“Is that right?” Rivers said, spying the cigarette lighter Gus had dropped. He picked it up, slipped it quietly into his pocket, and said, “I don’t fuckin’ think so.”
* * *
How many days had passed?
Five?
Six?
Ten?
Sophia had lost count. But from the loft, wrapped in a sleeping bag, the fire gently hissing in the gas fireplace below, she’d stared out the small windows, watching the day break and pass to become the never-ending night.
With each day that passed, she felt a little stronger, the vengeance growing in her heart, a beating, palpable thing. She’d find a way to best her sister.
If she didn’t die first.
CHAPTER 50
December 29
Rebecca was no good at this.
She just wasn’t cut out to be a detective, or a spy, or whatever.
As she sat in her rental car, huddled in a down jacket and scarf, cradling a cup of coffee in her gloved hands, she kept her eyes on Sophia Russo’s apartment and felt like a stalker. And she was getting nowhere fast.
No activity in the apartment.
Again.
The clock on the dash of the little Ford Escape, a car she’d rented so that Sophia wouldn’t recognize her, read 11:30. Rebecca took a sip of the now-tepid coffee and watched as the lights in Sophia’s apartment were turned out, one by one. Just like they had been every other night.
Tonight, Sophia had been in her unit for hours, her car parked in the attached lot and becoming slowly buried by the ever-falling snow. Rebecca’s rental too had collected an inch of the white stuff. She had to keep turning on the wipers to swipe the layer away and cranking up the defroster to keep the windows clear—in the process, she thought, probably drawing attention to herself.
Though it seemed no one noticed.
Certainly not Sophia.
“This is nuts,” she told her reflection in the rearview mirror.
She’d watched people come and go, traffic becoming lighter as the hours had passed and night had deepened, the traffic light at the far end of the street turning from red to green, in mesmerizing slow motion. To pass the time, she’d listened to podcasts or music on her phone, which she’d recharge by turning on the car for a few minutes at a time.
Christmas had come and gone, and for the first time in her life, Rebecca had been totally alone. She’d avoided the lobby of the hotel and the attached restaurant, ordered in room service, and felt sorry for herself as she picked at her plate of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes—a meal she assumed the hotel served at Thanksgiving as well, but she had swapped out the pumpkin pie for a mocha yule log decorated in red and green. She’d barely touched it, but had drunk two glasses of wine.
Her parents were wrapped in their own new lives, apart from hers, and though each had called and wished her a “Merry Christmas,” with promises to get together soon and concern for Megan, they’d disconnected to plug in to the people they were now close to, while Rebecca had thought of Megan, wondering about her, wishing she could at least have a glass of wine and wish her sister the best. Despite everything, all the pain, all the betrayal, all the damned not trusting, Megan was, in the end, her sibling, as close to her as anyone.
She had thought of James and saw that he’d actually called, but Christmas itself wasn’t a time to bring up that old pain, or the nostalgia that might come from connecting with him. There would have been a good chance she would have done something stupid—so it had been smarter not to fall into that emotional trap on a lonely night.
So it had been a lonely, empty Christmas, and Rebecca couldn’t help but note the irony of the situation; she’d been bombarded with holiday lights, trees, songs, and smells ever since driving into Riggs Crossing.
But now it was over.
The new year loomed.
“Let’s hope it’s a better one,” she muttered and wondered if she’d ever see her sister again.
For the past seven days, Rebecca had followed Sophia and discovered nothing remotely suggesting the blonde was doing anything the least bit sketchy.
Sophia went to work, ran errands, attended a yoga class, bought groceries and gas, used the drive-thru at a bank, and purchased espresso at a coffee kiosk located off Main Street. Then, every night, she would tuck into her apartment.
A boring, simple life.
Rebecca couldn’t follow her 24/7, of course, but as far as she could tell, Sophia just seemed to be going about her life.
Outwardly, she was doing nothing that would cause the least bit of concern.
Except she didn’t have a single friend and zero social life.
None of the women Sophia worked with hung out with her, nor did she linger after yoga to chat with the women who attended the same class. She did have a few social media accounts, but they had been inactive for a while. Rebecca had checked.
No girlfriends.
No boyfriends.
Nothing.
Even the sister whom Rebecca had seen a couple of times, the dark-haired woman with glasses, didn’t seem to be around anymore. Rebecca wondered about that as the woman hadn’t seemed to have her own wheels; she’d always driven Sophia’s car. But when the two were together, Julia had always driven.
So what?
Not a big deal.
But a little odd.
Also odd was the fact that the landlady of the apartment building had been in the hospital, nearly died. Probably just a coincidence, but Rebecca made note of it.
She’d also started digging into Sophia Russo’s life to find out exactly how Sophia had ended up here in Riggs Crossing, but so far had found nothing that would suggest anything other than that she’d found a job here.
Still, this
