Finn follows her over to see what she is pointing at. A deep maroon stain on the carpet. He has to force himself not to step back in disgust.
The stain is dried to a rusty brown at the edges, but unmistakable in its nature. Blood. A lot of it. The kind of stain that comes from something serious, not a simple cut or scrape. His mind flashes to when he first found Caren and the fresh wound on the back of her head.
“You think that’s your blood?” he asks.
She looks up at him, her eyes wet with tears that catch the dim light. “I remember something,” she says, her voice breaking. “I remember waking up in this room.”
He nods, letting her words sink in. If Caren was in this basement, unconscious and bleeding, then this was no accident. This wasn’t just too much to drink. Someone did this to her. Someone brought her here, to the same house where Autumn was shot.
Two acts of violence in the same house—they had to be connected. He has no proof, no evidence, only his intuition. In that moment, Finn makes a silent promise—to Caren, to Autumn, to himself. He’ll help Caren find out what happened in this basement.
“You okay?” He reaches out, not quite touching Caren.
She nods. “What do we do now?”
“Now we call the police,” he says. “And this time they’ll have to listen. This time, we have proof.”
ELEVEN MONTHS AGO
A heat wave was rolling through DC during the Fourth of July weekend. Tori was home alone for the holiday— Leo was with her ex, and Autumn was away with friends. Tori spent most of Saturday on a chaise on the back patio, tanning herself in a string bikini. Two of her clients had ended their therapy with her in the past few weeks, which meant her income would be taking a hit in the next month. She ought to have been inside, on her computer, networking with other therapists and counselors trying to drum up business. But something stopped her.
The realization that she didn’t want to do this anymore.
She was closing in on thirty-five, divorced, with no man, and a job she’d come to resent, and she was living in a neighborhood that treated her like a pariah. Oh, and in a house her ex was renting for her because of her disastrous financial mistakes. Now when she thought ofthe Allards, it was anger that bloomed, not shame. The embarrassment of that public scene had worn off, leaving only a sense of resentment. How dare they treat her as if she were some kind of disease that had infected their pristine neighborhood?
Especially when their son was breaking into people’s houses and coming on to older women. They weren’t so perfect.
A loudbang bangwent off in the distance, followed by arat-tat-tat. Someone lighting off early fireworks. The Fourth was tomorrow, and there would be a big celebration on the National Mall downtown. Tonight’s fireworks were courtesy of neighborhood kids and a nearby country club. Tori rolled over and took a swig of a frozen margarita on the table beside her only to find it had melted to slush. She’d made a huge batch this morning after breakfast, all alone in the house. The other option had been crawling back into bed. She glanced at her watch and saw it was almost five. She’d been out here for hours and must have dozed off.
A thud and then a rustling sound startled her. She sat upright, her head spinning from the combination of sun, sleep, and booze, only to see the Allards’ goldendoodle come bounding through the hole in the hedge. She watched him run to the narrow strip of mulch on the left side of her yard. There, he grabbed a tennis ball in his mouth and turned around in circles a few times, excitedly. A moment later, Van popped his head through the hedge.
Tori’s heart skipped a beat. The afternoon suncaught the angles of his face, highlighting his high cheekbones. She felt her body tense, a mix of alarm and something else she didn’t want to acknowledge.
“You didn’t see a goldendoodle run by, did you?” He was wearing sunglasses, shorts, and a T-shirt that clung just enough to show the outline of his shoulders.
“Did you throw that ball into my yard on purpose?”
He shrugged, and the casual movement sent a ripple of muscle visible beneath his shirt. “Hey, buddy, gimme the ball,” he called to the dog, who ran toward him but kept a distance. “Muffinhead’s got the chase part down, but not the retrieve part.”
“Some dogs just love the chase.” Now why had she said that? What was she doing? Thank God she was wearing sunglasses to hide the way her eyes lingered on him. She imagined Jo’s face if she could see her now, the lonely divorcée, the financially ruined therapist, eyeing her precious son like she was a predatory cougar. Jo already thought Tori was trash, and this would confirm every suspicion she had about her. But she couldn’t deny she enjoyed flirting with Van. He made her feel alive and young, and it sent a little frisson of electricity through her to think how insane it would make Jo and Daniel if they knew. Anyway, as Cyrus had conceded, she was a grown woman who could do what she wanted.
“What are you up to tonight?” he asked.
“Umm, adult things.”
“Watching the fireworks?”
She shifted on the chaise, suddenly aware of how exposed she was in her bikini, how his eyes might be taking in her body behind those sunglasses.
“No. Are you?”
He shook his head. “My parents are in France for a few weeks, and Eloïse is at lacrosse camp at Stanford.”
“They have lacrosse camps at Stanford?”
“Sure. My mom thinks it’ll give her an edge when she applies next year. I need to stay home tonight and give the dog his anxiety medication. The fireworks totally freak him out. You got plans for dinner?”
She didn’t, but she didn’t want to admit that. Didn’t want to seem pathetic and alone on a Saturday night, though that’s exactly what she was.
