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)
The man’s also got an uncanny knack for just disappearing and catching people off guard, which is always a little weird when he’s as pale as a ghost and you’d think he’d stand out like a sore thumb against the dark trees.
We’ve all got our talents, I guess.
Mine’s brooding until it hurts, and that’s what I do while I park my car on the edge of the central town plaza with a good view of the shops.
Figure I’ll watch the patterns going on tonight, see if I can pick up on anything hinting at trouble. Probably dumb kids doing all the shoplifting, and kids are never as good as they think at hiding when they’re up to some shit.
I never was.
Neither was Ophelia.
Hell, when we were kids, she was usually the one who accidentally ratted us out when the three of us got up to some shenanigans.
It wasn’t that she was trying to snitch.
She just got flustered and spilled the beans when her ma or my parents gave us a good grilling. Usually, it was worse when it was my folks. Growing up without a dad, Ophelia never learned the resistance it took to face down not one, but two parents with a straight face, and—
Fuck, there I go thinking about her again.
She’s living inside my damn head rent free.
Maybe she always has, I don’t know.
I just know I don’t have the answers I need.
Ethan’s disappearance has haunted me my entire adult life.
Growing up an only child, it meant a hell of a lot to have someone my own age who felt like family; like the brother I never had. Then one day he was gone, leaving behind a soul-sucking void.
As much as I hated losing him, what hit me the hardest was how rough it was for Ophelia when he just up and vanished.
Also, how little I could do about it.
If I’m being honest, I was on the fence about staying a cop early on. Didn’t seem like there was much to it in a Podunk town like this where the real heinous crimes go unsolved.
It’s still a minor miracle we took down one Arrendell prick and got closure on a few cases.
Back then, I was only half sold on police work, still thinking about getting into metal fabrication, something like that—and then that night happened.
Celeste Graves and Ethan Sanderson gone.
I realized fast if I ever wanted answers, I’d have to stay a cop and keep looking into their disappearances, if only to find some closure.
Not just for me, but for that gorgeous bewitching woman with her wild green eyes that could turn so sad in an instant, like she’s remembering everything she’ll never have again.
Then she ran off.
Because my dumbass pushed her away.
Because I had to bark my hurt at her instead of learning to keep a leash on my anger like a grown-ass man.
Growling, I roll up my sleeve to scratch my arm, lingering on the black butterfly tangled in barbed wire that traces my bicep.
Go ahead and guess what inspired that.
Pain has a way of bringing fresh ink to a man’s skin like misery loves company. Some secrets are so loud they just won’t shut up every time he looks in a mirror.
Maybe because he doesn’t want them to.
Maybe because he needs to hear them to remember who he is.
Truth be told, I stopped looking as hard for answers after she ghosted and the only butterfly I had left in my life was the one branded on my skin.
What the hell was the point if it wasn’t for her?
I’m jolted out of my thoughts like I’m thunderstruck when I glimpse blonde hair moving down the street, familiar body language, and for a moment my heart kicks like a gunshot.
Ophelia.
But no, it’s not her.
It’s her little sister, strolling arm in arm with none other than Aleksander fuckface Arrendell.
If I hadn’t known her since she was knee-high to a frog, I almost wouldn’t recognize Ros right now.
She’s always been a sweet, prim girl. A bit of a modern green flower child—cottagecore like the kids call it these days—with a certain innocence about her.
A little too sheltered, maybe. After surviving her first run with cancer, Angela Sanderson turned into a loving, good-natured helicopter mom and it showed with Ros as much as it helped her.
But right now, Rosalind’s wearing a clinging white satin dress, skintight in all the wrong ways that make me uncomfortable.
I don’t want to see Ophelia’s baby sister’s tits hanging out like that. Especially when she’s hanging all over that phony fuck.
Aleksander keeps an arm around her shoulders while he leans in close, nuzzling her neck right there in public like he’s some kind of vampire.
Christ, it’s not even Halloween yet.
There’s lipstick stains on the collar of his stylish grey suit, his mouth as red as hers. Her makeup is dark and sultry, her nails still a bright, glossy red.