Chapter 1 - THE RIVER
My husband looked me straight in the eye while our SUV filled with river water.
Then he smiled.
“Don’t waste your strength, Rosalind,” Garrett said. “That door isn’t opening.”
For one stupid second, I thought I had heard him wrong.
Water poured through the floor vents around my shoes.
“Tobias is in the back!” I screamed.
Garrett calmly unbuckled his seat belt.
My brother sat behind us in his wheelchair, pale and silent.
He had been paralyzed for fifteen years.
He couldn’t swim.
He couldn’t even stand.
“Garrett, what are you doing?”
My husband rolled down his window.
Cold water exploded into the SUV.
Then he looked at me one last time.
“It’ll be over fast.”
My blood turned colder than the river.
He climbed out.
Just like that.
He left us there.
“GARRETT!”
I fought my seat belt.
The buckle wouldn’t release.
I pulled harder.
Nothing.
Water climbed over my knees.
My waist.
My ribs.
Then my fingers brushed something beneath the seat.
Wire.
Metal wire had been wrapped through my seat belt mechanism and secured to the frame.
Someone had trapped me deliberately.
I stared through the windshield.
Garrett surfaced twenty yards away.
He swam toward the shore without looking back.
And someone was waiting for him.
A woman stood under an umbrella.
Tall.
Blonde.
One hand resting on her pregnant belly.
My half sister.
Penelope.
“No…”
Garrett reached her.
She threw her arms around him.
He kissed her.
Then both of them turned toward the sinking SUV.
Toward me.
My own sister put her hand over her mouth.
For half a second, I thought she was horrified.
Then she started laughing.
The water reached my neck.
“Tobias,” I whispered.
No answer.
I twisted around.
“I’m sorry.”
He stared at me.
“Tobias?”
Then my paralyzed brother placed both hands on the arms of his wheelchair.
And stood up.
I stopped breathing.
He pulled a cutting tool from beneath his jacket.
“Tobias…”
“Not now.”
He cut my seat belt.
Then he grabbed my face.
“Listen to me.”
“What the hell is happening?”
“Play dead.”
“What?”
He looked toward the shore.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“Garrett is watching.”
May you like
Then he kicked the back door open.
And for the second time that afternoon, everything I knew about my family shattered.
