“Ethan?” Lang asked softly. “Who is Ethan? Did he do this?”
From Brandon’s radio behind him, Lang heard the dispatcher respond that medics were already on the scene.
“It hurts so . . . so . . . bad,” she stammered, her voice barely a whisper.
He heard movement from the front of the apartment. More responders were filing in. Hopefully the paramedics. He could feel the warm blood pulsing through the towel onto his hand.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, hoping he sounded reassuring.
Her teeth started to chatter.
He shouted over his shoulder: “I need medics, dammit! She’s going into shock!”
Lang returned his attention to the girl. “Help’s here now. You’re going to be okay. Just hold on, hon.” But even as he said the words, he doubted she would. It was clear to him that she was already dangerously close to death.
Her eyes fluttered, and her shivering intensified. The rest of the color drained from her skin.
“Hang on, okay? Help is almost here.”
She stared at him for a moment as though she was maybe listening; then she moaned, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
CHAPTER 1
October 4, 2015
Four years and eleven months later . . .
TWENTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD CHELSEA DUTTON jerked upright in bed, adrenaline thundering through her veins. She fumbled in the darkness until her hand found the bedside lamp. She snapped it on, flooding her bedroom with warm light.
She blinked, and the reality of where she was slowly trickled into her consciousness. Blood still pounding in her ears, she fell back against her pillow and exhaled forcefully.
You’re safe, she told herself, rubbing goose bumps from her upper arms, her fingertips stumbling a little on the raised ridges of her many scars.
You’re safe and sane. No one’s out to get you.
Not anymore.
The words had been her mantra for almost five years now. Since the Halloween night that her college roommates had been murdered and she’d been carved up and left for dead. Sometimes, though, she wondered if being dead would be easier.
She grabbed her iPhone to check the time: 3:00 a.m.
She’d been waking at 3:00 a.m. all month. A surefire formula for always being exhausted. In an effort to slow her heart, she focused on the weighted blankets piled over her body, enveloping her in a synthetic, makeshift womb. The extra-plump down pillow that rested beneath her head. The calming scent of lavender lingering in the air from the diffuser she kept on her bedside table.
A few of her creature comforts.
Comforts that she took great care to surround herself with. Comforts that proved life could actually be okay if she continued to try really hard.
You’re in a good place now.
But even as she muttered the words in her head, she questioned herself. Because although things were getting better, she still believed she wouldn’t be missing anything if she checked out for good. Since the murders, she’d been merely existing, not really living. Not only that, but in the attack four years ago, she’d suffered a severe concussion and had been diagnosed with psychogenic amnesia, which made life even more confusing and frightening.
Her doctors told her there were no guarantees whether she’d recover any of her lost memories, much less all of them. A few had come trickling back over the years, but nothing of real significance. Sometimes she’d get a flash of a memory here and there. Usually scents brought them forward. The smell of pizza reminded her of the night of the attacks. The sharp scent of Pine-Sol brought her back to living with one of her many foster families. The horrible stink of death reminded her of her biological father.
The flashes were like missing puzzle pieces, but they were brief and blurred—and there were still too many missing to form a decent picture.
Through both fragmented memories and the file she’d received from the Department of Children and Families after the attack, she knew that her biological parents had been dead since she was six years old. In their place was a long string of foster families whom she’d lived with until she turned eighteen and started college at Springfield.
Her cat, Harry, meowed, jerking her back to the present. “Good morning, sweet boy,” she said, scratching him behind his ear. Then she sighed and slid out of bed. Knowing she would be unable to go back to sleep, she decided she might as well be productive.
Her eyes tearing up from exhaustion, she slipped on her running clothes, then cracked open a two-ounce energy shot and drank it. Finally, she grabbed the razor blade that she kept carefully wrapped in a square of cheesecloth and tucked it into her bra.
Harry meowed again, then stood and stretched his long, slender body. Standing in the middle of the bed, he eyed her, wanting to be fed.
“Not until six,” Chelsea said, grabbing a small bottle of pepper spray and slipping it into the other cup of her bra. “You know the routine. Go to sleep. I’ll be back soon.” She grabbed her keys, the metal cool against her palm.
The city of Boston was still dark, hanging in that serene space between the bustle of late night and the promise of a new day. The crisp, early-morning air was chilly against her face as she started down the same route she ran every day—three blocks down Newbury, around the public gardens, back up Beacon Street to Mass Avenue, and then up Newbury to Dartmouth Street.
Exactly five miles.
Five miles unless she encountered anyone else on her path. When she did—which was rare this time of morning—she quickly detoured.
As she ran, she deconstructed the scents in the air: spicy wood smoke and vehicle exhaust. Chicory, espresso, and freshly baked bread and pastries. Even though she tried to concentrate only on the scents drifting through the air and the rhythmic sounds of her footfalls on the hard pavement, she could feel her memories from that horrific night creeping into the forefront of her mind. The night of the murders clung to her, no matter how determined she was to move on.
In the first years after the attacks, she’d found it shocking that the world was still spinning, the sun still shone, that people still laughed and went on with their lives despite what had happened that night. How life could just march forward, everyone completely unscathed, seemed almost obscene.
She could fully remember only the first couple of hours of the party before waking to find herself freezing and in excruciating pain in the bathtub. It had been Halloween night, and she and her two roommates, Christine and Amy, had skipped the normal Halloween parties to celebrate Amy’s birthday. Chelsea had invited Ethan, a guy she’d gone on two dates with, and he had brought his roommate, Boyd.
Chelsea had been excited when Ethan showed an interest in her. Ethan came from a wealthy family and could have any girl he wanted at Springfield. Probably any girl he wanted—period. He was drop-dead gorgeous but also keenly aware of it. He had an air of privileged entitlement about him and a reputation as the type of guy who got around—a lot. Typically, those were qualities that would instantly turn her off, but he was also incredibly charming and funny. Besides, it wasn’t like she expected anything serious to come of it.
But Ethan also liked to party. When he showed up at the apartment, he had whiskey and Ecstasy for everyone. Chelsea didn’t like to drink and never did drugs. She didn’t like the sensation of losing control. But Christine and Amy had quickly popped the pills and happily accepted the drinks Ethan passed out.
Ethan had teased Chelsea about not drinking, and she had eventually relented and drunk a glass of whiskey and Diet Coke. And before she was even done with her first glass, Ethan was beside her, handing her a second.
She remembered feeling as though she was a mere outsider as she sipped her drink and listened to Ethan, Boyd, and her roommates discuss the summer houses their families had up north while they became increasingly wasted. Halfway through her second drink, she’d been surprised when the room started to get blurry. She remembered Ethan’s roommate, Boyd, saying he had to leave for wo
rk. Something about delivering pizzas and hating that he had to work the late shift. She recalled how Boyd’s intense blue eyes had lingered on hers before he left the apartment.
After Boyd was gone, Christine and Amy began dancing in the middle of the living room, playfully grinding against each other, laughing and tossing their hair.
Amy recorded most of her college escapades and often uploaded the footage to her YouTube channel, where she already had more than six thousand subscribers and four million views. Her channel was something she’d taken very seriously—and one she made a good income from, at least for a college student.
Chelsea remembered hearing the spring squeak beneath the couch cushion as Ethan sat down. He leaned toward her and kissed her neck, his breath warm and smelling strongly of whiskey. Then he roughly slid a hand up her thigh, and she pushed it away. She was too dizzy, too queasy.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I . . . I feel really weird.”
His eyes flashed. Then the couch squeaked again, and Ethan sauntered over to her roommates and began dancing between them. She still recalled the combination of scents in the living room that night: whiskey, cigarette smoke, and leftover pizza. The odors were powerful and made her feel even sicker.
She remembered the room tilting and noticing a little mouse—one that they’d been plotting to catch—skitter across the kitchen floor and pick up a fallen piece of pizza crust. That was her last memory before everything faded to black.
The next thing she remembered was a sudden burst of noise, the freezing cold, and white-hot pain knifing through her body. Then two men. One of them, Detective Lang, told her they were the police and that everything would be okay.
But he had lied.
Things had not been okay.
They hadn’t been okay at all.
At the hospital, they had treated her for a punctured liver in addition to eleven other stab wounds and a severe concussion. They also replaced the four pints of blood she’d lost. Her doctors said she was very lucky to be alive. That someone had been watching over her.
Ethan had quickly become the key, and only, suspect in the murders. Among other evidence, they’d found his fingerprints on the knife block that was thought to have held the murder weapon. He’d also vanished that night, and no one had seen him since. Talk around campus had been that his rich parents had jetted him out of the country the morning after the slayings. But the theory had never been confirmed.
All these years, Chelsea had lived in a state of fear and paranoia, haunted by the thought of his possible return. She’d fled Springfield and moved ninety miles east to Boston after the murders, telling herself she was safer there.
There were so many lingering questions about that night.
Why had he spared her?
Had something scared him off?
And the most frightening question of them all:
Would he return to try to finish the job?
What exactly had she seen that night that was now locked up inside her brain, rattling around in her skull? She was pretty sure she didn’t want to know.
The blast of a horn jerked her out of her thoughts. She leaped back onto the sidewalk just as a white box truck barreled past her. Trying to catch her breath, she looked around and realized she had been running on autopilot. She was now deep in the Warehouse District, where trucks were leaving for their morning deliveries.
Tiny spikes of fear rushed through her as she turned to retrace her steps. It took her a minute to get her bearings; then she sprinted in the direction of her apartment. She was usually hypervigilant when she was outside the safety of her apartment, so the thought that she had wandered unconsciously off her path terrified her. And the fact that she was so terrified made her angry. She was sick and tired of being frightened. She didn’t want to play the victim anymore.
She wanted to be strong, not weak. Confident, not afraid all the time. She’d been told that healing from events as traumatic as what she’d been through would take time, but she was running low on patience.
The sky was gunmetal gray when she arrived back at her building. She placed her palms against the rough bricks, stretched, and forced herself into the right mind-set. To think about the day ahead of her.
Every day had its routines.
Routines kept her grounded and sane.
She leaned back against the apartment building. There still weren’t many people out, but the headlights of occasional passing cars were beginning to break through the morning’s stillness. She watched them pass, listening to distant voices being carried on the wind. People up above and down below, also getting ready for their days.
Then something caught her eye. A car parked on the other side of the street. Someone was sitting behind the wheel, partially concealed in the shadows. She watched for a moment. And then the headlights from the next oncoming vehicle splashed into the car and illuminated the driver’s face.
A bolt of terror shot through her.
The man behind the wheel threw the car into gear and pulled out onto the street. Then, in a flash, he was gone. She’d only seen his face for a second, but that was long enough to recognize him.
Ethan.
CHAPTER 2
CHELSEA SAT ON the edge of her couch, blood thrumming at her temples, as she watched her friend Elizabeth walk to the French doors that led to the balcony. She pulled open the curtains, and morning light burst into the living room.
Elizabeth turned to face her. “Okay, so back up. You’re saying he was sitting in a car? Across the street, with his headlights on?”
Chelsea nodded. “Yes.”
“But it was still dark out, right?”
“Yes. But a car passed him, and the headlights lit up his face. I’m telling you. It was him.”
Elizabeth walked to the recliner, her powder-blue orthotic nursing shoes squeaking against the Pergo floor. She sat down. “Look, I know you believe it was him. I do,” she said, looking at Chelsea with clear but polite doubt in her green eyes.
I know you believe it was him.
She hated when Elizabeth said that, and she said it a lot. Unfortunately for Chelsea, though, Elizabeth was usually right.
Concern creased Elizabeth’s face. “Did you have the nightmare again?”
Chelsea knew when she’d called Elizabeth and asked her to come over that she’d ask that question. Yes, she’d had the nightmare. But she had the nightmare every night. She’d never been exactly truthful about that with Elizabeth, though. She kept it a secret because she didn’t want Elizabeth to worry about her any more than she already did.
“Chels, you see the pattern, right?” Elizabeth asked. “This happens almost every time. You have the nightmare, and then you think you see Ethan.”
Chelsea shook her head. “No. This was different.”
Elizabeth got up and paced the room, her arms folded over her chest. “Yeah. This time he was in a car. But it’s happened in stores. You’ve seen him in crowds. At the airport. On buses. In coffee shops. On the T,” she said, ticking off the city’s subway system on her fingers and the other locations Chelsea thought she’d seen Ethan over the years. “And always when you’re stressed out from that terrible nightmare of yours.”
Okay, well, maybe that was true, but this time—
“Look,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not fighting you. I’m on your side. But I honestly don’t think it was him.” Elizabeth leaned closer to her. “You’ve been through a lot, Chels. More than any human being should ever have to go through. But because of that, your mind tends to play tricks on you. Convincing ones. Take my word for it. Ethan’s long gone. And he’s not coming back.”
Doubt started creeping in, like it always eventually did, and suddenly Chelsea found herself questioning whether she was positive it had been Ethan.
Chelsea’s cheeks grew warm, and she peered down at her fingernails, which she’d gnawed into stubs. She shook her head. “God. I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
> Her eyes teared up. “For letting my mind get the best of me. For freaking out all the time. Involving you in all my wild-goose chases and always being wrong about seeing him.”
“Are you kidding me? You do know how much I enjoy being right, don’t you?” Elizabeth joked. She knelt and stared into Chelsea’s eyes. “And, girl, you’re hardly a head case. You’re a survivor. You’re strong.”
Chelsea watched Elizabeth’s cheek jump a little, the way it always did when she told Chelsea she was strong, or anytime she bent the truth or told an outright lie. It was a tell Chelsea had learned years ago.
“And don’t ever worry about involving me in any of your wild-goose chases. I want to help. Seriously. I’m here anytime you need me. I want you to know that.”
Chelsea wrung her hands, then got up to feed Harry. She prepared his breakfast and freshened the water in his bowl, even though she knew he wouldn’t come out until Elizabeth left. “I appreciate your help. I do,” she told Elizabeth. “But I need to be stronger. To be able to do this on my own. I won’t always be able to come to you for help.”
“Why not? I’m not going anywhere. Seriously, you worry too much.”
Elizabeth was right about that, too. She did worry too much, even though she tried not to.
Elizabeth stood up and went to the kitchen. “By the way, you need to stop running while it’s still dark out. That’s how you get yourself featured on the evening news.”
That’s all I need, Chelsea thought. She crawled back on the couch and pulled a chenille throw around her and watched Elizabeth move around the kitchen.
She couldn’t be more grateful for Elizabeth. She was a loyal and steadfast friend. They complemented each other perfectly. Elizabeth had a burning need to take care of someone. And Chelsea had needed someone to take care of her.
She was the mirror opposite of Chelsea in every way. While Chelsea was brunette, petite, and quiet, Elizabeth was blonde, curvy, and outgoing. If she hadn’t met Elizabeth, Chelsea was certain she wouldn’t have survived the years that followed the murders.
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