And yet there Taylor was, hiding from sure death, literally scared stiff. Wondering whether she deserved this. Whether she’d been good enough to the world. Whether what happened to Moira was their fault. Whether karma had knocked on their door with a poisoned edible arrangement.
Trying to steady herself, Taylor started to stand. A fan of dark-green ferns parted and a patch of hot pink, a color so wrong for the dank, cedar, and fir-laden forests of Washington State, caught her eye.
She leaned closer, feeling the earth shift under her feet as fear swallowed her into the heavy, black earth.
It took every ounce of self-control she had to keep from screaming. There was a bra. Pretty and pink. Lacey and torn. A garment in a place meant to conceal it forever.
Taylor touched it with a bloody fingertip and she knew immediately what she had stumbled on.
Brianna had been missing from school for weeks.
Twigs snapped and the sound of boots sloshing through a creek a few yards away ricocheted over the forest floor.
Then, the voice again.
“I just want to talk to you,” the man said.
What Taylor didn’t allow herself to think was what she already knew, a truth that was deep in the marrow of her bones. He had answers. Answers to questions about their past that nobody else had ever dared ask—not even she or Hayley. He held a piece of the puzzle they’d only begun to realize had started to take shape.
There was only one way to find out what they wanted to know. But how was she going to make sure she wouldn’t be on the losing end of the man’s knife?
Exhaling slowly, Taylor took a deep breath and stepped away from what remained of Brianna Connors, out into the clearing.
