Avery didn’t argue, though she had no desire to dine with them. She realized she still had Diaz’s handkerchief crushed in her hand. She tossed it on the coffee table and strode down the hall, into the bathroom. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, trying to summon a cool, confident expression.

Instead she saw the wild, desperate girl from the photo, her gaunt features superimposed over Avery’s.

Copyright © 2020 by Susan Cliff

Keep reading for an excerpt from The Deception by Kat Martin.

The Deception

by Kat Martin

Chapter 1

Dallas, Texas

“I’m sorry, Ms. Gallagher. I know this is terribly difficult, but unless there’s someone else who can make a positive identification—”

Kate shook her head. “No. There’s no one else.”

“All right then, if you will please follow me.” The medical examiner, Dr. Jerome Maxwell, a man in his fifties, had thick black hair finely threaded with gray. He started down the hall, but Kate stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Are you...are you completely sure it’s my sister?” She smoothed a hand nervously over the skirt of her navy blue suit. “The victim is definitely Christina Gallagher?”

“There was a fingerprint match to your missing sister. I’m sorry,” he repeated. “We’ll still need your confirmation.”

Kate’s stomach rolled. Her legs felt weak as she followed Dr. Maxwell down a narrow, seemingly endless hallway in the Dallas County morgue. The echo of her high heels on the stark gray linoleum floor sent a sweep of nausea through her.

The doctor paused outside a half-glass door. “As I said before, this is going to be difficult. Are you sure there isn’t someone you can call, someone else who could make the identification?”

Kate’s throat tightened. “My father’s remarried and living in New York. He hasn’t seen Chrissy in years.” Frank Gallagher hadn’t seen either of his daughters since he and his wife had divorced.

“And your mother?” the doctor asked kindly.

“She died of a heart attack a year after Chrissy ran away.” For Madeleine Gallagher, losing both her husband and her daughter had simply been too much.

The doctor straightened his square black glasses. “Are you ready?”

“I’ll never be ready to see my sister’s murdered body, Dr. Maxwell. But I’m all Chrissy has, so let’s get it over with.”

The doctor opened the door, and they walked out of a hallway that seemed overly warm into a room that was icy cold. A shiver rushed over Kate’s skin, and her heart beat faster. As Dr. Maxwell moved toward a rollout table in front of a wall of cold-storage boxes, Kate could see the outline of a body beneath the stark white sheet.

Emotion tightened her chest. This was her baby sister, only sixteen the last time Kate had seen her two years ago, before she had run away.