Before the incidents started, Alex’s father used to take him out into the woods on adventures. That’s what he called them, but Alex soon discovered that his father’s idea of adventure was sitting on a log or laying in the brush all day, staring through a pair of binoculars at birds. Still, his father, Francis, wasn’t nice to Alex very often, so whenever he took him out into the woods, Alex made sure to pay attention. He made sure to act interested and to do everything that his father said as soon as he said it and exactly the way he said to do it. After one adventure during which Alex had worked very hard to be very good, he was rewarded with his own pair of binoculars. They weren’t as big or as nice as the ones his father carried, but Alex enjoyed mimicking his movements, staring through them at hawks and falcons and owls. Those were the birds his father was most interested in. Raptors, he called them.
“They’re birds of prey,” his father told him. “Hunters. They have amazing eyesight. They can spot their target from way up high in the sky. They wait for just the right moment, and then they strike! They’re very intelligent birds.”
Alex wasn’t sure what made them intelligent, but he knew that intelligence was important to his father. It was a word he used a lot. He didn’t like people who weren’t intelligent, and Alex lived in fear of being deemed not intelligent by his father. That was why he carried around a notebook and pencil just like his father did. At six, he had just learned to read and write, so he couldn’t write lots of words in his notebook like his father did, but he drew pictures of the birds they watched.
One day they were out in the woods, standing beside a clearing, and his father spotted a large raptor in the sky. It was so high up, Alex couldn’t tell what kind of bird it was, but his dad assured him it was a hawk. “Watch this, son,” he told him.
He reached into a satchel he’d brought with him from their house and brought out a snake. Alex recoiled, falling backward over a branch on the ground. His head knocked against a nearby tree. “Ow,” he cried.
His father stood several feet away, frozen, with the wriggling snake in his hand, and glared at his son. “Get. Up!” he snarled.
Alex scrambled to his feet. He reached behind his head and felt something damp. His fingers came away bloodied. He dared not point this out to his father, who was waiting for him to get back into position, his face getting more and more red with fury with each second that passed.
“Sorry Dad,” Alex muttered, stepping up beside his father again. He looked out into the clearing, then up at the sky even though the movement sent a white-hot streak of pain down his neck. The hawk flew closer to the treetops.
“Watch,” his father said. He tossed the snake into the middle of the clearing. Immediately, it began writhing and wriggling away in the opposite direction. Suddenly the hawk was there, only a few feet away, its thick talons pointed downward like spears, its gloriously large wings spread wide. It snatched the squirming snake from the grass and flew effortlessly back into the sky.
Alex’s father watched with wonder as the bird receded from view.
Alex felt a warm stickiness slide down the back of his neck. “Dad,” he said quietly. “I think I need a bandage.”
He touched the back of his head again and this time, when he brought it forward to show his father, his entire palm was covered in blood. His father looked down at him, his look of awe transforming into one of disgust. For a long moment, he stared down at Alex, his lip curled in a sneer. Then he shook his head, huffed, and walked away. Momentarily dumbfounded, Alex watched him go. He had already covered quite a bit of ground when he turned and spat the words back at his son, but Alex heard them as clearly as if he’d shouted them into his ear.
“Stupid boy.”
A cold, wet nose nudged Josie’s arm. Then came the mournful whine. When she didn’t respond to her Boston Terrier’s efforts to get her out of bed, he jumped up onto the covers and began to sniff her ears and the nape of her neck. “Trout,” she groaned, rolling over to face him. A pair of soulful brown eyes stared back.
He huffed at her and sat down, his smooshy black and white face a study in seriousness, his ears perfect steeples. Without even moving his mouth, he emitted another small whine. She rubbed beneath his chin.
“What time is it, buddy?” she asked sleepily, although she didn’t even have to look at her bedside clock to know that her alarm was due to go off in ten minutes—at least, on a work day it would be, but today she was off. In the six months since she and her live-in boyfriend, Noah Fraley, had rescued Trout, they’d developed something of a routine. The dog woke them just before their alarm went off, Josie would let him out, feed him, and then the three of them would go for a brief jog before the humans got ready and went off to work. Even on days off, Trout was persistent about keeping to their routine.
Josie and Noah both worked for the city of Denton’s police department—she as a detective and he as a lieutenant. Denton was nestled in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, spanning approximately twenty-five square miles. In the central area of the city where the retail establishments, police headquarters, post office, and Denton University were located, the streets and buildings were grouped closely together in a predictable grid pattern except for the sprawling city park. The rest of the city was spread out over rural wooded areas, accessible by ribbons of single-lane winding roads. Although Denton was a small city, it was no stranger to crime, and the police department stayed busy.
Josie rolled over and nudged Noah’s shoulder. “Time to get up,” she told him, getting only a grunt in response.
“Come on,” she added.
“Put the coffee on, would you?” Noah mumbled.
Josie threw her legs over the side of the bed. Excitedly, Trout jumped down, his rear end wiggling as he ran toward the bedroom door. Josie turned her alarm clock off and padded out into the hallway and downstairs. Twenty minutes later, Trout was fed, both Josie and Noah had consumed one quick cup of coffee, and then dressed in their running clothes. Josie knelt on the foyer floor, trying to coax Trout’s trembling body into his harness while Noah went upstairs to get his phone.
“We do this every morning, buddy,” Josie murmured as she tried to snap the harness across Trout’s back. “You know you have to keep still while I get this on.”
Trout couldn’t contain his excitement. He jumped up to lick her face, and the harness fell half off him. Josie laughed which made him hop around, his little rear end wriggling until he bumped the foyer table. The table was small. It didn’t take much to knock it out of place. Trout knocked into it again, and it slid a few inches across the floor. Two sets of keys and a pair of sunglasses clattered to the floor.
“Shit,” Josie said, snatching up the sunglasses before Trout accidentally stepped on them, relief flooding through her.
Noah jogged down the steps. Seeing Josie with the sunglasses in her hand, he said, “Your sister still hasn’t come back for those? She’s probably got another pair by now.”
Josie placed them back on the table, along with their keys, and tried once more to wrestle Trout into his harness. “Noah, we’re talking about Trinity here. Do you have any idea how much those sunglasses cost? Do you even know what brand those are?”
He knelt on the floor and pointed to the area in front of him. Dutifully, Trout scampered over and sat down, letting Noah secure harness, leash, and collar with ease.
“Traitor,” Josie muttered.
Noah said, “Why would I know what brand Trinity’s sunglasses are?”
Josie rolled her eyes as they made their way out the front door and took off in a slow jog down the street with Trout leading the way. “They’re Gucci, and I’m guessing they cost at least three hundred dollars, maybe more.”
Noah stopped in his tracks, pulling Trout up short on his leash. The dog looked back at them curiously, his ears pointed. Noah said, “Who would pay three hundred dollars for a pair of sunglasses?”
Josie took the leash from his hand and they started moving again. He caught up with her. She replied, “A news anchor for a major network morning show, that’s who. She’s a celebrity. She can afford three hundred-dollar sunglasses.”
Noah shook his head. “Is she still co-hosting? When’s the last time you heard from her?”
Josie felt a kernel of discomfort at her core, like a jab in her stomach. “A month ago,” she said quietly.
“So you don’t even know if she’s still holed up in that cabin or if she went back to New York City?”
“I think she’s still on her self-imposed retreat,” Josie said. “She hasn’t talked with our parents or our brother in weeks.”
“She’s fighting with everyone, then?”
Josie sighed. “No, just me.”
“You ready to tell me what happened?”
Josie jogged a few strides ahead of him. “Not particularly.”
Trout stopped to sniff a telephone pole, and Josie paused as well. She felt Noah’s gaze boring into her before she looked up at him. His hazel eyes were serious. “Josie, I know this rift between you and Trinity has been bothering you. Just tell me what happened. You might feel better if we talk about it.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Besides, you were there for most of it.”
Noah raised a brow. “Yeah, I came in from working an overnight shift. I said a few words to her, and she freaked out. Then I took Trout for a walk. I have no idea what went down between the two of you, but when I came home Trinity was gone. You’ve been miserable ever since.”
“I haven’t been—”
Noah held up a hand to silence her. “I know you don’t like to hear it, but you’ve been off. Not yourself. I can see you’re trying to wait her out, and that’s fine, but while you’re doing that, let’s just talk about it. Maybe I can help.”
Finished with the telephone pole, Trout pulled at his leash and they followed, on the move once more. “You can’t help,” Josie said. Her cheeks burned as she thought of the last time she’d spoken with Trinity. “I’m not waiting her out. She hasn’t responded to any of my calls or texts. She’s freezing me out.”
“Then maybe you should just take her sunglasses to her. Show up at her cabin and make her talk to you again.”
“I can’t do that.”
“So what, then? You’re just going to keep wallowing, leaving her overpriced sunglasses on the foyer table so you can be reminded of your misery indefinitely, and not even try to patch things up with her?”
That was my plan, she wanted to say, but remained silent, edging ahead of him as they rounded the block.
“Josie.”
She slowed and met his eyes. “You really want to know what happened?”
Josie woke before Trout for once, turning to find the dog fast asleep on Noah’s side of the bed. Any time Noah worked the night shift without Josie, Trout slept next to her. She knew Noah didn’t want them to get into the habit of letting the dog sleep in their bed, but Josie enjoyed being able to reach over and stroke his soft, warm fur. Sunlight streamed through the bedroom windows. She scratched between Trout’s ears. “Time to get up, buddy.”
Downstairs in the kitchen, Josie’s twin sister, Trinity Payne sat at the table, her laptop open before her. Without giving Trinity a second glance, Trout ran to the back door to be let out as Josie turned the coffeemaker on, taking a moment to study her sister.
Rarely had Josie seen her anything less than camera-ready. Usually, even when she was just out of bed, she had a sort of glamorous television glow about her. But now she wore sweatpants and mismatched socks. Her lithe frame was dwarfed by an NYU sweatshirt. Josie had often joked that Trinity’s black hair was so shiny, a person could see their reflection in it. Now it was greasy and thrown up into a ponytail that looked like Trinity had started and forgotten to finish. No make-up on her face, she wore bright red earbuds and chewed her lower lip as her fingers pushed around the laptop mouse.
Josie poured two cups of coffee and fixed them—both she and Trinity took their coffee the same way—and walked around the table to stand beside her. She set Trinity’s coffee next to the laptop and then tugged an earbud from her sister’s ear.
“Ow,” Trinity said, shooting Josie a look of annoyance. She moved to take the earbud back, but Josie whipped the other one from Trinity’s head and then pulled them completely from the laptop.
Trinity’s voice got high and squeaky. “What are you doing?”
Josie motioned to the laptop screen. “You’re watching that again? Trinity, this has to stop.”
On the screen, the clip played. Now that Josie had removed the earbuds, the sound filled the kitchen. It was the end of a segment that the network had run on a young woman in Arkansas who had made the news for getting twenty-two scholarships to the best schools in the country. As the piece wrapped up, the screen cut back to Trinity and her co-anchor, Hayden Keating. They sat side by side at a round table, smiles plastered across their faces. “What a remarkable young lady,” Hayden commented. “With a very bright future ahead of her.”
“The sky is the limit for her,” Trinity agreed. “She obviously has her pick of any school in the country. It’s kind of ridiculous that she applied to twenty-two schools, don’t you think?”
The first time Josie had seen the clip she hadn’t noticed the tension that froze Hayden’s face, but now she’d seen it so many times that the slight stiffening of Hayden’s jaw, his gritted teeth and forced smile were painfully obvious. “Ridiculous?” he scoffed. “I think it’s wonderful.”
Trinity smiled and waved a hand as if in dismissal. “Oh, it is wonderful. I’m just saying, a young woman that smart and talented could have just chosen her top pick and applied there, rather than spending all that money on application fees for twenty-one schools she’s not going to attend. How much are application fees these days? They were very expensive when I went to college. I can only imagine how much they’ve increased.”
A few painful seconds of dead air followed. Then Hayden cleared his throat and began to read from the teleprompter. “Up next, we’ll check in with our meteorologist for an update on the weather.”
Josie reached across Trinity and moved the cursor to pause the clip. “You need to let this go,” she said.
“Let it go?” Trinity said. “That comment is going to cost me my career.” She stood, her chair scraping across the tiles of the kitchen. Pacing, she went on. “I can’t believe it. One stupid comment and my life is over.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Josie said. “What you said—it wasn’t even that terrible. I’ve heard news anchors say some pretty inappropriate things. Comments that were racist or mean-spirited. What you said wasn’t even offensive.”
Trinity stopped and stared at Josie. “Not offensive? Do you have any idea the backlash that the network got for what I said? I even apologized on air and issued a statement, and people are still enraged.”
“It will blow over,” Josie said. “It was two weeks ago.”
“Two weeks is the longest I’ve been off the air since I became co-anchor, Josie. I’m out. Hayden told me. Barring a miracle, the network is going to replace me. They’re already trying to woo Mila Kates. They’ve been after her for months. Now they have an excuse to get rid of me and offer her some ridiculous amount of money to take my place.” She groaned and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe I said that. I can never use the word ridiculous again.”
Josie sat at the table and sipped her own coffee. “Mila Kates?” she said. “I thought she was on a cable network.”
“She is,” Trinity answered. “But she had that stalker, don’t you remember? He showed up armed while she was doing a story at a charity benefit for sick kids and threatened to kill everyone if she didn’t leave with him. She defused the situation and calmed him long enough for the police to come and take him down.”
“Oh yeah,” Josie said. “I remember seeing it on the news. That was months ago.”
“But it changed everything,” Trinity said. “It was a huge story, and it was her story. That stalker story was for her what the Denton vanishing girls case was to me five years ago. It put me on the map. I got my job because of that story.”
“And your network sent you here to do a story on the five-year anniversary of when that case broke,” Josie pointed out. “They didn’t fire you.”
Trinity arched a brow. She waved an arm around the kitchen. “Do you see any producers or camera people here? Yeah, they sent me to do the story. I did the piece and sent it in a week ago. My crew went back to New York City but here I am. They haven’t called me back, and they’re not going to.”
Josie stopped herself from trying again to convince Trinity that the network would call her back. Her sister was most likely right, and Josie didn’t think that baseless reassurance was going to help. Instead, she said, “Trinity, you can get a job at any network. In just the last five years, you’ve covered some of the biggest cases in the country. You even broke some of them yourself.”
Trinity pointed a finger at Josie. “No, you broke them. Then I got the story. I don’t have my own story.”
Now it was Josie’s turn to raise a brow. “I seem to remember both of us being the actual story not so long ago. I did that damn episode of Dateline for you. I didn’t want to, but you insisted.”
When Josie and Trinity first met, roughly six years ago, Trinity had been a national correspondent for the network. After a source fed her bad information, the network banished her to Denton’s local news station, WYEP, where she worked as a roving reporter. After a year at WYEP, Trinity had been instrumental in helping Josie expose the depravities and the criminals behind the famous Denton missing girls case. That story had propelled Trinity to her current position.
Back then they hadn’t even known they were related. They’d simply been police officer and reporter—often at odds with one another. In fact, Josie couldn’t stand Trinity; she was ambitious to a fault and always underfoot, sniffing around for the scoop on a big story. Qualities Josie later came to appreciate. Two years after the missing girls’ case, human remains were found behind the trailer park where Josie had grown up. The labyrinthian case surrounding those remains ultimately led the women to find out that they were long-lost sisters. At three weeks old, Josie had been snatched from her family and raised just a few hours away from her twin by an evil and abusive woman. The woman who kidnapped Josie set the Payne family home on fire leading both authorities and the Paynes to believe that Josie had perished in the fire. The reunification of the Payne family after thirty years, together with the fact that Josie and Trinity had not only known one another before finding out they were related, but worked together on high-profile cases, was television gold. With such a scintillating past, and Trinity’s willingness to share it on air, she firmly cemented her place as co-anchor for as long as she chose to hold it.
Until now.
“Oh please,” Trinity said. “The news cycle is like twenty seconds now. No one cares about our long-lost twin story anymore.”
Josie bit back a remark about her using their traumatic history to advance her career. “Trinity, you’re good at what you do. Maybe you won’t stay with this network, but you’ll find a home elsewhere. Things will work out. I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah, they’ll work out for Mila Kates. I’ll be lucky to get my old job back at WYEP.”
“Really, Trinity,” Josie said. “You’re overreacting.”
“Am I?” When Josie didn’t answer, Trinity splayed her fingers across her own chest. “I need something big. Bigger than the missing girls’ case. Bigger than Mila Kates. Not some case you solved that I can piggyback on. I need to get the story myself, and it can’t be just any old story.”
“I thought there was some rule that journalists should never be the story, anyway,” Josie said.
Trinity rolled her eyes. “Oh sure. That’s what they teach you in school, but that’s not necessarily true anymore. Look at Mila Kates. Look at that guy who worked for our biggest competitor. He wrote a book on how his own bosses tried to kill one of his stories for a year and now he’s famous.”
Josie did remember that reporter. “But he was covering something very explosive. It was about sexual harassment in the entertainment industry, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“So, if he was covering a small-town bake-off, he wouldn’t be famous. He needed a good story.”
“So do I!” Trinity exclaimed. “I need something that all of the networks would kill for, figuratively, of course. Something no one has ever done. I have to do something. Something really…”
“Desperate?”
Trinity glared. “Ambitious. Explosive.”
Josie didn’t like the sound of it, or the look in Trinity’s eyes. It wasn’t ambition. It was despair.
“I think your career is going to be fine,” Josie told her. “Your body of work stands.”
Trinity pointed at her. “You’re wrong. You probably think I’m crazy, but I’m not, Josie. Everything I’ve worked for is in jeopardy.”
“You made one off-hand comment, Trin. Celebrities have come back from worse.”
A scratch sounded from the other side of the back door. Trinity reached over and let Trout in. He trotted past her and over to Josie, nudging at her hand for a pet. Josie stroked the soft hair behind his ears.
Trinity walked back around the table and sat by her laptop. Her fingers worked to bring the clip up once more. As it started to play, Josie reached across her and snapped the laptop closed. “Enough,” she said. “Stop obsessing. Go for a run. Take a shower. Do something to clear your head.”
Trout startled them both with his high-pitched barking. A second later, over the din, they heard the front door open and close. “It’s just me,” Noah called.
Trout raced into the foyer. Josie heard Noah greet him as the dog’s nails clicked on the hardwood floor. Then Noah appeared in the kitchen, his tousled brown hair sticking up every which way and dark circles gathered beneath his hazel eyes. In his hand he held a small box wrapped in brown paper.
Glancing at the clock, Josie said, “What are you doing home early? Rough night?”
Trout danced around between the two of them, letting out small barks until Noah reached down with one hand and petted him again.
“Gretchen came in early. We had reports of a big off-campus party. Went up there, and the kids scattered. Spent all night rounding up the underage drinkers.”
Satisfied, Trout went over to the corner of the kitchen where his food and water bowls lived and dragged his empty food bowl over to Josie. Keeping an eye on Noah, Josie said, “Always fun. How many of them are education majors?” She filled Trout’s bowl and set it back down for him.
Noah smiled. “You mean how many of them begged us not to book them because it would ruin their future teaching careers? Fourteen.”
Josie shook her head. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the box in Noah’s hands. It was no bigger than his palm.
He looked down at it and then back up at Josie and Trinity. “It was outside. It’s addressed to Trinity.”
Trinity held out a hand for the box, and Noah smiled. “Is this your way of telling us you’re moving in? Getting mail here?”
Trinity pushed her coffee cup aside, setting the parcel down and beginning to unwrap it as she answered. “I’m not getting mail here.”
Noah said, “That’s the second box this week.”
“Oh, well, I had my assistant ship me some things from my office. Where was I supposed to have them delivered?”
There was an edge to her voice. Noah put both his hands in the air. “Relax,” he said. “I’m just messing with you. It’s fine.” Then he grinned and Josie knew his next words were meant to be taken as a joke. “By the way, I love what you’ve done with the guest room...”
But Trinity wasn’t looking at him. She was looking inside the box. Her face paled. She set it aside and picked up her mug, downing the rest of her coffee.
“Where did you find this?”
“I told you. It was outside.”
“There’s no postage on it,” Trinity said. “Where was it exactly?”
Josie glanced over Trinity’s shoulder to see that there was indeed no postage, nor was there a return address. “What is it?” Josie asked. “What’s inside?”
Trinity picked up the box and clutched it to her chest. “Nothing important. I’m just curious because it came with no postage. Where was it, Noah?”
Noah said, “It was in the mailbox at the end of the driveway. You know, where we normally get our mail?”
Trinity used her free hand to scoop up her laptop. She looked at Noah, eyes suddenly ablaze. “You have a problem with me staying here?”
Josie said, “Trin, he was joking.”
“Was he?” Trinity snapped, turning on Josie. “Why was he snooping in my room?”
“I wasn’t snooping,” Noah said. “I just happened to walk past the other day when the door was open.”
Trinity hugged both her laptop and the small box to her. Taking a step toward Noah, she challenged, “You don’t want me here.”
“That’s not true,” Noah protested.
A second passed in silence. Trinity stared at him, almost as though she was trying to decide something. She said, “I know when I’m not wanted.”
“What are you talking about?” Noah said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Josie cringed at his accidentally terrible choice of word, knowing it would send her sister over the edge. Trinity’s cheeks flushed. Her mouth pressed into a thin line. Trying to defuse the situation, Josie said, “Trinity, you know you’re always welcome here. Please—”
But before she could finish, her sister stormed out of the room. Josie and Noah listened as her feet pounded up the stairs. When the guest room door slammed, Trout looked up from his breakfast, startled. He looked back and forth between them, eyes wary, ears pointed, until Josie said, “It’s okay, boy.”
Noah held up both hands. “I’m sorry. I really was joking.”
“I know,” Josie said. “She’s just having a rough time.”
Noah’s brow furrowed. “Is she going to be okay? She’s kind of all over the place.”
“You don’t say,” Josie said with a sigh. She glanced at the microwave clock. She would have to start getting ready for work soon. “I’ll go talk to her. Can you take Trout for a walk?”
Noah followed her into the foyer where he grabbed . . .
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