Prologue
Ilooked at her.
She was too pale.
Rain had begun to fall, thickening the night and swallowing the last trace of blue from the sky. Moonlight slid over her skin, making it glisten, and her blonde hair spilled down her back, tangled with wet leaves and dirt.
I knelt beside her. The damp earth soaked through my black jeans. I tried to piece together how I ended up here. My eyes traced her face. Her lips were already blue. Her half-lidded eyes held nothing but emptiness behind them.
I reached for her cheek.
Cold bit through the leather of my gloves, sharp enough to steal my breath. When I tried to tilt her head, it resisted. A dry sound came from her neck, like cracking bones. I’ve seen death before. She has been gone for weeks now.
I stopped.
My head tilted, my eyes locked with a single puzzle piece that rested against the spine of her back. The puzzle piece was empty, just white with the number eleven stamped into it.
“Who are you?” I whispered. The question felt pointless the moment it left my mouth.
The rain answered instead.
Footsteps crunched behind me.
Someone was sneaking.
Branches cracked. Leaves crunched as someone moved closer. Then a beam of light cut through the darkness, blinding me.
“I caught you red-handed,” a man said.
Before I turned, I slid the puzzle piece from her back. It came away too easily. I slipped it into my pocket, my fingers closing around it as the light sharpened onto my eyes.
“Turn around,” he shouted.
I did.
The flashlight burned my eyes. I squinted as a gun came into view, and a man steadied it in his grip, just before his badge flashed beside it.
“You are done, you bastard,” he said. “You will die in jail.”
I said nothing.
“Hands behind your back,” he ordered. “You are under arrest.”
The words barely registered. I let him move me. Let him pull my arms behind me. The cuffs snapped shut, locking my wrists.
He read my rights. I still said nothing.
Silence was all the answer he needed.
A beginning turned into an end. An end turned into a new beginning.
And my mind pulled me back to the night before.
I woke drenched in sweat.
The clock read 3:07 a.m. People say strange things happen around that hour. I’ve never been superstitious. Being back in Eureka Springs was starting to change that.
I reached for the lamp on the nightstand and turned it on.
