I hold Hope close to my heart. She has fallen asleep now, relaxed by the race of my heartbeat. I suppose she is used to it, a baby in the womb in this house.
Your voice sends a shock wave up my spine. You sound exactly like yourself, the voice I heard every night, every day, for a year. I press Hope against my chest and I follow your voice down the stairs, into the room off the kitchen, where you record your episodes.
You are seated at the desk. Your back is to me and your words wash over me, the way they always did, like an incantation, like a secret only we knew.
“. . . She was kept chained in an abandoned house below the main ranch. . . .”
I walk toward you, the sleeping baby and the gun in my hands.
I think, What would happen if I killed you? Would I go to jail? Would your evidence room be enough to convict you, to exonerate me? Or has the evidence been compromised? Are you smart enough to make sure none of it points back to you? That it all lines up, with your podcast, with your sick obsession, with doing the right thing, with making the world a better, safer place?
And I think of the gun I used to shoot your mother. I could hide it. I could bury it. I could bury you.
“. . . While her husband lived above her, six hundred yards away and he had no idea . . .”
I set the baby down and she starts to fuss. You hit pause and turn toward her.
Your face has been peppered with a fine spritz of blood. A line appears between your brows. “I wish it was a boy,” you say. “Girls cry so much.”
And I think about all the men I have known. How my ex collapsed at the first sign of my struggle, how Jed was a victim of his appetites, how your father and Homer lived in their little bubbles, so sure of everything. And then I think about the women. I think about Tasia and Clementine, I think about your mother, I think about you and I think about me.
And I think I can survive anything, even you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not exist were it not for the tireless work of Sarah Bedingfield, who took it to the next level, then harnessed all her agenting powers to find an editor as excited about it as we were. That editor was Jen Monroe, who was pure magic to work with. It is every author’s dream to work with a team like this—intelligent, passionate and always going above and beyond.
Thank you to the team at LGR, especially Melissa Rowland and Cristela Henriquez, and to the team at Berkley—Loren Jaggers and Stephanie Felty for publicity, Fareeda Bullert and Natalie Sellers for marketing, Allison Prince and Jamie Mendola-Hobbie for promotional material, and Emily Osborne for the jaw-dropping cover design.
Thank you to all the people in the Siskiyou Forest who opened their homes and hearts to me.
Thank you to the true-crime podcast community, especially Brit and Ashley, Karen and Georgia, for creating a safe space for women in a scary world.
Thank you to Chris Nicholson and the ponies at PRC for making me smile.
Thank you to my mom for watching Dateline and my dad for watching Hallmark and to my family—Brazier and Wass—and to my ghost husband for infecting me with his strength, confidence and joy for living.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eliza Jane Brazier is an author, screenwriter and journalist. This is her adult debut. She currently lives in Los Angeles where she is developing If I Disappear for television.
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If I Disappear Page 26