Act I The chalk dust made Ethan Mercer look like a ghost. It clung to his hair, his eyelashes, the folds of his beige hoodie. It floated beneath the fluorescent lights in the…

Act I Mia Laurent was curled on the marble floor beneath ten thousand dollars’ worth of handbags when the boutique manager decided the problem was not the lights, the noise, or the frightened…

Act I Julian Vale stopped so suddenly at the hospital door that Celeste nearly ran into his back. The room beyond him was too white. White curtains. White bed. White blanket. White light…

Act I The first thing Elena Hart saw when she came home was her black dress lying in the grass. Not folded. Not packed. Thrown. It lay across the front lawn like trash,…

Act I The dog was digging like the dirt had a heartbeat. Travis Holt crawled through the dark crawl space on his elbows, flashlight shaking in one hand, mud and dust grinding into…

Act I The German Shepherd came out of nowhere. One second, Claire Bennett was walking toward the hospital entrance with one hand under her pregnant belly and the other gripping her medical folder….

Act I The dog hit the boy so hard his backpack slapped against the tile. For one frozen second, nobody understood what they were seeing. A little boy in a gray hoodie had…

Act I The wedding had been perfect until the dog came running. Grace Whitmore stood beneath the flower-covered arbor with one hand resting lightly over her pregnant belly, the other trembling inside her…

Act I The girl was sitting on Bear Callahan’s motorcycle when he found her. Not beside it. Not near it. On it. She had climbed onto the black leather seat like it was…