The Walls is a riveting thriller about domestic violence, murder, and one woman’s desperate gambit to protect her family.

CHAPTER ONE

Mom, move your butt or we’re going to be late.”

Kristy Tucker heard her son’s voice, annoyance dripping from each syllable. She glanced at the clock and cursed under her breath.

“I’m coming, Ry,” she said, quickly pulling her brown hair into a bun. She grabbed her purse and headed toward her bed-room door, nearly tripping over the edge of the fraying gray carpet. She steadied herself and raced downstairs toward the kitchen. No matter how hard Kristy tried—setting her alarm half an hour earlier, washing her hair the night before—she could never get her act together in the morning. And on execution days, forget about it.

Ryan, on the other hand, had been up for hours. At fourteen years old, Ryan was neat, orderly, and incredibly driven, the polar opposite of Kristy. She found her son seated at the dining table finishing his bowl of oatmeal, his sandy-brown hair neatly combed, and dressed in his usual uniform: pressed jeans, a collared black button-up shirt with a red-and-black-striped tie, and his beat-up old black cowhide boots. Texas hipster, Kristy dubbed Ryan’s standard uniform. She loved how much care he put into his appearance but it did very little to help him fit in with the rednecks and jocks at school. She’d heard the whispers and teasing from kids and their parents. “That boy acts like he’s too big for his britches,” they’d said on more than one occasion. Kristy shouldered some of the blame. She was only seventeen when Ryan was born, a baby raising a baby, Pops used to say. She encouraged his differences, wanted her son to accomplish everything she hadn’t.

“Hey, Pops, you owe me five bucks,” Ryan said with a grin.

“Put it on my tab,” Pops said.

“I’m afraid to ask. What was the bet?” Kristy asked as she grabbed her travel mug and filled it with coffee.

“How long it would take you to get ready this morning,” Ryan said.

“I actually gave you the benefit of the doubt,” Pops replied, shaking his head in dismay.

Kristy’s father, Frank Tucker, let out a strangled laugh as he tugged on the oxygen cannula that snaked from his nose, down his body, and into a giant oxygen tank that kept his O 2 levels consistent. Only sixty-eight, Pops appeared much older, his hair wild and gray, rarely combed. A lifetime of chain-smoking had taken its toll, ravaged his lungs, and now he was basically a prisoner trapped inside his own home. But despite Pops’s health challenges, his humor was still intact.

“If you’d set your alarm a few minutes earlier—” Pops began. Kristy cut him off, well aware that her morning routine was the bane of Pops’s and Ryan’s existence. She simply couldn’t deal with their teasing.