After a few hours, Ellie broke the silence and turned her phone toward me. “Hey, look at this.”
On the screen was a social media profile for someone named Lauren Boone. Private account. No profile picture. But there were a couple of public posts in local groups. The most recent one was a giveaway—free furniture and kitchen stuff, left out on the curb with an address on the outskirts of Shadow Ridge from a few months back.
I sat up straighter. “Lauren Boone?”
“Her maiden name was Boone, according to public records. She probably changed it back after everything.”
“You think this is her? Still living nearby?”
“There’s no picture of her, but maybe. It’s worth checking out. It could be interesting.”
“You want to go to this house, don’t you?”
She gave a weary smile. “I mean…”
“Not tomorrow,” I said, “but maybe the day after?”
“Okay.”
I tilted my head at her. “You think she’ll actually talk to us?”
Ellie shrugged. “Probably not, but we won’t know unless we try.”
We worked through the night until I abandoned all pretense of helping. Instead, I studied her—the way she chewed her thumbnail when she was stuck on something, how her whole face lit up when she thought she'd cracked a code.
When her phone died around midnight, we moved to the floor by the fire. We reread the first three entries together and stopped there—that was the deal. She kept pushing for one more, but I needed her to have a reason to come back. Honestly? I hoped we’d never run out of mysteries.
She ended up using my shoulder as a pillow. Every small movement, every hum when she was thinking, made the world shrink until it was only the two of us, the fire, and those old pages.
There was something in that moment, something impossible to fake. We weren’t just reading a tragic story—we were marking the start of our own.
Not a bad Christmas Eve, all things considered.
Sitting there with her against me, watching the firelight catch her face while she got lost in someone else’s words, I realized I was already hooked to something else entirely.
And I knew she wouldn’t be something I could easily walk away from.
TWENTY-ONE
Ellie
“Ellie, baby,”someone murmured, tugging me out of sleep.
His voice was all gravel and warmth, brushing along my skin.
I groaned and buried my face deeper into the pillow. “Yes?”
“Merry Christmas,” Sawyer whispered, brushing a strand of hair off my face. “Time to rise and shine. Can’t sleep through Christmas morning.”
I cracked one eye open and immediately jolted upright. “Sawyer. What are you wearing?”
He grinned and pulled at the front of his sweater like he was presenting a masterpiece. “Gracie got it for me.”
“Why the hell does that have my face on it?”
It was bright red, decked out in sequins, cartoon presents, and, because humiliation apparently had no limits, my face. Giant. Grinning. Right across the chest.
He beamed, clearly delighted by my horror. “Because you’re my girlfriend.”
