Envy

SNEAK PEEK!

RUNNING AS IF THEIR LIVES DEPENDED ON IT was the only thing Hayley and Taylor could do just then. Because they did depend on it. Anything else would mean turning themselves over to the man pursuing them—and the deadly edge of his hunting knife.

And there was no way either girl was going to do that.

In two short minutes their world had shifted. The bright sunlight and safety of friendly neighborhood backyards had changed into the moist darkness of the woods. The man had appeared suddenly, from nowhere, begging, cajoling, and then hurling threats like pipe bombs. The glint of the blade as he pulled it out from behind his back was all they saw before they hit the asphalt.

Their legs pumped … faster, faster, past an empty swing set, over perfect Port Gamble lawns, straining against the temptation to stop. Hayley and Taylor knew they only had three options: run, hide, or die. When they reached the last house and the forest tree line, they didn’t hesitate for a second before plunging ahead.

It seemed surreal, which was amazing considering all they had been through in the past few weeks.

He was coming after them.

Hayley and Taylor thrashed wildly through the forest, their feet landing hard against the black dirt in escalating rhythm with the blood that was jackhammering through their bodies. They were on the run in a place where screams melted into the green folds of the woods. The twins knew they should stay together, and they tried not to look over their shoulders, hoping they wouldn’t get caught, wondering what horrors would happen to them if they did.

The heavy lumbering noise of a large body crushing decaying leaves and brushing past mossy logs told the teens their pursuer was closing in. Then they heard the bristly sound of his thick voice, pleading, calling to them.

“Stop! This is just a big misunderstanding. I only want to talk. I won’t hurt you.”

Lies. The word floated through Hayley’s mind as she imagined his real intention: Come here. Closer. So I can take this knife and slit your pretty, slender throat like a chicken.

As Hayley tunneled through a tangle of salmonberry bushes, small circles of red bloomed across the white field of her T-shirt, another idea flashed through her mind: berry juice. In her heart of hearts, though, she knew it wasn’t. Salmonberries are bright orange. Not red.

In the terror of the moment, she paused mid-stride and realized that she and Taylor had become separated. She touched her fingertips to the damp fabric. It was blood. Hers? His? Her sister’s?

Hayley could hear the man’s heavy breathing, though she was sure he was not near enough to see her. She imagined the stink of his breath and how he’d spout more lies. She was determined not to let him get any closer. Because if he did manage to find her, jump her, and grab her, she knew that she would have to fight for the knife and do to him what he planned to do to her.

Just like a chicken.

As she passed through the thicket, not feeling the salmonberry thorns or the branches lashing against her face, Hayley wondered one thing above everything else: Is my sister safe?

SPRAWLED FACE-DOWN ON THE GROUND, Taylor Ryan froze. She desperately tried to remain calm and still … not move … not breathe. She even tried to force her own heart from beating. It was pounding like a drum, and she was sure the man with the very large knife could hear it. She had tumbled over a fallen tree, gashing her right hand on the broken knob of a branch. Crimson muddled the knee of her jeans—MEK’s that she’d saved all winter to buy. If this had been any other time, any other moment, she would have examined the jeans for tears. But not at that moment.

Besides the maniac chasing her, only one other thing was on her mind as she crouched in the crook of that fallen hemlock. She wondered about Hayley.

Her twin.

Her other half.

Taylor could feel the tears running down her face as she struggled to stay composed in that dank, dark forest. It was dead silent—the kind of silence that she hoped would conceal her location.

“Come out now. I won’t hurt either of you,” the man called again.

Either of you, Taylor thought with relief. Hayley must be alive.

Taylor rolled on her side and took cover in a ratty nest of sword ferns, trying to make sense of what had happened to her sister and her, and why. First there was a text message from someone with important information, a deeply hidden secret about the twins, and something about the videotape that Savannah Osteen had shown them. Then there was that fateful meeting with a stranger.

The twins had followed their crime-writing dad’s rules, if only partially. They had gone together. They didn’t go in anyone’s car. They agreed to meet in a public place. They did all of that. They were not stupid. They were raised on Bundy, Manson, and that somewhat appealing Craigslist killer. They understood that evil didn’t always look the part.

And yet there Taylor was, hiding from sure death, literally scared stiff. Wondering whether she deserved this. Whether she’d been good enough to the world. Whether what happened to Moira was their fault. Whether karma had knocked on their door with a poisoned edible arrangement.

Trying to steady herself, Taylor started to stand. A fan of dark-green ferns parted and a patch of hot pink, a color so wrong for the dank, cedar, and fir-laden forests of Washington State, caught her eye.

Pink?

She leaned closer, feeling the earth shift under her feet as fear swallowed her into the heavy, black earth.

Pink.

It took every ounce of self-control she had to keep from screaming. There was a bra. Pretty and pink. Lacey and torn. A garment in a place meant to conceal it forever.

Taylor touched it with a bloody fingertip and she knew immediately what she had stumbled on.

Brianna Connors. The bra belonged to her.

Brianna had been missing from school for weeks.

Twigs snapped and the sound of boots sloshing through a creek a few yards away ricocheted over the forest floor. Hayley?

Then, the voice again.

“I just want to talk to you,” the man said.

Like hell, killer.

What Taylor didn’t allow herself to think was what she already knew, a truth that was deep in the marrow of her bones. He had answers. Answers to questions about their past that nobody else had ever dared ask—not even she or Hayley. He held a piece of the puzzle they’d only begun to realize had started to take shape.

There was only one way to find out what they wanted to know. But how was she going to make sure she wouldn’t be on the losing end of the man’s knife?

Exhaling slowly, Taylor took a deep breath and stepped away from what remained of Brianna Connors, out into the clearing.