Contents ( 85)
- Contents
- Part I
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Part II
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Part III
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Seventy-One
- Seventy-Two
- One
- Two
- Reading Group Guide
- A Conversation with the Author
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
But the drop of logic he still possessed told him that wouldn’t be the case. There would be no good news. Not now. Maybe never again.
Shaking. Someone was shaking him. Arms.
Lights.
Sirens.
None of it mattered. Colin kept drifting, and soon the sea in front of him became vast, flat, and endless. No breeze. No movement. A world above, a world below, and just the speck of him in between.
His second-to-last thought as he floated into some other consciousness was of Rose Yates. No specific thought, just her. What a fucking shame to have that woman’s face come to my mind in a time like this, he thought. A goddamn, fucking shame.
His last thought was that his baby was a girl. He didn’t know how he knew it, but Colin was certain. A girl. Little girl.
That was the thought shattering the very last piece of him, smashing it into a fine powder and blowing it up into the sky, where it drifted, becoming a part of everything else.
Everything and nothing, all at once.
Part III
Forty-Four
Bury, New Hampshire
September 18
Twenty-Two Years Earlier
Then I see her.
Cora, in the doorway. Materializes like a ghost.
And this thing. This tiny little thing that’s scarier than the blood or the gurgling, the lunging or the prints. Even more horrifying than the scream.
It’s the smile.
Cora’s smiling. Gentle, genuine.
As if posing for her yearbook photo.
Caleb stumbles toward me and falls over just a few feet away. My fifteen-year-old brain can’t do the math, can’t derive the logic of the situation. Therefore, this must not exist. Must not be happening.
But when Caleb reaches forward and grabs onto my ankle with his right hand—nearly toppling me—there’s no pretending this is simply a bad dream.
“Please,” he gasps, “she’s c-crazy.”
Then I scream. Loud and fierce.
“Shut up!” Cora yells at me. “The neighbors will hear you.”
But I can’t stop. I yank away from Caleb’s grip and back against the hallway wall. It doesn’t occur to me to try to help him. All I can do is scream.
With just a few swift strides, Cora is on me. Right forearm across my chest, pinning me to the wall. Left hand over my mouth. I shriek a second longer, the sound muffled against her palm. Her skin is wet and salty, and in this moment, I realize I’m tasting blood. Caleb’s blood. I look down at her forearm pressed against my chest. My gaze scans the length of it until I see the Swiss Army knife clutched in her fist, daggerlike, the longest of its blades unhoused and angled just slightly away from my breast. I recognize the knife because I have a matching one. They were in our Christmas stockings five or six years ago, because Santa knows every little girl wants a multi-tool pocketknife.
The blade is dark with blood.
“Shut the fuck up,” she says. “We need to think. Gotta figure this out, Rose. You and me. He attacked me. He attacked me and I was defending myself.”