The room was like something out of Miss Havisham’s house. Everything coated in dust, cobwebs hanging from the corners, lit up from the moonlight shining in the uncovered window. There was an empty mug on a side table, a book facedown on the arm of a chair, a pair of shoes lined up in front of the cold fireplace. That was fine, perfectly ordinary, but it was all covered in dust like no one had lived there for months. That seemed impossible, I remember. It shouldn’t have been so dusty. Greg hadn’t been gone that long. And despite everything, it made me feel guilty—that no one was looking out for Greg, that no one was helping him while his house crumbled around him.

The goose bumps rose on my arms again. Bella was standing in front of the back window, pressed right up against the glass, fogging it with her breath, looking out into the woods. I could see her footprints, a clean path through the dust on the floors. Too much evidence we’d been there.

My stomach lurches and I have the urge to jump out of my hospital bed and rush back to the house to clean everything we touched. Or have they already been there? Do they already know we trespassed there?

“I’m sorry,” Bella whispered—whispers still from the shadows in the corner of my hospital room. Her shoulders were hunched and I think she was crying. “I’m so sorry, Tess, but you need to see. You need to wake up.”

I can taste sour champagne in my mouth, and mud and dead leaves. I can feel them on my face still. I keep touching my cheeks, expecting to find them covered in leaves and dirt. I was found in the woods near Dean House, but I don’t remember how I got there.

I should tell them we were in the house the night before the wedding. We didn’t do anything wrong other than sneaking in. We didn’t steal or break anything. It had nothing to do with what happened after the wedding. I should tell them. But…

“I’m sorry,” I say.

wake up

“I really don’t remember anything.”

I remember the taste of mud and leaves, but I don’t remember being in the woods in the storm. I do remember the ambulance, the paramedics wheeling me into the hospital on a stretcher. Dad and Julia were there, and Max. But…

I blink and see a flash—Bella in the woods, sprawled on the ground, facing away from me.

“Wait,” I say as the detectives move toward the door.

Another flash. Me crawling toward her, reaching out my hand to touch her shoulder.

“Where’s Bella? Is my sister okay?”

Clutching her shoulder, rolling her onto her back and…

wake up

NOW

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

February 2018

“Wake up, Tess.” Sophie leans in closer to me. “Stealth approach, two o’clock.”