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)
Redhaven looks as picturesque as ever in its silence.
It’s the kind of perfect Stepford village in every horror movie where eventually you find out that underneath the gorgeous colonial homes and peaceful forests and pristine glassy lake, there’s a horrible secret waiting to swallow up the unsuspecting.
A witch buried under a massive tree with blood-red roots.
Townsfolk who turn into cannibals by night.
Cults and rituals and evil sacrifices in the woods.
Or maybe it’s just one weird family with a million rumors and their fingers in everything and too much money for their own good.
I eye the majestic dark house up on the peak of the opposite hill, then swing my attention down to the town square with its majestic statue of the town’s founder.
Another Arrendell, go figure.
It should only be a quarter-mile hike downhill into town, and at this time of morning Mort’s Garage should be open and empty except for old Mort himself. I can already see him falling asleep over his corncob pipe, about to tip his chair back with his bad habit of rocking it in his sleep.
But as I pop the trunk to see if I can dig up something warmer to keep my teeth from chattering on the walk, I’m caught by flashing lights from below.
A white van with red and blue lights darts away from Redhaven’s narrow cobbled streets and bolts onto the highway up the hill, followed by two cop cars. As the van zips closer, I can just make out the logo on the side.
Raleigh County Coroner.
Oh, no.
Here we go again.
My soul compresses into a lump of black dread.
I clutch a fist against my chest and breathe roughly.
No, no, please don’t let me be too late.
Please don’t let the cancer eat my mother while I was on that flight from Miami to Raleigh, please—
The van whizzes past, followed by the cop cars.
My heart knots with a different feeling as I catch a glimpse of the man in the driver’s seat of the second car.
Holy hell.
I haven’t seen him in so long, I can’t be a hundred percent sure. But I think it was him.
I think that was Grant Faircross.
Just a glimpse of a broad frame, dark hair, a starkly defined brow that always made him a perma-grump, set in a brooding scowl.
No—I must be imagining things.
All these memories reaching up and making me see people I’d rather forget.
That couldn’t have been Grant.
My heart can’t take seeing him right now.
“That’s not your mother in that van,” I tell myself.
No way. It’s not logical.
I’d have gotten the call no one ever wants long before anyone loaded her up and took her away.
So as the cop cars pass, I try to refocus on practical things.
Like rummaging around in my suitcase until I come up with a long-sleeved Henley I normally use as a nightshirt and pull it on over my clothes. It’s not much, but at least it cuts the wind while my skin prickles with goose bumps.
As I zip the suitcase and slam the trunk shut, I notice the sound of an engine coming up behind me. Maybe it’ll be somebody I know and I can hitch a warm ride into town. I turn toward the growl of the approaching vehicle.
Just in time for one of the cop cars that just passed me to pull up to the curb behind me, easing to a halt and parking.
I blink.
...they turned back for me?
Well, I guess that’s their job, anyway. I’m just so used to big-city cops that I forgot about that small-town personal touch.
What I could never forget is the familiar body language of a man built like a human tank and carrying himself with the weight of a mountain.
I could never forget the way he makes my heart stop cold.
Grant flipping Faircross steps out from behind the wheel of his patrol car, unfolding himself with that slow-moving grace I never thought I’d see again.
The car bounces up by at least an inch as he stands with his weight no longer pressing down.
God.
When we were younger, Grant was an absolute wall of a boy, always taking up too much space and drawing the eye without trying.
Now he’s grown into a fortress of a man, so broad and muscled that his deep navy-blue uniform shirt looks like it had to be custom made to fit the breadth of his chest. Same goes for the black Redhaven Police Department jacket draped over his mile-wide shoulders.
There’s just one difference.
That iron-cut, arrogant jaw I remember is obscured by a wild scruff of dark-brown beard, framing the stern line of his mouth. His deep hazel eyes look like the last rays of a brassy sunset, watching me mysteriously, framed in heavy, weathered lines.
All the new edges to a familiar face that reminds me just how much time has passed.
Just how much distance stands between us now.