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  Copyright © 2020 by Emerald O'Brien

  Cover designed by Tadpole Designs

  Editing by My Brother’s Editor

  Original song Scopaesthesia written, performed, and recorded by singer-songwriter Adrienne Ashley

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Don’t miss Emerald O’Brien’s next release!

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Emerald

  About the Author

  Dedication

  For anyone who identifies with any part of Lynda’s experience.

  May you feel less alone, more connected, and seen.

  Prologue

  Have you ever felt like you were being followed?

  Maybe it was footsteps slapping against pavement behind you that tipped you off or the brisk whooshing of material brushing against itself with each stride. Maybe it was a glimpse of a figure in your peripheral vision—a shadow—something you couldn’t quite make out, but you could tell it was something. Someone. Maybe a whiff of cologne or body odor caught your attention in the breeze or surrounded you in a closed-in space, inescapable.

  Or maybe, if you’re like me, it’s just a feeling without any proof.

  The sheer terror of the unknown hovers ever closer, yet somehow, we feel the need to continue on our path as if it isn’t happening, paralyzed by fear.

  I used to feel that way.

  It’s like we’re afraid to be seen as paranoid if we glance over our shoulder or cross the street to see if they follow. Like we have more of a chance to get to safety if we don’t look back. If we don’t confront it. Maybe we do.

  You could turn around. Maybe nothing’s there. Maybe it was all in your head.

  Or maybe, you might get a good look at the person who’s already got you in their sights. Stare them right in the eye. Even speak up.

  If you’ve ever felt like you were being followed, you know there’s danger in any course of action we take, and up until tonight, I chose to do nothing.

  For the past few days, despite the terrible knot in my stomach and the chilling tingle of knowing on my neck, I picked up my pace to what I hoped was an unnoticeable amount. I rushed home to my mom’s and her boyfriend’s house, to the other side of the door, and locked myself in.

  I tried to forget it happened—that it’s been happening since I made the agreement with the band—to ease the fear away. I tried to ignore my own instincts so I could feel some measure of safety while staying here alone since Ron took my mom on a two-week vacation to Maui to “relax and reset.” I told myself they’d be home next week, that I wouldn’t be alone so I wouldn’t be consumed with that same knotted feeling in my stomach, wondering who has been watching me these past two days and why, and if I’d be helpless if something came from it.

  And it worked. I didn’t let the fear control me—until tonight.

  Tonight, as the feeling crept over me again with home in view, I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I forced myself to turn around. I chose the known over the unknown, however dangerous it may be.

  I never should have doubted myself, because what I know now has ignited my worst fears.

  Chapter 1

  ONE WEEK EARLIER

  That night, in our home, I met a man.

  A cold, dead stare set in his eyes.

  He turned and ran,

  left my father dying there,

  kitchen filled with screams and cries.

  Dried orange and yellow leaves crunch beneath my boots as I step out of the car onto the road, and a deep shadow along the inside of the front door stops me; confusion turns to fear. I squint at the door to my mother’s house as the early evening autumn wind whistles, blowing my long, dark hair across my face.

  Why is the door open?

  The car from my ride app pulls away from the curb, and both my mom’s and her boyfriend’s cars are parked in the driveway, the trunks and doors closed.

  Did Ron just get home? Did he just bring something in from the car?

  I amble across the boulevard to the paved front path, focused on the open door as it waffles back and forth in the breeze. I take shorter breaths as my chest tightens and a flash of nausea washes over me.

  Not again.

  It has to be an innocent mistake.

  A lump forms in my throat as I climb the two steps to the porch, slowing down.

  If it were any other day, I could believe in a simple explanation, but my mom called into work this morning and asked me to shift her appointments to the other dentists or cancel them altogether if I couldn’t. The usual control in her voice was missing, but I dismissed it as part of the sickness she told me she felt, and I didn’t question her. And Ron would be home because it’s Saturday. I knew he’d be taking care of her.

  My fingertips touch the cold door—memories flooding back of the same beginning to the worst night of my life, back in my childhood home. I hesitate.

  I can’t jump to conclusions. I can’t assume the worst.

  I take a deep breath and push the door open, stepping in, and flicking the hallway light on. Back farther down the long hall, bright white light fills the kitchen. I catch a glimpse of Ron’s plaid red button-down by the table. I step to the side and take a few steps across the hardwood floor, down the hallway. His head is cradled in his hands, supported by his elbows on the table, and my stomach drops.

  “Ron?” The sharp edge to my voice makes him jump and I clutch my scarf at my chest.

  He looks up at me and runs his hands through his salt and pepper wavy locks with a worried look as he stands and strides down the front hall, meeting me just after the opening to the dark front living room. “Lyn.”

  “What’s wrong?” I search his face as he gives me a slight frown. “The door was open,” I say, as if I need more evidence for the reason I’ve been flooded with dread. “Is my mom okay?”

  “She’s upstairs resting.” His sad eyes finally stare into mine. “I don’t remember leaving the door open.” He shakes his head and licks his lips. “Now, listen, your mom needs space and I need to tell you something. I’m here for you, okay? But your mom just needs some time.”

  “Just tell me—what’s going on?” My voice shakes.

  He shoves his hands in his faded jean pockets and leans against the wall. His chest heaves as he steals a glance upstairs before focusing back on me and releasing a deep sigh. “Byron Somers was found dead this morning.”

  Byron?

  The name of the man who took my father’s life, and still, it took a moment for me to place it. Have I really shoved what happened so deep down inside me that I can’t recognize the name of my father’s killer right away?

  “How?” I whisper as a wave of guilt rocks me and my legs wobble.

  It feels like a chance I might have had at something is slipping away and I can’t place it.

  “One of the other inmates… they think,” his low voice grumbles. “They don’t know who.”

  “How did Mom find out? When?” But I already know. This morning.

  “We got a call just after you’d left for work this morning. Your mom answered and then handed it to me. She had to sit down.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “She was in shock, I think—still is.”

  The man who took my father’s life had his own life taken. Did Byron end his own suffering or was he killed? Was whatever happened to him as violent as what he did to my dad?

  The lump in my throat returns and I can’t swallow it down as I remember my father on the kitchen floor with a knife in his chest, his shirt soaked in blood—warm blood.

  My vision is blurry from tears and I can’t focus on Ron anymore. I cover my face with my hands and use the darkness to wonder as usual.

  Did someone take more mercy on my father’s killer than my father got? Mom would think so. He was supposed to rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life.

  “Lyn?” Ron asks.

  I drop my purse on the front hall bench and a scratching comes from the back door as I take off my jacket and scarf. “Stevie,” I whisper.

  Ron nods and steps away with hesitation, glancing over his shoulder at me before disappearing into the kitchen to let my dog in from the back yard.

  I grab the wooden railing and use it
to pull my weight up the steps as I climb, creak after creak, up the old steps.

  This must have hit her hard, but once it sinks in, maybe we’ll both finally have peace knowing he’s gone for good. He can’t hurt anyone else.

  Mom always seemed to relish in the fact that every good thing was taken from Byron the day he was sentenced. His family disowned him, his own brother told the media he was ashamed of him, and Byron’s days of freedom were over.

  But there had to be small pleasures in his life—even in prison. I could come to find comfort in the fact that those are gone too now, can’t I? What does this mean for me? For us?

  I reach the top step and turn left down the hall toward their bedroom. Darkness lies beyond the open door to their room. I turn right, toward my room, and a cool glow peeks through the door cracks from the bathroom.

  How long did it take Byron to die?

  From the time Byron broke into our home and stabbed my father, to the moment he was declared dead in the hospital operating room, my dad spent three hours of brutal suffering.

  He suffered through the initial attack that no one will ever know the details of, as they were alone. He suffered through that pain and blood loss as his stalker, then went after my mom when she showed up from work early. Dad suffered through the screams of my mom as Byron pinned her against the wall—the moments my own suffering began.

  After a long trip home from college to surprise my parents for Thanksgiving that cold October night, I walked through the open door to see a strange man clenching my mom’s wrists, pinning her against the wall, shouting at her.

  The shock debilitated me for what seemed like minutes. I couldn’t move. As soon as he noticed me, he stopped. His frightened dark eyes locked with mine before he ran, escaping through the side door. I ran into the kitchen and saw my dad writhing in pain on the floor, his T-shirt soaked in blood, his face shocked to see me as I dropped to my knees at his side.

  His face.

  I always felt warmth when I looked at my dad’s face, and I never knew it until that night, when for the first time, it represented pain.

  From that point on, we all suffered together through the phone call to the police, applying pressure to Dad’s chest, and following the ambulance to the hospital, waiting for news from the surgery to save Dad’s life.

  He died on the operating table, and then it was just the two of us suffering, Mom and I. Through the arrangements for Dad’s body, to the trial, facing Byron once again, to the media that hounded us in the months after. They broadcasted more stories about Byron’s terrible childhood, growing up with a father who abused him and his brother, and a mother who left before their teen years, everything that might have led to Byron becoming a killer than they ever did about the good man my father was, the success he was in his own right, and the kindness he shared with the world through his life.

  The memories and nightmares since that night never stopped for us. It will never stop for us. We just become numb to it at times. We push it away, deep down inside, to keep living.

  But the suffering has stopped for Byron Somers. If Mom’s upset, I know why. I think I am, too. I want to tell her I’m here for her. We can get through it together this time if she’ll just let me in.

  I knock on the door.

  “Please, Ronnie. Just a little while longer.” Her voice is softer than usual, soaked in desperation. The vulnerability startles me.

  I thought she was angry? “Mom?”

  “Lynda,” she gasps through a cry.

  I open the door and step into the foggy, blue bathroom.

  Drip, drop.

  Behind the door, my mom’s head turns to see me from just above the claw-foot tub’s high edge. I take an uncertain step across the tile toward her, daring to examine the scene further.

  Drip, drop. The faucet leaks into the water, a darkness lingering inside it. I stop, shivering through the dampness at the chilling sight.

  The water covers her clothed body up to her neck until she sits up a little more; the white dress shirt see-through and stuck to her pale skin. Her hands cling to the rounded sides as she stares up at me with wide eyes, filled with a lost sadness.

  Does she even see me?

  I don’t recognize her.

  Drip, drop.

  I break out of my stupor and kneel, taking her wet, pruned hand in mine. Too cold. What is she doing in there? “Mom?”

  She squeezes my hand as I scan her body, from her soaking hair to her feet dressed in white socks, floating just beneath the surface.

  It’s like the day after Dad died. She’s losing herself.

  Drip.

  Losing reality.

  Drip, drop.

  I’m losing her.

  My chest tightens and I squeeze her hand, a quick attempt to bring her back to me. “Ron told me,” I whisper, but it’s more like a hiss.

  She swallows hard and nods once before resting her clammy cheek against our folded hands. “It’s over, baby.”

  Why does she sound so calm?

  I twist the shower knob to the right and roll up my sleeve, plunge my arm into the freezing water, and yank the plug out. A burp releases and I take my arm out, shaking it off before shuffling on my knees against the tile, back to her. I lift her face with my hands to look at me once more. Tears slide down the cracks between her cheeks and her nose.

  “Mom,” I whisper. “Why are you wearing all your clothes in the tub?”

  She blinks and looks down at them, the water sloshing from side to side, letting go of my hand as she struggles to sit up straight. “Oh, my gosh. I—I can’t believe I did that.”

  Her voice is back. It sounds like my mom, but she didn’t even realize what she’d done?

  I take a staggering deep breath in as I stand, reaching out for her hand. “Here.” I grab it and tug once gently, then again, hard against the extra weight of her soaked clothes to pull her to her feet.

  I let her hand go a little, testing her stability, and she wipes her hands over her face like Ron does. They’ve picked up on each other’s mannerisms, and it’s somehow comforting she’s doing it again before pulling her shirt up over her head as I turn to the sink and grab a large peach towel from the rack.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It’s okay.” I hand her the towel and she takes it quickly, wrapping it around herself in a swift motion.

  Back to normal speed… but this isn’t normal. This isn’t like her. It’s not okay.

  She shakes her head as she pulls her black dress pants off. “I think sometimes… we put the hard things so far out of our minds, just to survive, and then when you’re reminded of it, it just comes flooding back…”

  I nod, and I believe it, because she’s back and I ache for the rational words and comforting explanations only my mother can give me.

  And because she’s right. I’m still filled with guilt that hearing Byron’s name didn’t inflict the sharp, recognizable wound to my own chest that it always had for the past six years—and that might be the last time I’ll ever have to hear it.

  Maybe this is a good thing. I have to make Mom see it as a good thing. “We won’t have to think about him ever again, Mom. We won’t have to wonder what he’s doing, or if he’ll get out. This is better, this way.”

  She nods right away, and I take a deep, shuddering breath. She just needed time to process it.

  I open the door and cold air floods the room with a chill. Mom takes in a sharp breath, and a few quick steps out before me, hugging herself in her towel, and stops in the hall.

  Ron stands in front of her and pulls her into his embrace. He wraps his arms around her, holding them together at the small of her back, and closes his eyes as I lean against the doorframe, giving them space.