But the pile doesn’t move. The person—body—doesn’t move.

I bend down, use my free hand to move the debris aside. I work faster and faster, moving frantically.

I aim the light and see more. A red winter coat thrown open. A torso. The sweater wet and sticky with blood. I brush more aside. Revealing more.

I run the light up the body—because that’s all it can be, given the amount of blood. A body.

The light catches the red hair, the owlish glasses.

I recoil, stumble backward, and fall onto my ass on the little hillside.

“Oh, God, oh, God. Fuck fuck fuck.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

I pass the light over Madeline and nearly drop it when it reaches her face, shows her unseeing eyes behind the glasses.

“Oh, God.”

I extend my hand, place it against her neck. The skin is cold and not just because of the temperature in the air. She’s gone.

I move the light down her body to the large bloodstain. I see no weapon, but it looks like she’s been stabbed.

And why did this happen here?

What was Madeline doing here?

Someone killed her here and tried to hide the body.

My mind can’t grasp any answers. I lift the phone. I need to call someone, need to report this to the police. I’m about to dial when I stop myself.

I can’t do it while I’m here. Not unless I want to be arrested. And accused of her murder.

I’m likely to be accused anyway, given the location of her body. Given the suspicion that has already fallen on me about Sophia. I’ll call the police—but only as I’m driving away.

But before I stand up to go, I lean forward over Madeline’s body, looking for the manuscript she took from my house. The manuscript that can blow up my life.

I shine the light over her coat and on the ground around her. I don’t see it. I even risk patting her jacket, avoiding the sticky blood, hoping to feel that lump of papers. I hunch over and look around, my phone light guiding me. But I don’t see it. And I don’t want to stay.

Which means whoever killed her—Zach?—has the manuscript now.

“Shit.”

I push myself to my feet and back away, down the hill. And I move as quickly as I can through the darkened cemetery. I squeeze back through the fence and climb into the car.

I drive away and find a pay phone, where I anonymously report what I’ve seen.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

REBECCA

PRESENT

The alarm rings at seven thirty. Rebecca bolts up like someone stuck her with a pin.