Beth Greer was dead.
Months ago, I’d gone to Anton Anders’s parole hearing. Michael had gone with me. I didn’t have to face Anders himself, but I’d read my prepared statement to the parole board. I’d told them that Anton Anders was a rapist and a murderer who had tried to kill me. The fact that it was over twenty years ago now didn’t matter; what mattered was that I’d almost died. What mattered was that if he went free now, I would never feel safe. I would go back to hiding in my condo, back to taking the bus. I’d go back to living half a life, when the only thing I’d done “wrong” was walk home from school. I’d told them I didn’t think that was justice. I’d said that true fairness in the world wasn’t possible, but letting Anton Anders have his freedom wasn’t even close. I’d said that it was a pretty simple decision to at least be more fair than that.
They’d denied his parole. The first person I wanted to call when I heard the news was Beth. It didn’t make any sense, but there it was.
I didn’t call her, but she heard the news anyway. The next week, I got a package in the mail: a red shawl, old and well cared for, folded neatly in tissue paper. It took me a minute to realize it was the shawl Beth had worn the day she was acquitted, when she stood next to Ransom in front of all those reporters. The shawl from the photo that had gone on the cover of Life.
Beth hadn’t put a note with the shawl, but she didn’t have to. She was telling me that she knew what victory felt like, especially when it was hard-won. I put the shawl in the closet, neatly tucked into its tissue paper, and I didn’t tell anyone about it.
Beth Greer was dead.
She was a murderer. A bitch. A cipher. A lonely girl raised by a broken family. She was brave and manipulative and selfish, and I owed her. I hated that, but I did.
I wondered if she’d seen Lily at the end. Because when I drifted off to sleep at night, I still felt Lily’s hands on me, and I still heard her voice, icy with death, in my ear:
Let’s go.
I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes, started the car, and headed home.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
February 2019
Someone new had bought the Greer mansion.
Why not? It was a beautiful structure on a piece of Arlen Heights’ prime real estate. It was a piece of Claire Lake history, now that Beth Greer was dead. The rumors that it was haunted only added to the mystique, and no one really believed that, anyway. It was true that Julian Greer had been murdered in the house, but that was in 1973—too far back to seem real to the family that was moving in. It was rumored that Beth Greer had killed her own sister in the master bedroom, and she’d died before they could prove it. But it didn’t matter much. The couple who bought the place were in their thirties, their kids eight and ten. The seventies were a bygone era to them.
The family had money—lots of it. They had plans. All of Beth’s dusty midcentury furniture was cleared out, sent to high-end consignment services to be sold to collectors. The old magazines and old ashtrays, Mariana’s jar of cold cream and Julian’s ties, were disposed of. Walls were going to be knocked out, and the living room and kitchen would become an open space. The old kitchen cupboards would come down, and stainless-steel appliances would make an appearance. A fence went up along the cliff to the ocean, and in spring a landscaping company would start digging to make a sleek stone patio for entertaining, with a retractable roof to keep out the rain. People would sip drinks and look out over the ocean in summer, making boisterous conversation as the kids ran in the yard.
For a while, there were only workers coming and going in the house, handling everything: paint, pot lights, hardwood flooring. But once the house was livable—and once the all-important fence went up—the family moved in. For the first time in decades, the Greer mansion had life in it.
Cars came and went. The kids went to school; the parents went to work. Friends and family visited. Weekends were nonstop, as the kids went to their friends’ homes or had them over, and the adults ran errands. There were dinner parties and birthday parties and outings with grandparents.
But at night, after the exhausted kids were asleep and the parents were drifting off, thinking about tomorrow’s to-do list, there was a light in the window of a room upstairs. A soft light that moved, as if someone were pacing. Watching. Someone who never slept.
Sometimes, there were two lights.
The family never talked about the cold spots in the hallways, or the strange dreams they sometimes had about someone walking through the house. They never talked about the doors left open, or the feeling you often got, especially when you were home alone, that someone was just behind you. The little girl never told anyone about the footprints she saw in the dewy grass some mornings, as if someone had come to the living room windows and looked in. The little boy never told anyone about the time he woke up to find someone—something—holding his hand, holding it in an icy grip as he lay paralyzed on the bed. He always told himself he’d dreamed that hand, though he never quite believed it.
No one ever talked about why they never went near the cliffs, even when there was a fence protecting them, or why they preferred to keep the curtains over the floor-to-ceiling windows closed.
They went about their lives without talking about the unnerving things, the dark things, about the house.
And at night, while they slept, two strange lights burned in the darkness.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With every book, I owe thanks to my editor, Danielle Perez. With this book, gratitude doesn’t cover it. She worked tirelessly to make this book the best it could be. It’s possible she has read it as many times as I have by now, which is an incredible feat. I owe her an unending debt for her patience, expertise, and willingness to always dig a little deeper. Thank you so much, Danielle.
Thanks to my agent, Pam Hopkins, who as always is a voice of reason in a crazy business. She is my rock.
Thanks to my husband, Adam, who helps me with plot problems, makes sure I always have the time and space to write, and does a million small things for me. I would never have written my first book, or any book after it, without your partnership and support.
Thanks to my sister, Nicole, and my brother, David. We had to lean on each other this year. I would be a wreck without both of you.
Thanks to the marketing and publicity team at Berkley, including Fareeda Bullert, Jin Yu, Danielle Keir, Tara O’Connor, and many others who do so much hard work putting my books into people’s hands (or in front of their eyeballs). I appreciate everything you do.
Thanks to the art department at Berkley, who go above and beyond to give me amazing covers.
Thanks to the librarians and booksellers who recommend my books—you are magic. Thanks to the bloggers and everyday readers who tell a friend, “You’ve gotta read this.” Thanks to the readers who write me nice notes, which always tend to hit my inbox on my lowest days.
Thanks to Molly and Stephanie, who talk me off the ledge over and over again, with every book. I’m always happy when I can return the favor.
Lastly, thank you to my mother, Suellen, who made me the woman I am and who passed in November 2020. I gave her an early copy of each of my books, but on release day she’d still go to her local bookstore, buy a copy, and tell the sales clerk excitedly that she was buying her daughter’s book. I was beyond lucky to have a mother so brilliant, brave, and loving. Thank you for everything, Mom. Rest well.