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Back The Family Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (117)
  1. Also by
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Epigraph
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. 1
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  116. Teaser chapter
  117. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

And we were almost finished. We would have been free to live out the rest of our lives in peace. Until the Lockwoods moved in. I was worried about what their proposed construction might unearth. Cooper tried to find you in the dead of the night, but the earth had shifted and so had his memory. He couldn’t remember where he had buried you.

And then Olivia Lockwood, searching for the source of the flashlight in the copse, hit her head on the box containing your remains and damned us all.

The telephone is ringing, over and over, but I do not let her answer it.

She is closing her eyes now, tears on her cheeks. She knows who I am and what I have done. I press the cake to her mouth, but her lips are flattened into a tight line and she refuses to swallow my gift

Your old stuffed frog is in my pocket, Joby. I have sewn up the seam for you. I’m sorry I split it open with my knitting needle. Anger has always been my flaw.

And now, there is this.

The scratch of a key in a lock. A shout. “Liv, it’s me. Are you okay? Evan wanted to come back.”

It is time.

Every death has a taste of its own. I expect you know that now. Cooper is waiting for me. And so, I hope, are you, my boy. Joy and acceptance are my seasonings.

I take a sip of tea. I listen to the ticking of the clock, the slamming of car doors. The shouts of Garrick Lockwood and the police. And after everything I have done, I am still that girl of eleven, standing in the shadow of the woods, poisoned birds laid out at my feet in sacrifice, glorifying in my power over living things.

The crumbs spill across the plate. Sweet with an underwash of bitterness. I touch them to my lips. I break off a piece of the cake and swallow it down. A mouthful. And another.

And I wait.

Teaser chapter

Don’t miss RATTLE, available now!

Fiona Cummins delves into the seam of darkness that runs through us all, as a detective hunts down a twisted killer with a macabre obsession . . .

On still nights, when the curve of a winter moon is smudged in the flow of the River Quaggy, the dead clamor for him. And sometimes he coaxes the living to join them. To other people his victims might be mere medical oddities. To him they are fascinating specimens, worthy of display. Above all, he is a collector, eager for recognition even as he hides in the shadows.