Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Refrigerator
The last thing Claire Morgan heard before the call went dead was her sister screaming.
Then came the hard metallic boom of a body striking something hollow.
“Maya?”
Nothing.
Claire was already reaching for her keys.
Five hours later, after driving through the worst thunderstorm eastern Tennessee had seen all summer, she pulled into the gravel driveway of the farmhouse where she and Maya had grown up.
Her mother opened the door in a silk robe.
“It’s just a minor scratch,” Lorraine said.
Claire stared at her.
Rainwater ran from Claire’s hair onto the hardwood floor. Behind Lorraine, the kitchen light was still on.
Daniel Price, Claire’s stepfather, leaned against the counter holding a bourbon glass.
The refrigerator door behind him had a fresh inward dent at shoulder height.
Blood streaked the handle.
One of Maya’s forearm crutches lay beneath the breakfast table.
The other was missing.
“Where is she?”
“Hospital,” Lorraine said. “They’re making a production out of it.”
Daniel smiled.
“Your sister tripped. Again.”
Claire took off her wet jacket and folded it over a dining chair.
She had spent twelve years in the Army and more time than she cared to remember interviewing soldiers after assaults, accidents, and incidents everyone wished could be explained away.
She knew what panic looked like.
Daniel wasn’t panicked.
He was rehearsed.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Daniel shrugged. “She came through here too fast. Lost her balance. I tried to catch her.”
Lorraine interrupted. “She’s always been clumsy.”
Claire looked at the refrigerator.
“Which direction was she moving?”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“If you tried to catch her, where were you standing?”
He pointed vaguely toward the sink.
Claire photographed the dent.
Then the blood.
Then the crutch.
Daniel’s smile disappeared.
“What are you doing?”
“Preserving what I found.”
“You’re not a cop.”
“No.”
Claire met his eyes.
“But the deputies I called are.”
Red and blue lights flickered across the rain-soaked windows.
Daniel set down his glass.
Lorraine stepped toward Claire.
“You called the police before you even heard our side?”
Claire looked at the blood on the refrigerator.
“I heard Maya’s side first.”
The front door opened.
A deputy entered, shook rain from his hat, and looked from Lorraine to Daniel.
“Who here is Daniel Price?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
May you like
And Claire realized her stepfather wasn’t looking at the deputy.
He was looking at the empty place where Maya’s second crutch should have been.
