“Hannah, please don’t go,” Mary begs her, clinging to her leg as tightly as her nine-year-old arms can muster. Her wet face presses into the back of Hannah’s leg as Hannah tugs her along on her way to the front door.

“Mary,” Hannah says, finally stopping to pry her little sister off her leg. Her voice is patient as she peels her sister’s fighting hands off her leg. “Mary, lovebug, I have to go, okay? I’m getting out of here.”

“Then why aren’t you taking me?” Mary asks, her voice sharp as she glares up at her older sister. “You said you wouldn’t leave me, and you’re leaving. Leaving me with HIM.”

Hannah is eighteen, and Mary nine, but they are as close as sisters can be. Especially since Hannah is, more or less, Mary’s mother and not her sister.

Their real mother died when Hannah was barely ten and Mary was just five months old. Since then, they’ve been with their mother’s husband—a stepfather to both of them—and his string of lady lovers. They’ve dreamed together for years about moving out and going away. Their favorite place to imagine their escape to was New York. There, Mary could be a Broadway starlet and Hannah could get a good job as an advertiser and work her way up in the writing world.

Now, Hannah is going to Colorado, not New York. New York is an adventure for both of them to share, and Colorado will be Hannah’s adventure.

Because, even though she loves Mary more than life, she is ready to go on a little trip of her own.

“Mary, I’m going to Colorado. You don’t want to come to Colorado with me, do you?” She asks, thinking that, if Mary says yes, she’ll figure out a way to sneak her little sister on the plane.

Mary stares up at her, her large chocolate brown eyes bearing into her big sister’s soul. “I’ll go anywhere with you if it means I’m not staying here with him alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Hannah reminds her. “Shirley’s here. And she’s nice enough, isn’t she?” She asks, referring to their newest stepmother.

Mary shrugs, then repeats, “Nice enough.”

Hannah sighs and drops down to her knees in front of her younger sister, dropping her bag down on the uneven wooden floor right in front of the door. “Mary,” she whispers. “Mary, look at me.”

Dark chocolate eyes meet bright blue ones, and soon, Mary is collapsed in Hannah’s grasp, sobbing into her shoulder.

“Please don’t leave me,” Mary begs her again, just like she has over and over. “Please stay. I need you. Colorado doesn’t need you. You have me. You don’t need Colorado.”

Hannah laughs softly. “I don’t need Colorado,” she confirms, “but I want Colorado.”

“And you don’t want me?” Mary asks, pulling out to look at her sister, her eyes rimmed with tears.

Hannah cannot help but roll her eyes. “You don’t even realize how much I want you. But, Mary-bug, Colorado’s expensive and I can’t pay for both of us. I promise, once I’ve got enough money, I’ll ship you out to me and we’ll go to New York, okay? Just like we always dreamed.”

“Just like we always dreamed,” Mary repeats. Then, slowly, she backs off and allows Hannah to lift her bag and take another step toward the door. Her breath staggers as Hannah’s hand grazes the doorknob. “You’re coming back for me. You promised.”

“I’m coming right back for you,” Hannah repeats. “I promise.”

Then, the door opens and Hannah steps out, shutting it behind her. She doesn’t take another look at Mary or stop to hug her. No, she doesn’t even look at her. It’ll hurt too much if she stays any longer.

Shirley will take good care of her. She should’ve made Shirley promise that. But Shirley’s out for the day—or, actually, for the past couple of days.

But it doesn’t matter. Mary is a tough little cookie, even though she would rather Hannah protect her than deal with it herself. It will all work out, Hannah thinks.

And even though she will likely be greeted by an entirely different Mary than she left when she returns to get her, she figures it will all be worth it.

It was raining that night. She could hear the movement of feet on the ground, the crunching of sticks, the sounds of panting and crying, shouting and swearing. All of these sounds ran clearly through her mind, but she saw nothing—she could feel nothing. It was almost like she was a corpse, slung over someone’s shoulder, getting ready for burial. But she wasn’t dead. Not yet. She was hardly breathing, each breath slow and hard-won, coming slower than the one before. But she kept fighting, not because she had something to live for—she wasn’t certain she had anything at all—but because it was just her natural instinct, to wait until the sights and the feelings and the memories came back. Until she could feel again.
Having just been brought back to conscious, she struggled to remember what was happening.
Her name was Madeleine Miller, and she would be dead by the end of the night. Her body would be found by hikers in the woods. The news stations would blast announcements of the pretty blonde college student’s death. There would be a state-wide search for the person who did that to her.
Her face was massacred, making it difficult to identify her. Her mother broke down when she saw the body, exclaiming that it was her daughter, her little girl.
The man who performed the autopsy ruled that she had been dead for about fifteen minutes before the facial injuries occurred, and that she likely only felt the injury to the leg and the neck. A wave of relief was supposed to pass over all who were there to hear his statement, but no one felt satisfied.
This beautiful, charming, effervescent woman’s killer was still on the loose.