia quickly took a picture of Tasha’s Instagram post with her phone. Not the last one, where she was posing with the gun.

It was the first post Tasha created in that account at the start of the school year, when she’d come up with the idea to help Leanne move on to a better life. The photo she’d stared at for hours, when she was fighting for her sanity in that horrible cockroach-infested room in New York with Chloe hovering over her shoulder, wrapping iron bands of fear around her chest with each stare and instruction.

Delia flipped to the photo on her phone. It was a little blurry, because she’d snapped the picture quickly before a library staff member could walk by and see what she was doing.

But even with the blurred edges, Delia saw the photo as clearly as though it was that day, over a decade and two lifetimes ago, sitting in the sunshine outside the high school, their chins turned up to the sky, just a teenage girl and her best friend.

Happy and free, wrapping their arms around each other as though they’d always be together.

Like they didn’t have a care in the world besides loving each other.

The End

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my trusted editor, Ian Skewis, for another wonderful collaboration. You are a joy to work with and I can always count on your eagle eyes to catch even the smallest inconsistency.

A huge thanks to Chris Rychter (chrisrychter.com) for creating the cover for The Girl in the Fire. It captures the essence of this novel perfectly! Working with him on this project was the BEST.

Thank you to all my writing friends, including the ever-busy, ever-talented Brian Centrone. Come to the country!

Thank you to Katrina Kasper, Amy Prior, and Robina Rader for your feedback on earlier versions of this novel. Not only are you excellent beta-readers, but also dear friends. Special thanks to Levi Spellman, Kerri Sullivan, and Finley Witzke for their quick and insightful feedback on the almost-final version of this novel as it was getting ready to go to press.

Thank you to my ‘work wife’, Dr. Jennifer Crissman-Ishler, for keeping me sane in the midst of hectic, joyful, intense, fun, and always surprising semesters.

Thank you to my ALPHA Fire Company family for supporting me and training me and bringing such wonderful friends into my life. The majority of this novel was written in the station meeting room while on standby shift, waiting for calls. Of course a fire was going to show up at some point in the story!

This book is dedicated to them, but thank you again to my students at Penn State University. Every day I spend working with you is a gift. I am very lucky to work with such incredible young people, who go on to change to world for the better. 

Thank you to my Mom for breaking her rule of only reading nonfiction in order to support her children’s writing careers. I won the jackpot having you as my mom.

Thank you to my family, including my brothers, Ben and Jacob, and my children. Your support means everything.

Finally, thank you to my husband, Joshua. You are my favorite, forever and always.

About the Author

Sarah K. Stephens is the author of seven novels and a developmental psychologist at Penn State University. Her writing has appeared in LitHub, The Writer's Chronicle, Hazlitt, and The Millions. Aside from The Girl in the Fire, her books include the psychological thrillers A Flash of Red, It Was Always You, The Anniversary, Isolation, The Good Life, and The Killing Kind. Sarah lives with her husband in Central Pennsylvania.

Follow Sarah on Instagram (@skstephenswrite) or Facebook (@sarahkstephensauthor) and keep up with all of her book news on her website (www.sarahkstephens.com).

Also by Sarah K Stephens

It Was Always You

The Anniversary

Isolation

The Good Life

The Killing Kind