Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Lucia thins her lips. “Do you think you two could compose yourselves well enough to speak with the police captain? Or are you late for another party?”
Aleksander smirks devilishly.
“Oh, come now, Mummy.” He fakes this cringe posh British accent that only makes me angrier. Rosalind giggles and looks away from me guiltily. “You should be nicer to your future daughter-in-law.”
Daughter-in-what-the-fuck?
I stiffen and stare.
“Daughter-in-law?” I echo before I can stop myself.
“Well now,” Montero tells his son, clearing his throat. “I suppose we can excuse a little young mischief as long as we keep it in the family.”
Rosalind bites her lip, smearing her lipstick more, and leans into Aleksander, holding up her left hand.
In the low sickly orange light, a large diamond embedded in gold flashes like a drawn dagger.
“He asked me last night,” she says with the same sheepish smile I used to see when she was a little girl, always begging the big kids for their approval and affection. “Of course, I said yes! Um, please don’t tell Ophie yet, Grant. She doesn’t know... and she might be kinda pissed.”
As she damn well should be.
Ophelia’s baby sister, getting tangled up with this family?
I growl “fine” almost on auto-pilot before I realize what she just said.
“Wait. Hold up. Ophelia... Ophelia’s back in town?” I hold my breath, bracing for the gut punch.
Then it hits me dead-on.
That old familiar pain.
That wrenching loss, stronger than ever.
That sense of longing, stretched across a decade without her like a man straining on a torture rack.
Ros licks her lips, still watching me like a little girl who’s afraid of being punished.
“Yeah. Just today,” she says quietly. Behind her, Micah and Henri lower Cora Lafayette’s body down slowly into Lucas’ waiting arms. “She’s driving in from Raleigh-Durham right now.”
Oh, I think, as the past rushes up to meet my face like a brass knuckle uppercut.
Oh, shit.
2
ONE BAD MEMORY (OPHELIA)
I swear, I have the world’s worst luck with rental cars.
The last time I had a car give out on me, I was driving through the Pacific Northwest on a scenic road trip during a short sabbatical.
I’d rented this nice Lexus convertible so I could enjoy the show with the top down, but all I’d gotten was a face full of smoke when the radiator blew right outside of a cozy little place called Heart’s Edge, Montana.
At the time, I felt lucky to hitch a ride into town with a friendly ranch girl named Libby, who dropped me off at the mechanic’s with a little teasing about how it happens so much they’re starting to think it’s aliens.
This time, though, I don’t think aliens have anything to do with it.
It’s just good old-fashioned Redhaven bad luck.
And my luck is definitely running out as the Corolla I rented sputters and gasps just as I’m cresting the final hill before the familiar drop down into the valley cupping the town.
It’s strange coming home this way.
I haven’t seen this town in ages—and if it wasn’t for life happening, I’d be happy to never see it again.
But fate keeps driving me back here one nasty blow at a time.
First, the job loss. The recession slammed Florida pretty hard and the Miami hospice center where I worked ’regretfully’ served me a pink slip when budget cuts knifed through the staff.
My sister Rosalind was acting weird as hell on the phone, too.
Spacey, out of it, distant, evasive.
In our last video call, her eyes were bloodshot and sunken in like she’d been crying hard. But when I asked, she just giggled, avoided looking at me, and swore up and down she was fine.
No, I don’t think she’s fine.
And after losing our brother, Ethan, seeing Ros struggle is too much.
It scares me to the bone.
Old memories of Ethan keep surfacing, too, dredged up by the national news coverage of the Emma Santos murder case, plus the Arrendell tie to the deaths of so many girls, including hometown cold case Celeste Graves.
Then there’s my mother.
Even as I fight the car to the shoulder and slam the brakes on before gravity takes hold and pulls me into an uncontrolled skid downhill, my eyes sting.
My mother is dying.
Again.
And I don’t know if I can survive it a second time.
For her sake, I have to.
I jam the parking brake on and scramble out, shivering in the early October chill.
Yeah, I’ve been a Florida girl for too long. The autumn cold creeping over North Carolina leaves me feeling as naked in my thin sweater as the leafless branches of the dense poplar and pine trees around Redhaven.
I pop the hood and look inside.
I’m no mechanic—not even TikTok car-savvy—but at least I can tell nothing popped loose this time. There’s nothing obvious, nothing smoking, sparking, or broken.
Crud.
Well, at least this time I know it’s not the radiator hose.
Frowning, I brace my hands on my hips and look down the hill into town.