Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Praise for Sara Shepard
- Also by Sara Shepard
- Dedication
- PART ONE
- —
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- PART TWO
- Piper
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Piper
- Eighteen
- Piper
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Piper
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Piper
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Piper
- Thirty-Four
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
This morning, when Lauren’s eyes had popped open and she realized it was nearly 10:00 a.m., she’d run into the living room, panicked because she knew Graham had to drive up to LA for some meetings. Normally, she balked at him working on a Saturday, but she didn’t feel she had the right to complain. Clarissa had been here, making the coffee, plopping a puree in a BPA-free bowl for the baby. “Oh,” Lauren had said dazedly, rubbing her eyes. “Did I call you?” Maybe she’d done it earlier, half-asleep. She’d had one of those nights where her dreams were banal, blurring with her waking routine. She wasn’t sure what was real.
“Oh, your husband did,” Clarissa had said, shooting her a conciliatory smile. “It’s no trouble!”
Lauren wondered how that had gone. Graham poked his head into the room, sighing at Lauren’s lassitude, maybe. But perhaps this was their new normal: they simply wouldn’t talk to each other, and Graham’s default would be that Lauren wasn’t up to the job as Mom. She thought of their old normal, for a moment. Their short-lived normal, before the baby was born—how Graham would look at her with such reverence, and how they’d be all over each other at all times, and how they’d always respect what the other was saying. Now, Lauren wasn’t even sure if Graham wanted her around anymore. Maybe he found her a burden.
Their conversation from the other night played in her head. Did she need to check in somewhere? She glanced at Matthew and felt a woeful ache. The idea of leaving him for a long period of time scared her. What if he forgot her? What if Gracie slipped into her place—would she?
But then those jagged, blank moments in Piper’s hallway flashed in her mind. If only her memory would come back. If only there was an explanation for the blood she’d found on her palm. She needed there to be more to that story.
Her thoughts clicked to what she and the others had talked about on the walking trail yesterday—looking into Piper’s life. Lauren was going to start with Jean, whomever she was. If only she’d had a better look at that email before she’d lost her nerve. And that still scared her, too—the fact that she’d been in Piper’s office, and now the police were searching for evidence. What if they found some of Lauren’s DNA on Piper’s keyboard? A fingerprint? An eyelash? A hair?