A psychological thriller that will keep you turning pages all night with every light in the house blazing. WARNING: You won’t guess the twisted conclusion.
A dead man’s evil lives on …
After a nasty mother-teenage daughter argument, AnnaSophia Romanov discovers her defiant daughter in bed with a stranger.
Fodder for the sleazeratti. Hell for Alexandra's younger brother and sister. They’re still coping with the aftermath of their psychopathic father’s brutal, unsolved murder.
Desperate, AnnaSophia calls the last person she should ask for help. The tabloids claim ex-cop Satish Patel abetted her in her husband's murder. He reluctantly agrees to deal with the deviant in Alexandra’s bed. But then, AnnaSophia makes a disastrous decision that leads to six murders.
That decision reveals a lifetime of lies, deceits, and secrets which threaten to destroy her entire family.
Prologue
Monday—9 a.m.—Cielo Vista, California
“Jesus Chri—” Twenty-eight-year-old Noah Penn stared up at the cloudless blue sky, took a deep breath, looked back down at his palm, and tasted nausea clawing up his throat. He tore off his face mask. “Shit, oh shit, oh shiiit. Tom, get over here! I need help, Goddammit.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Slowed by his hazmat suit, Tom was hauling ass as he rounded the other side of the incinerator. “You hurt? You’re white as these ashes.”
Noah shook his head. The ground tilted under his heavy work boots. A robot, he extended his fisted hand, opened it, and shoved his palm at Tom.
“Teeth.” His voice rasped. He swiped the sweat dripping off his eyebrows. “Human.”
“Jesus.” Tom took a step backwards. “How can you tell? One’s only half there.”
READ MORE“I don’t give a shit,” Noah yelled, his heart pounding. “They’re human.”
Tom averted his head and gazed out at the unbroken view of the Golden Gate Bridge thirty miles away. “Who’s gonna shell out fifty mil for a house with an on-site crematorium?”
Chapter 1
ANNASOPHIA
One Month Later—Sunday—Midnight—Los Altos, California
The chimes from the grandfather clock I’ve heard since childhood vibrate in my sleep-deprived brain. Noooo, Alexandra. Not again. You promised.
Refusing to open eyes that feel like fried eggs, I groan and curl cheek and shoulder deeper into the overstuffed chair. The velvet fabric caresses my ear. I sigh. The chimes fade.
My jaw relaxes. Neck muscles let go. My unconscious surfs out on the next killer wave toward sleep. The wave carries me further and further and further away from my bedroom.
A muted tick, tick, tick seeps into the fog. Can’t … My eyelids flutter. No sleep … not ... until …
The five-hundred page, metal-bound, three-ring notebook slips off my lap and slaloms over my silk robe. Fire bites my right foot. My drowsy brain convulses. Wide-awake, I jerk upright, swearing words forbidden to my son and two daughters. I fight tears and bend over my foot.
A scarlet bloom tints the skin around the cuneiform—an anatomical factoid that explodes involuntarily in my physician’s mind. I lurch out of the chair and hop in place for a fraction of a second. Damn. Damn. God—
As treatments for a possible fracture go, hopping sucks.
“A bruise,” I murmur and limp toward the kitchen for an ice pack—every ER doc’s best friend.
Living at Belle Haven, you had a fridge ten steps away.
A shiver scuds across the back of my neck. My mental video camera clicks on. A phosphorescent imprint of a hilltop villa wavers on my parietal lobe. Between silvery bursts of my dead husband’s architectural folly, a Technicolor close-up of the master bedroom explodes.
Sweat drips off my eyebrows. I swipe my forehead and lock my jaw. Call me crazy, but the small matter of an incinerator in the backyard cancels a fridge in the master bedroom every time. The clamminess on my scalp creeps into my hair as I shuffle down the hall. The damn image glows brighter. I stop and close my eyes. The vision swells. Gross. Hideous. Straight off the set of a horror movie.
Even if the lawyers break the will, how in the name of God will I ever sell the damn monstrosity?
Off-balance, I sway. Needles stab my foot. My eyes snap open. The clock ticks and tocks louder. A collage of another memory—more recent—fast-forwards through the pain.
Midnight. Alexandra’s curfew.
Missed again.
Dammit. I rest against the wall and rip my cell phone from the pocket of my robe. The Cynical Mother inside my head chants what my eyes reinforce.
No message—text or voice.
My first impulse is to kick the nearest wall, but muted voices from Alexandra’s bedroom paralyze me. Heat scalds my ears. God, she came home. Found me snoring like a goat. Went to bed without waking me. Fell asleep watching TV.
And your fairy godmother waved her wand and granted your every fantasy.
Lips pressed together, I grasp the door handle. Breathe. Something toxic slithers silently through my veins. So many arguments lately. Grades. Clothes. Curfews.
The poison implodes inside the craters of my brain and suffocates my lungs and heart. So many acts of defiance. Disrespect. Disgust.
Cynicism pinches the artery that should feed me with love. So little trust. Gentleness. Understanding.
The knot in my stomach coils tighter and squeezes the harness holding back my guilt. Guilt for lying. For hiding so many secrets. For missing Alexandra’s slide toward self-destruction.
I stare at the wall.
Who is the adult? Who the adolescent? Who the manipulator? Who the manipulated?
Does Alexandra ever remember our heads together as we planted roses in her toddler days? We laid dirt-stained fingers on the other’s nose and laughed. Like normal people.
My sweaty fingers slip off the door handle. I slide my hands down my silk robe. The TV volume drops. Tempted to press my ear against the door, I step back and swallow a yelp.
Let it go. Let it go. Don’t wake her. Talk to her tomorrow. The adrenaline slows.
Reason gains traction. Make time just for her. Go horseback riding. Or hiking. Or whatever she wants to do. The two of you. Alone.
Part of me recognizes I’m stalling. Anything to avoid another incendiary situation. Maybe daylight will defuse the still-live hand grenades we lobbed on other nights past curfew.
The dull thud in my foot kicks up a notch. I bite my bottom lip. I won’t die without ice, but my foot will hurt less. My mind will become clearer. I can strive for—
“Owww. That hurts.” Alexandra’s voice vibrates with pain.
“Thought you liked rough.”
The male voice bangs my skull. Nicholas?
Instinct kicks in. I slam open the door. It boomerangs off the wall and smacks my hip and throws me back a step. Disbelief splinters my heart.
Seeing is not believing.
In the middle of Alexandra’s bed, a naked, buff, blond male, mid-twenties, kneels behind my oldest daughter in doggy position.
“Get off, you bastard.” Hands raised to crush his brain, I leap forward. Something sharp and unexpected tears loose in my foot, knocking me sideways.
Alexandra lifts her head and looks over her shoulder. “Oops. Fun’s over.”
The guy withdraws his penis, grins at me as if we’re stars in a porn film, and opens his arms wide. “Hey, Mom. Lexi didn’t tell me we’d have a threesome.”
COLLAPSE
