Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
I frown, realizing I can’t check the cameras because my phone is still in my purse downstairs. I rush down with my cup of wine, making sure not to spill any on the stairs.
When I round the corner, I check our home security system’s video screen attached to the wall behind the door. A woman is on the screen, wearing all black with her head down. I can tell it’s a woman because she has breasts beneath the hoodie she’s wearing. With her head down, I can’t see the upper half of her face but, regardless, the sight of her makes my heart drum a faster beat.
“Can I help you?” I ask through the speaker in the system.
“Open up.”
I pause, studying her in the camera again. She’s looking over her shoulder now. She’s fidgety. I don’t like it. I glance toward the kitchen, where my phone is inside my purse.
“I’m sorry,” I call into the speaker. “I can’t help you. I don’t know who you are and I’m not expecting visitors.”
“It’s Brynn,” she says rapidly, and my eyes nearly bulge out of my head as the woman lifts her head. There. I see her. The woman from the photo. She’s still beautiful but something about her face is different. A slanted scar is on the right side of her head, running from her hairline and through her eyebrow. The scar is deep, as if it’d required stitches in order to heal.
I unlock the door and snatch it open, prepared to ask her a hundred questions. What does she want? Why was she in that picture with my husband? Where the hell is he? But I don’t get the chance to ask any of them because as soon as the door is open, she withdraws a gun from her hoodie pocket and points it at my face.
PART TWO
FORTY-TWO
BRYNN
Do you know what it feels like to be buried alive?
I remember it very well.
The dirt drops in fat clumps, weighing your body down.
It’s heavy and you lose oxygen second by second.
For a moment, you think this is your fate—that you will die, and no one will find you. A darkness shrouds you when you realize your life is coming to an end. You begin to pray, begging the Lord Almighty or whomever you believe in to make this all go away, to absolve you of your sins, to welcome you into their eternal presence. It’s a scary thing, facing a death like that.
I lay in a hole in the ground and through eyes that refused to stay open, saw a large man who was hastily shoveling dirt in the ground. It took a minute for me to realize he was throwing the dirt onto my body. There was a pain at the front of my head, so sharp and intense that I didn’t want to blink for fear that it would hurt more. I don’t think he saw my eyes as he shoveled the dirt in with heavy grunts. I had no clue who he was, or how I’d gotten to this point.
I tried remembering what’d happened but couldn’t. It was all so fuzzy. I attempted to move my hands, my feet, and even roll. Nothing worked. I felt cold. Weak. I may not have known where I was or how I’d gotten there, but what I did know for sure was that I was going to die. When a pile of dirt landed on my face, I knew it to be true. The dirt kept coming down as a steady plop, plop, plop. The man’s grunting softened. Dirt filled my ears.
As good as dead, I thought as I drowned in darkness.
But the end is never definite when breath still fills the lungs . . . or when you have a best friend like mine.
FORTY-THREE
SHAVONNE
Four years ago—New Orleans
Shavonne was worried.
Normally, when it came to Brynn, she didn’t have to worry. That’s what she liked about having her as a best friend. They were great communicators and if one of them had an issue with the other, they hashed it out like adults. If one of them was short on rent, the other would try and help out. If one of them needed to borrow tampons or pads, they had each other’s backs. If they wanted to kick back and watch a movie and drown in popcorn and wine while pretending to be Olivia Pope, they did it together. And they always, always, always texted each other back. No matter if they were working, out late, or whatever—they always did.
It was such a priority that Shavonne had to break up with a guy who got jealous that she and Brynn were so close. He kept calling them secret lesbians. She hated that. What was so wrong with having a friend you trusted and relied on? What was so wrong with making them a priority in your life when they’d practically saved yours? Sure, she and Brynn had gotten into an argument the day before over a mess Brynn had left in the kitchen, but it didn’t matter. Brynn always got back to her, even when they were annoyed with each other.