CHAPTER ONE
To think, just the month before, Maria Ramirez’s biggest worry was that she could not find a large enough pair of soccer cleats for her son. It had seemed like such a massive worry, making sure she had those dumb shoes before tryouts started. Her entire world had rotated around the search for those shoes for about three days. As she walked out of the hospital and toward the dark parking lot, the amount of stress that endless search for cleats had caused seemed almost comical.
Things had changed quite a bit since then and it had helped her to re-prioritize things that were important. Cleats. Soccer. Anything leisurely or fun…what was the point to any of it now?
Of course, she’d have to paint it in a totally different light for her two kids. She figured they’d understand it; they were just old enough to truly understand what her recent batch of bad news would mean for them. With the news she just received, things were going to look different. There would be some very hard conversations with the kids and their father. Maria and her ex-husband hadn’t talked about anything for more than five minutes over the last three years, but they were going to have to now.
She felt the hospital looming behind her, almost like a haunted house in a badly made horror movie. The news she’d received inside had not been hopeful; it had been downright awful, actually. But she was choosing not to let it eat away at her. She was choosing to try to use it as a way to connect with her kids, to show them that life wasn’t all about soccer cleats or getting a new Xbox because the old one overheated and broke.
She pulled out her phone, wanting to call Teddy, her son, to tell him to take some chicken out of the freezer. She had no idea what she’d make for dinner tonight, but she needed to get her mind on daily, routine things. Maybe over dinner, she’d tell them. It would be difficult and there would be some hard conversations over the next few days, but it needed to be done.
Thinking of the frozen chicken as she neared her car, she chuckled nervously. “To hell with that.”
Maria figured given the news she’d just received she could take one night off from cooking. Besides, the kids had been asking for Chinese takeout for two weeks now. Maybe she’d treat them to soften the blow of what needed to be discussed.
Her cellphone glowed in the night as she stopped by her car, Googling the phone number of their favorite Chinese place. Before pressing the Call button, she tried to remember that weirdly named dish her son liked. “Moo shoo? Some kind of pork,” she muttered.
With her eyes still on her phone, she just barely saw the figure come rushing around the front of her car. For a very strange moment, she thought it was a ghost—some odd amorphous shape moving through the night. But then she saw it was simply because the figure was dressed in all black. She saw the shape of a hood pulled over the head but that was it.
Before Maria could make sense of anything else, there was a blinding, sharp pain in her stomach. She opened her mouth to scream but could not draw any air. The dark figure in front of her seemed to grow darker as the pain continued.
Stabbed. I’ve been stabbed.
This fact came slamming home as the blade was drawn out. Maria fell against the side of her car, trying to draw in a breath while also trying to get a clear look at her attacker. Her eyes did fall on the attacker’s face but it was quickly replaced by the shape of a knife that was stained with her own blood. She locked eyed with the killer for only a moment. She could tell it was a man because he was muttering something to himself. The voice was masculine and hurried. She could not tell what he was saying, but it certainly seemed like a one-sided conversation.
“…if I want to get it done…and quick…just do it and…”
This oddity distracted her long enough to miss the sight of the knife that came down and across her neck in a vicious slashing motion.
It felt almost like a papercut at first—a papercut and nothing more. But then it felt like her entire neck had been torn open and the last thing Maria Ramirez felt before she slid down the side of her car and to the pavement was her blood, warm and pumping freely, cascading down her chest. She could still hear the killer talking, which was odd, because even as the life poured out of her, she was quite certain her killer had been alone.
CHAPTER TWO
Rachel sat on her couch, in the middle of her quiet house, and looked to her daughter. Paige’s eyes were shifting uncomfortably—something they’d been doing for the last day or so. Rachel could tell that Paige knew something was going on but was too afraid to ask. Paige Gift had always been the sort of kid that got easily embarrassed when others got into trouble. Even on television, she’d avert her eyes and sometimes cover her ears when people or even cartoon characters got into arguments.
So when she could sense there was tension or something out of balance within her own home, her mood shifted dramatically.
“Are you and Daddy upset with each other?” Paige asked.
Rachel did her best to never lie to her daughter, but she did know when to soften a blow. “In a way,” she said. “It’s just been a hard few days.”
“Because of what you found in my room?”
Rachel nodded, reaching out and taking Paige’s hand, “That’s part of it yes.”
On several occasions, Paige had tried explaining to Rachel how she felt about what had happened. She was still a little confused over what took place in her room two days ago. All Paige knew for sure was that she’d gone into her room and saw a dead squirrel on her floor. After that, given the reaction of both of her parents, she’d spent the next day or so swearing that she hadn’t done it. She’d even requested that they have a funeral for the poor squirrel—which they had not been able to do because it had been taken as evidence.
Beyond that, Paige was more or less in the dark. Rachel, Peter, or any of the police or federal agents that had come through the house hadn’t told her about the note that had been left with the squirrel. And really, it had been the note from Alex Lynch—presumably placed in Paige’s room by an old friend or acquaintance of Lynch’s—that had unnerved Rachel the most.
And later, when the police and FBI had left the house for the last time, Rachel and Peter had not told her about Rachel’s diagnosis. In a hurried conversation between police visits and a wailing, agitated Paige, they’d made the decision to keep it between them for a few days—at least until the shock of the squirrel and the note had worn off. Even then, as they’d discussed the tumor immediately after the trauma of the dead squirrel, Rachel had felt something different between them. Something had shifted and it was never going to be the same.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“I know you’re both upset and quiet…but can I watch a movie?”
“Sure.”
She hated that Paige was so aware of the strain between them. Peter hadn’t spoken to her very much in the past twelve hours. Rachel knew he was hurt and blindsided by the news about Alex Lynch, but he seemed devastated and angry about the fact that she’d not only been diagnosed with the tumor but that she’d kept it from him. He’d been cold and distant to her ever since they’d found the dead squirrel with the note in Paige’s room. They’d had arguments before, even a shouting match or two, but this icy silence was something new. And it was made worse with the heaviness of her health diagnosis. It had been hard enough to finally tell him, but then with this Alex Lynch business right at the end of it, it was a whole different sort of turmoil.
She watched idly as Paige went to Disney Plus and started scrolling through some of her familiar favorites. She didn’t realize until about twenty minutes into Coco that she was still holding Paige’s hand and that her daughter’s head was resting on her shoulder. A very sudden surge of emotion tore through Rachel and before she knew it, her eyes were watering with tears.
She blinked them back and subtly wiped them away, not wanting Paige to see. She already knew something was off between her parents. Seeing her mother—who rarely cried at all—crumple into a sobbing mess was only going to make matters so much worse.
“Hey, Rachel?”
She turned to the right, toward the kitchen, at the sound of Peter’s voice. It was soft, nearly in a whisper. He looked a little more at ease than he had in the last two days, so that was good.
“Can we talk for a second, in the kitchen?” he asked.
Rachel nodded, then gave Paige a kiss on the forehead. Immersed in the movie, Paige barely noticed she had moved. Rachel walked into the kitchen, grabbed a water from the fridge, and sat at the bar. Peter did not sit. He stood on the other side of the bar, as rigid as a statue, and Rachel noticed for the first time that he looked scared. His dark hair was in disarray and his eyes looked uncertain—a rarity for Peter Gift. He almost looked like the nervous college sophomore she’d met so many years ago and it hurt her deeply—not the appearance, but the sting of the sweet memory.
“It’s been a rough few days,” he said simply.
“That’s an understatement.”
He furrowed his brow at this, as if upset that she’d dared to make such a flippant remark. ...
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