My new psychological thriller is on pre-order, dropping 22/7. But you can read the first four chapters here, for free!
Chapter One
Grace
I’m running late, of course. Timekeeping has never been my strong suit. I was an overdue baby, and my mom likes to say this set the tone for my entire life. I tell her that some of us are worth waiting for, but today, I’m pushing even my own limits.
Josh is waiting for me on the front lawn. That’s unusual. He always goes straight inside to find my parents. They love him—maybe even more than they love me.
But this afternoon, he’s standing beside the old pear tree, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
A dart of unease goes through me, sharper than the spring breeze.
“Everything okay, honey?” I call, speeding up. Not a smart decision. I’m in my brand-new Jimmy Choos, and each step on the flagstone feels like I’m one wobble away from disaster. Geez, I’m not usually this wound up. You’d think I was hiding a body or something.
Josh doesn’t answer. Instead, he throws his arms wide in a gesture so theatrical it almost makes me laugh. Almost. Josh isn’t theatrical. He’s a straight-shooter, a say-what-you-mean kind of guy.
“What is it?” My words come out too shrill. “Come on, we’re already late. If you’ve got something to say, just—”
Then I see it:
The pear tree has bloomed.
Its gnarled branches have been barren my entire life, stubbornly refusing to flower. Now, on this blowy May afternoon, it’s covered in pinkish-white blossoms.
I clap my hand to my mouth. “Oh, wow, that’s a first.”
Josh laughs. “You’re so damn cute. C’mere.”
He lifts me off my feet and spins me around. “You told me your parents tried to cut it down a bunch of times, but you and Sam tied yourselves to it and staged a protest.”
“That’s right! I can’t believe you remembered, though.” To be honest, I barely remember it myself, but the story has been retold so many times that I can picture it perfectly:
Me, no older than eight, hot-faced and valiant; Sam, cherubic and giggling, blissfully unaware of the gravity of our mission. Victory achieved at last, but I’d tied the knots so well that Dad spent an hour freeing us—by which time, Sam had wet his pants.
“I remember everything you tell me, Grace,” Josh murmurs, his lips brushing my hair.
A pleasurable shudder goes through me. Before Josh, I didn’t know it was possible for someone to love every messy, complicated detail of your life—well, the ones you share with them, anyway. With him, I don’t just feel seen—I feel held in his gentle attention. Which, if you’d seen him pulverizing his opponents on the football field, would probably come as a surprise.
Of course, I don’t tell him everything. Some things are better left in the past, where they can’t hurt you anymore.
A gust of wind sweeps through the yard, scattering petals like confetti.
Josh draws back, his hazel eyes locking with mine. “Let’s get a picture,” he says, pulling out his phone.
We press together, the cascade of blossoms behind us. The photo is perfect—we look happy, untouched by shadows.
“Can I post it?” he asks.
I hesitate, then nod.
Josh arches a playful eyebrow. “Sure it won’t violate Franklin Business protocol?”
“Stop!” I laugh, swatting him. He loves teasing me about my family’s notorious discretion. We’re private people. A tight unit, bound by our painful past. We know that we’re brave and resilient, and we don’t need the rest of the world looking in.
The selfie goes up with his favorite hashtags: #blessed #nofilter. And I have to admit, it’s perfect: the tree, the blossoms, the sunlight. Us.
As we head inside for my parents’ anniversary photo shoot, my phone buzzes and Louise flashes up on the screen for the third time in an hour. My heart skips, but I let it ring out. If it’s what I think it is, I want to hear it when I’m alone.
We’re seriously late.
The photographer has already set up in the living room and he’s doing a test shot of my parents and Sam.
“Here they are!” Dad beams. He doesn’t seem to have the capacity to get mad at me. “This is my eldest, Grace, and her boyfriend, Josh. This is Alessandro, our wonderfully talented photographer.”
Alessandro is European; dark-haired and smiley. When he sees me, he does a double-take. “Wow, you two look so alike.”
Sam and I exchange an affectionate eye-roll. We get that a lot. Doesn’t help that we look like characters from a pioneer folktale, all blond hair and steely blue eyes.
Alessandro moves his tripod in front of the French windows and scans us with a professional eye. “Is this all of you now?”
There’s a pause, a catch of breath on this special day.
Dad’s voice cuts through the quiet. “Yes,” he says. “This is everyone.”
Chapter Two
Grace
For an hour, Alessandro chatters non-stop. I could listen to that dreamy Italian accent of his all day. He has us posing all over the living room, and when I mention the pear tree, we go out on the lawn, too. The pre-sunset light is just perfect, making us look like we’ve been touched by Midas himself.
I can tell Mom is having fun, soaking up all the praise. She used to be a bundle of nerves when I was a kid, like she was always bracing for disaster. But she’s mellowed over the years, and she and dad just look so good together—fit, healthy and youthful. Like a couple who’ve weathered the storms of life and come out stronger on the other side.
“Okay, it’s a wrap,” Alessandro says sultrily. Honestly, if I wasn’t just about to marry the best guy in the whole world…
He checks he has our email addresses, packs up his stuff, and with many ciaos and grazie milles, he’s gone.
“That went well…” Dad rubs his hands together, like this is the moment he’s been waiting for. “Champagne?”
He dives into the fridge for an ice-cold bottle of Bollinger. Expertly, he pours five frothing glasses, and we raise them to toast my parents on their thirty-second wedding anniversary.
Josh and I exchange a glance. It’s time.
I’m practically hopping with excitement. We’ve been sitting on this news all week, and now we can finally supercharge the celebration. I squeeze Josh’s hand, and he gives me a tiny, lopsided smile. I sure hope he still looks at me this way when he finds out what Louise has been doing for me.
Josh clears his throat. “Mom, Dad.”
Mom breaks into a megawatt grin. She’s been pestering Josh to call her “Mom” for months now, and the fact that he finally said it is clearly making her year. Dad nods calmly, like he knows something’s up but doesn’t want to spoil it.
“You know I love Grace with everything I have,” Josh begins.
Warmth blooms in my chest. I didn’t know it was possible to feel this full. I almost want time to freeze.
But it doesn’t, of course.
Instead, it shifts, reshuffles, and flips upside down.
“She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he continues. “And I want to spend the rest of my life—”
“Oh..?” Mom’s grin falters. Her gaze shifts past us to something in the hallway.
The doorbell rings, abrupt and unwelcome as breaking glass.
Mom sighs. “Alessandro must’ve forgotten something.”
Seriously? Josh and I have been planning this moment all week. Irritation pours through me as I hurry to the door, eager to get this over with.
I yank it open. But the words I had ready die on my lips.
Not Alessandro. Two women. Neither of them smiling.
One is standing squarely on the porch, the other a couple of feet behind her. The first is in her mid-thirties, with sharp, dark eyes that sweep me from head to toe. She’s wearing a black suit that fits her like a second skin, and though she’s no taller than me, she looks tough, commanding.
“I’m Detective Calder,” she says, her voice low and steady. “This is my partner, Morales.”
The other woman, tall and gawky, nods behind long brown bangs.
Detectives? Something in Calder’s expression tells me I won’t like what she has to tell me one bit.
She’s studying me with narrowed eyes, like there’s something she’s trying to understand about me.
“What is it?” Suddenly, my heart is hammering.
“Can I get your name?”
“Grace… Grace Franklin.”
“Zoe Franklin’s younger sister?”
I gasp. “Zoe? Have you found her?”
A crease forms between the detective’s brows. She wasn’t expecting that. “Was Zoe missing?” she asks carefully.
“No, she left us,” I reply.
“She. Left. You,” she echoes, each word landing like a stone on sand.
I’ve tripped out the sentence a hundred times before, but for the first time, I hear how little sense it makes—how badly it fails to explain my eighteen-year-old sister’s decision to walk out of our lives forever.
All I can do is nod helplessly.
“When was this?”
“Thirteen years ago. Where is she?”
Stupidly, I look past her, half-expecting Zoe to step from the shadows with a sheepish smile. Surprise, Grace!
But the detective’s expression turns my blood cold. Her chest swells as she inhales deeply. She’s trying to compose herself.
Fuck, what does that mean?
“Are your parents home?” she asks, her tone hardening.
My head jerks in a nod and I turn back to the house, but I can’t seem to make my feet move. “I—yeah, they’re inside. Why?”
“I need to speak to them.” She steps over the threshold like she owns the place.
My heart slams against my ribs as I watch her stride into the house. She’s bringing something with her, something dark and awful, and I can already feel it unraveling the edges of my world.
Somehow, I know that nothing is ever going to be the same.
Chapter Three
Ellery Calder
A sense of dissonance met Detective Ellery Calder when she entered the Franklins’ ostentatious home. The foyer was all gleaming tile and ivory walls, with oversized mirrors multiplying the space. A grand mahogany banister swept up to the second floor, while a monstrous chandelier dangled overhead. Two dove-gray velvet benches flanked the entryway, scattered with throw pillows that probably cost more than her monthly salary.
The contrast with the scene she’d just come from could not have been starker.
She glanced at Morales to see if her reaction was the same. Her partner was quiet and tight-lipped.
They’d been called to a car wreck at the bottom of a ravine, with a body inside.
Technically, it wasn’t a wreck anymore—just the rusted-out husk of a vehicle, nearly swallowed by undergrowth. The front end was crumpled from impact, the windshield shattered and collapsed inward. The tires were deflated and rotting on their rims. Moss coated the windows, and ivy had grown up over the doors.
It had taken a drone and a freak angle of sunlight to catch the glint of metal through the trees.
Inside was a small skeleton, upright behind the wheel. The front of her skull had caved in and was resting against the steering column. Long strands of hair were still attached, matted and clinging to the bone. The lower jaw was half-detached, hanging in a permanent grimace.
She was wearing the remnants of a pink plaid shirt and a denim miniskirt, both faded to near colorlessness. A silver charm bracelet hung from the bones of her wrist.
In the back pocket of the skirt was a Hurley wallet. Inside: a Connecticut driver’s license.
Zoe Franklin.
Date of birth: July 12, 1993
License Issue Date: July 12, 2010
Expiration Date: July 12, 2016
So, the body had been there for eight years at the very least—which concurred with the medical examiner’s early opinion.
The young woman couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen when she died.
The license address was ten miles away in a nice neighborhood. The kind of place where families noticed if their kids didn’t come home. Calder had expected a trail of paperwork—missing persons reports, welfare checks, something. But Zoe Franklin’s name wasn’t in the national database. Or the local one.
Maybe the girl in the car wasn’t Zoe. There were plenty of reasons why one girl might have had another girl’s ID in her back pocket.
Then Calder ran the DMV database.
The license hadn’t been renewed since its original issue.
She pulled Zoe Franklin’s Social Security record. No employment history. No tax filings. More than a decade of silence.
Something was very wrong.
And now Calder was here, at the family home. Framed portraits, vases of fresh flowers on display. A house where life was supposed to unfold smoothly.
The door at the end of the foyer was open. A cluster of people watched her arrival with unease.
Grace Franklin lingered behind the detectives. She didn’t try to pass or call out to the others. That was good. She believed Zoe was still alive; her eagerness to see her sister seemed genuine.
Of course, Calder had seen her share of convincing performances. The wealthy were practiced at wearing whatever face the moment required.
She paused at the photos lined up on the sideboard. Groups of four at the most—mother, father, daughter, younger son. Never five.
She caught Morales’s eye. The younger detective was quietly alert, as instructed. Green, but eager and switched on.
Then Calder stepped into the room.
* * *
The theme of understated luxury continued. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the spring twilight, and the air smelled of some room fragrance that didn’t come out of a can. There was a bottle of Champagne on a sideboard, a couple of half-full flutes grasped awkwardly by their owners.
The group had arranged itself in an arc around the door. Two tall young men, equally nonplussed. An older man, frowning, guarded, and a striking woman with a sleek blonde bob, her hand slipped into his, smiling expectantly. Grace had darted past Calder at last, and now hovered at the edge of them, wide-eyed and stiff, like a child who hadn’t yet been told what she’d done wrong.
“I’m Detective Calder,” Calder began. “I’m here about Zoe Franklin.”
Five sets of expressions transformed. At her side, she practically heard Morales’s focus snapping into place.
“Zoe?” the older woman echoed, touching her fingertips to her collarbone. “What about her?”
“I understand she lived here?”
“She’s our daughter.” Douglas Franklin’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “I’m Douglas and this is my wife, Katherine. But… she left. Years ago.”
“Left?” Calder took out her notebook. “Can you be more specific?”
“She… she decided she didn’t want to live with us anymore.” Katherine Franklin threw up her hands. “Didn’t want to be a part of the family, in fact.”
Calder waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. “So, what happened?”
“She… just… drove away one day. Told us not to go looking for her.” Katherine’s lip trembled.
“When was this?”
“Oh… t-twelve… thirteen years ago?” Katherine glanced at her husband for confirmation. He shrugged helplessly.
“Let’s sit,” Calder said. She was already moving toward the cream leather sofas. Douglas and Katherine followed, settling across from her. The others took the remaining seats.
“Can I get your names?” Calder turned to the unidentified men.
“Sam—Samuel Franklin,” said the one who looked like a younger, male version of Grace.
“Josh Harrison. Grace’s boyfriend,” said the older one. Handsome, built like a quarterback. Grace shot a questioning glance at him, but he didn’t acknowledge her. A flush had climbed up his cheeks.
Calder made a note.
“Did you file a missing person’s report?”
“She wasn’t missing,” Katherine said, her tone hardening a touch. “She knew where she was. She chose to leave.”
“But when she didn’t come back after a while?”
Grace leaned forward. “Detective, have you found her? Is she okay?”
Calder didn’t answer immediately. She scanned the group. “No one’s heard from her in thirteen years? No texts? No postcards? Nothing?”
“As I said, she chose to leave.” Katherine’s face crumpled. “Things were… difficult. When Zoe hit her teens, she fell in with the wrong people. Started drinking. Staying out. Who knows what else. And the more we tried to help, the more she hated us.”
Douglas Franklin fixed Calder with an earnest stare, elbows braced on his knees. “We’re here for her, detective. Whenever she’s ready. Not a day goes by when we don’t think of her.”
Calder flipped the page in her notebook. “Do you recall what Zoe was wearing the last time you saw her?”
“There wasn’t a last time,” Katherine said. “She was in and out. When she ran out of money, she’d come back—smelling like booze and cigarettes—then disappear again. Then she just called and said she wasn’t coming back.”
Calder lifted her shoulders quizzically. “She didn’t swing by and collect some of her things?”
Douglas puffed his cheeks out. “Her room was half empty by the time she left. She’d been gradually moving out for months.”
“Can I see her room?”
Both parents flinched.
“We cleared it out,” Katherine said, after a beat. “It was too painful.”
Calder let the reaction show on her face. “So, if she came back and found her things gone?”
Douglas shook his head sadly. “She wasn’t coming back. She said she was heading to California. Said she wanted to forget she’d ever been born to us assholes.” He gave a strained smile. “Eventually, we had to accept it.”
Looks like they haven’t done such a bad job of moving on, Calder thought, her gaze sweeping the room once more.
”So, you think that’s where she is, California?”
Grace nodded eagerly, and Calder felt a quiet ache for her, for the simplicity she was still clinging to—that child’s storybook version of the world—big sister gone west, chasing freedom and sun.
“Will you please tell us what’s going on, detective?” Katherine cut in. “You’ve got us worried sick.”
Calder touched her fingertips together. “What would you say if I told you that there’s no record of Zoe in any official database, any time in the last thirteen years?”
Douglas Franklin closed his eyes for a long beat. When he opened them again, they were clouded with dismay. “Maybe she changed her name. Took on a new identity.”
“That would be a big step.”
“She was pretty mad at us. You know, teens, they always want to rebel.”
Calder scanned her notes deliberately. “Do you remember if Zoe used to wear a pink plaid shirt, and a denim miniskirt?”
Katherine stopped breathing. “She might’ve? She was always in denim skirts, like all her friends.”
Like all her friends.
The girl in the ravine could’ve been a friend who’d borrowed or stolen Zoe’s wallet.
“How about a charm bracelet, featuring a book, a heart, and a carousel horse?”
This time it was Grace who stiffened. “It sounds familiar… but I think it was mine?”
“You still have it?”
“I-I guess.”
“Is it possible that you and Zoe each had one?”
Grace stared into space. “Maybe?”
“I’d appreciate it if you would find it.”
“It’s probably in storage somewhere.”
“All the same.”
Grace’s chin wobbled. Her eyes were wide and wet. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Calder hesitated, her chest aching for the young woman whose hope was dissolving into realization.
“I need to share some difficult news. Earlier today, a body was discovered. We’ll need to confirm the identity through dental records. But, based on the evidence we’ve found so far, we believe it may be Zoe.”
For a long, long time, no one spoke.
Then Grace let out a choked breath. Her voice, when it came, was small and stunned. “I thought she’d come to the wedding.”
*****
“Wow,” Morales said quietly, letting her head fall back against the headrest of their unmarked Ford Explorer.
Calder set the GPS to return to the police station and pulled out slowly. “Wow, what?”
Morales pursed her lips, flicking her too-long bangs back from her eyes. “There’s a lot going on in that house.”
“Go on.”
“The boyfriend—Josh—looked strung out. Not just grief. Something else.”
She hesitated. “The other guy—Sam? He didn’t seem to know where to look. And Grace…”
She shook her head. “Not guilty. Just—gutted. Like someone who’s just realized their whole life was a big fat lie.”
Calder said nothing.
Morales looked over. “You didn’t mention Louise Quinn.”
“I didn’t want to derail them. And I got the sense they didn’t know Grace had hired her.”
Morales nodded, quiet for a beat. “And the parents?”
Calder exhaled through her nose. “They hit all the right notes.”
“Maybe too clean.”
“Exactly.”
They drove in silence.
“You imagine letting your own kid walk out the door and never looking for her?” Morales said finally.
The wreck had been discovered by private investigator, Louise Quinn’s drone. She was being interviewed right now, but Calder expected her story to check out. Calder had dealt with the private investigator before. She was twitchy, relentless, not always tactful. But she got results.
Grace had hired her to find Zoe because she was about to get married. That probably explained the celebration at the house.
And find her, she had.
Louise said the small skeleton was such a jarring sight that she’d thought it was a Halloween doll at first.
But no, not a doll.
A young woman who’d apparently been forgotten by her affluent family.
Chapter Four
Grace
It doesn’t make any sense. Zoe is thirty-one, but the detective was asking about things she used to wear as a teen.
She also asked for the name of Zoe’s dentist. I told her it was Dr. Sorrentino. He’s been our family dentist since forever. Then she left with her colleague, saying they’d be back when she had more news. She refused to tell us anything else.
I don’t like the way she’s been looking at us, like we’re criminals. Interrogating us about why we didn’t look for Zoe all those years. She just doesn’t get that we did what we had to do to survive.
The moment she’s gone, I sneak outside and call Louise. Her phone is turned off now.
Typical.
When I go back inside, the news is playing on our seventy-five-inch Ultra HD TV, because apparently tragedy looks better in 4K.
An aerial shot of a forest, early in the morning. The trees are still bare, their naked branches exposing a carpet of brown leaf litter. Yellow crime scene tape flutters at the edge of a steep drop. Far below, officers are moving like ants around the wreckage of an old, rusted car.
Beneath it, the Breaking News banner scrolls: “Remains Discovered in Devil’s Ridge—Investigation Ongoing.”
My stomach heaves.
The coverage returns to the news anchor, her expression arranged in sorrowful mode.
“Authorities have confirmed that human remains have been found in a vehicle at the bottom of a ravine, in the area popularly known as Devil’s Ridge. Police say the discovery was made earlier today.
Officials have not released the identity of the remains but confirm that the vehicle, an Audi Coupe, appears to have been at the site for a decade or longer.
Investigators are now working to establish a timeline and notify potential next of kin. We’ll bring you more updates as they—”
The screen goes blank.
Dad has the remote in his hand. He looks as sick as I feel. He tosses it onto the coffee table, where it skids into Mom’s untouched flute of champagne.
Mom presses her hand to her mouth. “Please, not Zoe,” she breathes. She looks pale, her skin stretched too thin over her cheekbones.
The words barely reach me. My ears are ringing.
“It’s not her,” Dad snaps. “It could be anybody. That road’s been dangerous for years. Could be a stolen car, a runaway, someone from out of town—”
“Then why were the police here?” I cut in. My voice sounds pleading and unfamiliar. “Why do they think it’s Zoe?”
Neither of them answers right away.
“Because she was eighteen. Because she left. Because we haven’t heard from her since.” Mom’s voice trembles, but she pushes through. “But that doesn’t mean it’s her. Zoe said she wanted to get as far away from here as possible. She hated this place. She had no reason to be anywhere near that ravine.” Her eyes flick between us, desperate for agreement. “It doesn’t make sense. If she wanted to disappear, she wouldn’t have come back.”
Dad exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. “We don’t have any facts yet. We don’t even know if this girl—whoever she is—was alive when the car went down. She could’ve been dumped.”
“Douglas,” Mom snaps, her voice trembling. “Don’t say that.”
He lifts his hands, backing off. “I’m just saying—we don’t know anything yet.”
I feel like I might throw up.
“So, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dad says, gentler now. He reaches for Mom’s hand. She lets him take it, but her eyes are glassy. Unfocused.
“I just—” She swallows hard. And for the first time in years, my mother looks like she’s barely holding it together.
I want to believe them. I want to believe Zoe’s somewhere in California, living her best life.
That was why she left us.
It can’t be possible she’s been dead in a ravine this whole time.
Not ten miles from home.
It just can’t.
Still, I can’t shake the detective’s questions from my brain.
I do remember the bracelet. I used to wear in middle school, and I loved it. But what happened to it?
And why is it on a dead girl’s wrist?
*****
I look for Josh. He’s hunched in an easy chair in the farthest corner of the room, like he’s trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. Or, maybe he’s trying to get away from us all. He’s staring blankly, cracking his knuckles on repeat.
When his eyes lift to mine, they’re raw with confusion.
“You have a sister.”
“Yes, but she left a long time ago.”
He looks incredulous. “That’s why you didn’t think to tell me about her?”
“Yes… no…” My legs don’t feel strong enough to hold me up, and I drop to my knees in front of him.
“Grace, we are engaged. We were about to announce it to your family.” He gestures at the abandoned champagne glasses, the aborted celebration. Dad downed his drink the moment the detective left, but just the sight of those cheerful little bubbles sickens me. “I thought we told each other everything.”
“It’s hard to explain,” I say in a low voice. “When Zoe left, it hurt us so much that the only way we could move on was by agreeing to never speak of her again.”
He shakes his head, like that’s not an answer he can understand. “Your father—just now, he told the photographer you were the eldest. It’s like you erased her from the family.”
“No, it’s not like that.” I reach for his hand. His skin feels burning hot, but then I realize—it’s my fingers that are icy cold.
He doesn’t take my hand like he usually does.
He just lets it rest there.
“You don’t understand, Josh. Mom was in a real bad way after Zoe left. She almost had a breakdown. We had to help her get well again.”
“You were just a kid then.”
“Right.”
“But when you reached adulthood… didn’t you want to find her? Check she was doing okay?”
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood. “I-I did—”
Josh stands up abruptly. “I’m gonna get out of here. Give you all some privacy.”
“Josh, please stay. I need you.”
Something changes in his eyes.
And it sends a chill down my spine.
He’s looking at me like he doesn’t know me.
His lips twist. “I really hope that dead girl isn’t your sister, Grace.”
*****
I scramble up from the plush carpet, but he’s already striding toward the door. Guilt pulses through me. The worst part is that it never even occurred to me to tell him about Zoe. Keeping her a secret has been a family rule for so long that it’s second nature. Like knowing not to touch a hot stove.
The second worst part?
I was looking for her.
The moment Josh proposed, I knew—
I wanted her there at my wedding. My big sister. I don’t remember her very well. She’s always felt more like an idea than a whole person. Bits and pieces of memory. Nothing I can hold onto.
But I used to adore her. I do remember that feeling of looking up to another person and wanting to be just like her.
So, I hired a private investigator to look for her.
I didn’t tell anyone, because of Mom.
Because I remember how she used to be—the wired energy, the haunted eyes, the way she barely slept, barely ate. She was unraveling, and the only thing that stopped it was pretending Zoe had never existed.
Don’t upset your mother.
I didn’t want to stir up all those old memories. I just hoped that I could find Zoe and present her at the wedding as a done deal.
“Grace…?”
The voice startles me.
It’s Sam. He looks baffled.
There are a hundred questions in the silence between us.
“Come here.” I hold out my arms.
For a second, he just stands there. Then something in his expression cracks, and my tall, gangly, adult little brother is collapsing into me.
Suddenly, he’s eight years old again. Sitting up in bed in his Buzz Lightyear pajamas, pink-cheeked and earnest, as I try to explain why Zoe didn’t want to be part of our family anymore.
Overnight, I became the big sister.
I was the one he clung to—when a thunderstorm rattled the windows, when he fell off his bike and scraped his knee. When Zoe left and everything felt wrong.
I squeeze him tight, resting my head against his chest. He smells of cologne and laundry detergent.
I feel small, too.
Because for the first time in a long, long time, I don’t have the right words.
“I don’t understand,” he says finally, his voice muffled against my sweater. “How could she be—how could she have been—?”
I feel his body tremble as he exhales.
“She left,” I whisper.
“Did she?”
The question hangs between us, a rough-edged, unwieldy thing, and I don’t know how to answer it.
For so long, there was only one truth: Zoe left us. Zoe chose to go.
But now?
There’s a car in a ravine. A body wearing a bracelet that I remember toying with as it encircled my wrist.
Sam steps back, rubbing his face. His eyes are glassy, unfocused.
“Mom and Dad aren’t saying anything,” he mutters. “They just keep looking at each other like—like they already know what’s coming.”
I shake my head. “They’re in shock. Just like us.”
He lets out a rough breath, tilting his head back like it’s painful. “We didn’t even look for her,” he says, barely above a whisper. “What kind of family doesn’t look?”
My stomach clenches.
“Sam—”
“No, seriously.” His voice sharpens. “She left, and we just—what? Went on with our lives?”
“We had to,” I say, but my throat convulses around the words.
There’s a crash from the kitchen, and we both jump.
Mom.
She’s standing by the counter, the remnants of a wine glass at her feet. She stares at it like she has no idea how it got there.
“Katherine?” Dad rushes past us, takes her elbows and draws her away from the mess.
“I’m sorry—” Mom shakes her head like someone decades older. “It slipped.”
“Why don’t you go lie down, sweetheart?” he murmurs. “We’ve all had a long day.”
Mom nods mechanically. Then she lets him lead her out of the kitchen. She doesn’t look back.
While they’re both still in their bedroom, I slip out of the room. Up the stairs, to the back of the house, where there’s a trapdoor. I stand on a chair to unlatch it. The door swings down, and the retractable ladder follows.
I clamber up the steps and emerge into the dark, dusty space. Nothing happens when I flick the light switch. The bulb must’ve blown. But the skylight windows have been covered with sheets of plastic, thumbtacked into place. I peel them back and let the daylight in. A collection of cardboard boxes fills the long, low space. If I still have the bracelet, it’ll probably be in one of them. But where to start? My heart sinks at the magnitude of the task.
Then my phone rings.
Louise.
I jab at the screen. “What’s going on?” I demand.
“I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day, Grace,” my private investigator shrills.
“The police have been here.”
“I know. I had a file a report with them, due to the seriousness of what I found.”
“You could’ve called me first!” My voice is loud, full of the shock and frustration of the news.
There’s a silence.
“I did, Grace. I tried to give you a heads-up first. But I couldn’t wait any longer.”
I bite down on the end of my tongue. “I’m sorry. What did you find?”
She makes a huffy sound. “I discovered there’s an area where kids used to have parties before it was earmarked for development—up at Devil’s Ridge. Where they’d go to get up to no good. Drink, take drugs, et cetera.”
I dig my nails into my palms. “And?”
“I used a drone to scan the surrounding forest.”
“B-but why did you do that?”
“Because there’s no official record of Zoe any time in the past thirteen years. I was working on the assumption that she was most likely dead.”
“You didn’t tell me this.”
“I didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, Grace. It’s policy. And, at the bottom of a ravine, I found a car. With human remains inside.”
My mouth goes dry. I close my eyes as the words sink in.
“Which could be anyone.”
“It was dressed like a teenage girl.”
“Again, could be anyone,” I snap. I’m furious with her. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know she doesn’t deserve it, but there’s no one else to yell at.
Louise exhales loudly, like she’s making her mind up about something. “This is strictly between you and me. There was a wallet in the back pocket of her skirt. I opened it and looked at the ID. I’m so sorry, Grace. It was Zoe’s.”
I stop breathing.
“B-but—” I whimper. “Maybe the skeleton—the girl—stole Zoe’s wallet?”
Louise’s voice turns very soft, like she’s talking to a small child. “Yes, maybe that’s the case.”
A spark of hope lights in my chest. “So, you’ll keep looking for her, won’t you?”
There’s another long silence. “Is that really what you want me to do, Grace?”
“It is. Of course, it is. I hired you to find my big sister, and she’s still out there, I just know it.”
I cut the call before she hears me burst into tears.
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