I don’t know if I cried out or jumped back.

I must have.

But I was too shocked to notice.

I stood in place, staring at the watch face and the exposed portion of skin. The hand and the fingers were illuminated in the glow from the streetlight. The nails were painted a dark color. And a silver ring with an intricate scrollwork design circled the middle finger.

She’s asleep, I thought. Asleep on the floor.

But my mind quickly shifted from the irrational to the horrific. She wasn’t asleep.

She is . . .

While my heart thumped and the sweat on my body turned cold as lake water, I stepped forward again, bent down, and felt the wrist. I pressed my fingers all over, searching for a pulse, but as soon as I touched the skin I knew.

She is dead.

The hand and wrist were slightly cool. I moved the clothes that covered the rest of the body, and as I did, a face emerged, the eyes staring vacantly toward the ceiling. I touched her cheek with the back of my hand and felt the same unnatural coolness.

She was dead. Definitely dead.

And some reptilian part of my brain took over, sending a message to the rest of my body that said, Run. Run. Run.

But I resisted. I studied her face because . . .

I pulled out my phone and activated the flashlight. I no longer cared if anyone saw the light from outside the house. There was something about the woman’s face. . . .

The flashlight lit her face and neck. A trickle of blood marked her forehead, and her hair was clotted and tangled with sticky gore as though she’d taken a hard blow. The stream of light reflected off her dead, glassy eyes, the irises a bright blue even though the lids were partially closed.

I knew her.

It took me a minute, but I recognized her.

Jennifer Bates.

Blake had said “Jen,” but I knew her as Jennifer.

We’d met through work, and while I hadn’t spoken to or even seen her for months, I knew it was her. I couldn’t forget because—

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

Blake.

It had to be Blake. It had to be him telling me what was going on, explaining how it was a terrible misunderstanding. Letting me know the whole thing was a joke, that he couldn’t have sent me into a house with a dead woman.

But when I looked at the screen, things only grew stranger and more confusing.

It was a Facebook friend request.

From Jennifer Bates.

The woman dead on the floor in front of me.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Was somebody watching me?

I clicked off the flashlight, my head turning to the bedroom window. All I saw were the starkly shifting limbs of trees silhouetted against the streetlights.