swore under his breath. Then, “Have you called anyone else?”
“No. I—”
“Okay, okay, we do this by the book. It’s the only way to go here. You’re a cop—you do this right. You gotta be beyond suspicion, you got that?”
“Sus-suspicion? Shit, Nick, why would I—”
“You’re there, aren’t you? You woke up with her. You’re the last one to see her alive, the one to find the body. You know how this works, kid. You’re a cop.”
Everything in Bryan tightened until he thought he was going to break. “Yeah. I mean…yeah.”
“Hang up and call your father. I’m gonna call the chief, and I’ll get there by the time he does. You just wait for us. Don’t call anyone else—don’t, for the love of God, call her family. Just your dad. Tell him to get here A-SAP. I’m on my way. Don’t go back inside. Don’t touch anything. Don’t take a shower or change clothes. Just sit there, you understand?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I just—”
“I know, kid. You hang in. I’m on this. I’m gonna be there in a matter of minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Just breathe. It’s gonna be all right.”
“Okay.”
“Where’s your sidearm, Kendall?”
Bryan blinked as he thought for a second and remembered where he’d put the gun the last time he’d had it out. It had been a while. He’d been on paid leave since a recent hostage standoff, waiting for the department shrink to give him the all clear. “In the lockbox, hall closet.”
“You sure no one else is in the house?”
Bryan’s head came up slowly, and he looked behind him through the still-open door. “I didn’t really check.”
“Don’t. Get yourself a little distance away, but maintain line of sight, just in case.”
“Okay.”
“Be careful, kid. I’ll see you soon.”
Bryan closed his eyes, disconnected and felt as if his world had turned upside down. He got to his feet and looked back inside the house, feeling a little more certain there was no one lurking inside. Then again, a few minutes ago, if asked, he would have been fairly certain he wasn’t going to find a dead woman in his bed.
So he walked several steps down the driveway, but only got as far as his brand-new, candy-apple-red Mustang Shelby GT, before he had to stop and throw up. And he didn’t think it had anything to do with the alcohol he’d imbibed the night before. Dammit, how could Bette be dead? Much less strangled? Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he’d imagined the marks on her throat. Maybe the chief had been right to put him on leave, and he did have some kind of PTSD or something going on, and he’d just imagined all of this. Maybe if he walked back into the house right now, he would find Bette sitting up in bed and griping about being late for whatever early-morning class she had.
He could almost believe it. He nearly turned and walked back inside. But something stopped him. The weight of the phone on his hand, he guessed. He needed to call his dad.
He wanted to call Dawn instead.
He wanted to hear her voice right now even more than he wanted to quell the waves of nausea battering his stomach. But that wasn’t going to happen. He and Dawn hadn’t spoken in five years. There was too much space between them now. Too much hurt. Too little effort to remedy or even address it. He couldn’t call Dawn, even though hearing her voice on the phone would make things better in a way nothing else could.
No. Not even Dawn could fix this.
He opened the car door, sat down inside and stared for a long moment at the dark, hulking shape in the distance, where the waterfall that gave this town its name shot off the end of a rocky ledge and tumbled down. The craggy flat-topped beast of a cliff was positioned in such a way that the waterfall itself was nearly always in shadow, making it dark and ominous looking, rather than cheerful or sparkly, the way most waterfalls seemed. Shadow Falls, the landmark, was not beautiful. It was downright spooky. But Shadow Falls, the town, had been the place with an opening on the police force after he’d finished college. And it was only an hour from what he considered home. And so it was perfect.
Or he’d thought it was.
But the town seemed far from perfect right now. Because it concealed something in its shadowy depths. Something evil. A cold-blooded killer was lurking here. And he’d never even known.
Sighing, Bryan called his father, fifty miles away in his hometown of Blackberry, Vermont.
2
Nick Di Marco was a big man. And it wasn’t entirely a physical thing. He was tall enough at five foot eleven, and his shoulders were wide and solid, even though he was lugging around some extra belly fat these days. His once raven-black hair was streaked with silver, his intense brown eyes lined with crow’s-feet that made his smiles more infectious, and his frowns downright scary. Beneath all of that, he was the best cop Bryan had ever had the honor to know. Retired or not.
And he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Di Marco was a hero cop, and everyone in Shadow Falls knew it.
So Bryan felt a little lighter when he saw Nick get out of his black, big-as-a-boat, old Crown Victoria and come striding toward him. Bryan got out of his own car, whose payments were as much as his rent, and tried to hide the fact that his knees were shaking. It was warm outside, the summer sun already beating down on them.
Nick threw his arms around Bryan, and it was no pat-on-the-back “guy” hug; this was a full-blown, real thing that squeezed the air right out of his lungs. “You okay, kid? You okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.” Nick clapped a big palm to the back of Bryan’s head and crushed it to his shoulder for a second, then released him and backed off enough to search his face. “You call your dad?”
“Yeah. He’s on his way.”
“Good. That’s real good, Kendall.” Nick turned his head as another vehicle came skidding to a halt along the roadside. Chief MacNamara had driven the Bronco with the Shadow Falls Police Department logo—a black waterfall inside a circle made up of the words themselves—on the front doors, and the bubblegum lights on the roof. At least those lights weren’t flashing.
Chief Mac got out, thick shocks of unruly white hair sticking up all over. His face showed all the ruddy puffiness of a lifelong drinker, and his belly backed up the story. He was fat enough that he sort of swayed heavily from side to side when he tried to walk fast, which was what he was doing now.
“Somebody want to tell me just what the hell is going on here?” he demanded a little breathlessly.
Nick nodded. “Tell him, Kendall. Tell us both.”
Bryan took a deep breath and nodded once. “I had a party last night. To celebrate getting the okay to go back on the
