Chapter 1
Special Agent Lynn Rivers was hugging her upper body and shivering so hard her teeth were chattering as she walked through the woods. Leaves, rotted and fresh, squelched, rustled and cracked under the rubber soles of her leather boots. The air was icy-cold, even though bright rays of the sun, glaring through dark blue autumn rain clouds blinded her the whole way here. But that’s not what made her shake.
That was all down to the sickening anxiety roiling and burning in the pit of her stomach. Her hands were clammy as she held her long Pepita grey coat tightly closed, her breathing came in short erratic gasps, and her heart was thumping, pumping blood through her with all the speed and noise of a freight train.
At the end of this trek, she would find a terribly disfigured young woman. But that wasn’t the real reason for her body’s violent fight-or-flight reaction either. For now, she could still pretend that the victim was not the same young woman she watched grow up.
Pretend. That’s all she could do. Because, as her body already seemed to know, her life would be forever changed by what she was about to find at the end of this trek. Once again irrevocably changed.
Just as it had been at the end of those other two treks in the past, through woods just like these. Not just like these, they were the same woods. They even smelled the same—rotting leaves on the ground, fresh ones dying and about to fall, the air crisp carrying just a hint of snow that wouldn’t fall for at least another month. The smell of autumn. The smell of her childhood. The smell of what had always been her favorite time of year.
Memories of those past treks were flooding her mind now. The bright sun blinding her made the leaves above her and all around her glow copper and gold, but she didn’t really see any of it. All she saw was the darkness in her mind.
The first of those two terrible treks had occurred in the faint grey light of a misty autumn dawn. She’d been on her way home, but saw a yellow light shining unnaturally brightly amid leafless trees in a forest that should’ve still been dark. She walked towards it.
The air had been cold. Colder than it was today. Ice hung heavy in the damp morning air. The fallen, rotten leaves crunched and broke under her sneakers, because they were frozen. But she’d still been warm. Because she’d just come from the best night of her life.
Her father’s deputy—Terrence—had caught her in a wide embrace before she reached the pool of bright light, his broad back shielding her from the view that light illuminated from her. But not before she saw her best friend’s sightless blue eyes staring at the grey sky. Alicia’s skin glowed gold in the artificial light of the reflectors, everything else seemed to be in black and white.
The second time a trek through these woods ended the life she had known, it had been night and the lights guiding her were blue and white and flashing. They were bringing her to a two-story house with well-kept, white wood siding, and a pitched roof, red carnations in white pots on all the windows and embroidered lace curtains obstructing the view inside. Only the window of her bedroom on the second floor overlooking the forest was open. Only her window was dark.
Deputy Terrence didn’t rush out to intercept her this time. He had been standing by the old, wide, oak tree growing just to the side of the front door as she passed him, one of his hands braced against the thick trunk, the other across his stomach like he had been about to throw up. No one stopped her from going into the house.
