Dedication
TO AMANDA, CONNOR, AND ABBY.
For making me laugh and cry,
and everything in between.
AND TO MAT—
welcome to the family!
Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
The Road to Hell
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
The Ties that Bind
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Blood Is Thicker than Water
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Birds of a Feather
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
A House Divided
Chapter 14
Spare the Rod
Chapter 15
Love Is All You Need
Chapter 16
Finders Keepers
Chapter 17
Sticks and Stones
Chapter 18
See No Evil
Chapter 19
No Rest for the Wicked
Chapter 20
Silence Is Golden
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Kimberly Derting
Back Ads
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
JAY HIT THE DOOR WITH HIS SHOULDER, BUT IT didn’t splinter beneath his weight or anything quite so dramatic. The handle, which was probably old and in disrepair anyway, fell apart on impact and the door shot open, banging against the wall on the other side. The crashing noise filled the dark house, echoing off the walls.
The sound of rushing water was stronger in here, as was the stink of urine. Violet recoiled from the smell, covering her face. She could only see fragments of the space around her, tiny pieces of the room: an old bureau with a cracked mirror, its jagged shards catching bits of light from outside and reflecting it around them; a window with dingy-looking curtains billowing in on either side of it; a mound in the center of the floor that could only be one thing.
“Chelsea,” Violet whimpered, falling to her knees at the same time she caught a glimpse of another person—the killer—emerging from the darkened corner. Above his head there was something glowing, a blur of light that Violet couldn’t make out . . . he was moving far too quickly now.
“Jay,” she tried to warn, but it wasn’t necessary.
Whoever he was, he was already launching himself toward the open window, throwing himself over the sill just as Jay was about to reach him. And with him went both the trickling of water and the stench of old urine.
Two of his imprints.
“We did it,” Violet breathed. “We found her.” Outside, the shrill sound of sirens came closer, and she no longer cared about anything except that they’d found Chelsea.
And then, before she could stop him, before she could even shout his name, she watched as Jay, too, hurled himself over the window’s ledge.
She started to get up, to go to the window to see if he was okay. To see if he’d landed safely, but a hand stopped her. Chelsea’s hand.
Relief rippled within her and spread outward.
“It’s okay, Chels, I’m here now. I’m here.”
She heard it then, a wheezing sound, and she felt frantically for Chelsea’s face, her hands stroking her friend’s cheeks. “It’s okay,” she repeated, but this time she was no longer sure. Something was wrong.
She kept going, her hands searching the girl beneath her as the sirens outside grew nearer and nearer. When her hands reached Chelsea’s belly, she felt something warm and sticky and wet.
Her first instinct was to draw away. She didn’t want to touch it. Not this. Not Chelsea’s blood.
But that moment passed quickly, and then Violet was screaming as she heard the commotion below her, just outside the window. “Help! We need help in here!”
She pressed her hands as hard as she could to the wound, it was all she could remember from the abbreviated first aid course they’d had in PE. She thought that maybe she should do something more, but she didn’t know what that something might be.
And then Chelsea went still beneath her.
Not the kind of still that happens when someone falls asleep, when you continue to feel their breaths, when you know that their blood is coursing within them.
No, this was a different kind of still. The kind that Violet had only seen in death.
The final kind of still.
She heard footsteps that seemed too far away. Voices that were disjointed and sounded nonsensical to her ears.
Nothing made sense. Nothing was real.
Hands pulled her off Chelsea and she struggled against them, fighting to stay with her, fighting to remain at her friend’s side so she could save her. So she could protect her. To stop whatever was happening.
But when she first saw the smoke coming up from Chelsea, from her friend’s hair, her skin, her mouth, as insubstantial and wraithlike as the air itself, she realized . . . she knew . . .
She was too late.
Heat . . . smoke . . .
This was Chelsea’s echo.
CHAPTER 1
Almost Three Weeks Earlier
VIOLET AMBROSE COVERED HER HEAD WITH her pillow and punched it, trying to drive her fist through her ears—through her own skull if necessary—in hopes of silencing the constant music-box sound that followed her. Everywhere. Even into the depths of sleep.
It haunted her dreams and preoccupied her thoughts, taking up every spare iota of space in her brain. And then some.
Violet had never worried about the echoes of the dead before. She’d never spent much time wondering why a certain body carried the sensation that it did—the bold tastes, the intricate colors, the intense smells. She’d just accepted them for what they were. They were simply part and parcel of those who were taken away from this world too soon. She understood that those who were killed carried an echo, and that whoever was responsible for their deaths would carry his or her own matching imprint. End of story.
Except that now, Violet had her own imprint. And it was all she could think about. It was like she had become trapped in her own personal hell.
Because now she was a killer too. And in becoming a killer, she was now encumbered with a burden almost too great to bear.
Violet hated the song that echoed around, and above, her. Hated this particular echo of the dead like she’d never hated any other before.
Not because it wasn’t beautiful or melodious or catchy. But because it was unending. A constant reminder of what she’d done.
You’re a killer . . .
You’re a killer . . .
You’re a killer . . .
It never stopped.
She reached for her iPod and cranked up the volume until she was certain that everyone in the house could hear the music that erupted from the earbuds. She cringed against the metallic grate that meant she’d already turned it up way too high, and that the tiny internal speakers were threatening to blow. Only then did she press the button, letting the music fade . . . but only slightly.
She wanted to sleep. Wanted it so badly that her eyes burned and her head throbbed. But she knew it wasn’t coming . . . not easily. Not this night.
There was a way though. Not one she liked, or even wanted to give in to. But there was a way.
Throwing back her covers, Violet jerked clumsily, getting out of bed and crossing her room. She kept her headphones on as she grabbed her purse from the dresser and dropped back onto her bed. Like the imprint, th
e purse was new, as was her cell phone and the alarm system for their house, all reminders of what had happened to her. She squeezed the stiff canvas between her fingers as she peeled the top wide, peeking inside.
It was in there—the bottle—and she reached for it tentatively.
Inside the brown plastic container, she could see one last pill, and she opened the top, letting the chalky capsule drop into her palm. Letting the weight of it sink in.
She hated how badly she needed it. And she hated that there was only this one remaining.
It meant she’d have to ask Dr. Lee for more.
The very thought made her shudder. It didn’t matter to Violet that she’d been forced to see him on a weekly basis. During those visits she did her best to ask for nothing, and she offered less. She sat stiffly in his office, answering his questions as basically as was humanly possible.
He’d backed her into a corner by making it more than clear that her resignation from the team had been denied.
Not typical psychiatrist behavior, Violet thought—not that she’d had a lot of experience with psychiatrists—but she could only assume that they normally didn’t threaten bodily harm to their patients’ families.
At first she hadn’t trusted any of them. Not Sara or Rafe, or even Krystal, Sam, or Gemma. She blamed them all . . . for everything. For Caine. For Dr. Lee.
For the nightmares and the imprint that kept her awake night after night.
That didn’t last long, though, because she knew it wasn’t their fault. Caine hadn’t found her because of them. He’d found her because of her . . . because of what she could do. She’d wanted to be useful then, wanted to help stop killers like Caine.
And if she was being honest, she still wanted that. She just didn’t want to be told she had no choice in the matter. But that wasn’t her team’s fault . . . at least not Rafe and the others. Sara, she still didn’t know about, not really. She couldn’t imagine a world in which Sara would force something like that on her.
Not the Sara she knew. Not the Sara who’d saved Violet’s life, and now bore a frigid imprint of her own to prove it.
So for now, she blamed Dr. Lee. She kept her appointments with him, and she took the pills he offered her, but she gave him nothing in return. She hoped that maybe, just maybe, he’d grow bored by her insipidness, tired of hearing the tedium of her day-to-day life.
Maybe he’d become irritated with her and finally reveal his true intentions.
She knew it was foolish to hope for such simplistic solutions, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking that way. She hated that by taking this pill Dr. Lee would somehow know she needed him.
But the sad truth was, she did need him. The pills were the only things that seemed to help these days. The only way she could shut off the interminable imprint so she could sleep.
Check that, so she could drift into a comalike state—sensing, tasting, smelling, and hearing nothing at all.
It was bliss. Pure, unadulterated, drug-induced bliss.
She threw the pill into her mouth and swallowed, savoring the chalky feel against the back of her tongue. Relishing that soon—very, very soon—she’d feel nothing at all.
Even if it was only temporary.
Even if it meant going back to Dr. Lee for more.
“You excited about tomorrow? First day of school.”
Violet pulled a clean mug out of the dishwasher and scowled at her mom’s enthusiasm. “Seriously, Mom, take it down a notch. What’s gotten into you, anyway? Shouldn’t you still be in bed?” She frowned at the window, wishing the shades were still drawn against the glare of the morning sun.
Maggie Ambrose’s expression shifted, contorting into a mask of compassion. “I heard you last night. How late were you up?” She took a step closer, and Violet realized for the first time that her mom was already dressed, already wearing her paint-smeared smock, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. The only thing missing was a beret, perched just so, to complete the look of a picture-perfect artist.
“Are you going somewhere?”
Her mom’s mouth twisted. “Stop deflecting and answer my question. Is it the imprint, Vi? Is it keeping you up?”
Wincing, Violet shook her head a little too quickly, pretending she couldn’t hear the eerie plinking of the music box all around her. “Of course not.” She hated that she was so transparent, and wished her parents would stop looking at her like that . . . like she was somehow broken. “It’s . . . school. I’m just excited about school.”
Her mom laughed, but there was no mistaking the sarcasm in her voice. “Yeah, right. You and school, you’re like this.” She held her fingers up, crossing them tightly together. But she didn’t push the matter, even though that worried expression returned as she changed the subject. “I was thinking about taking a little field trip into the mountains, to see if I can find some inspiration up there. Maybe you should come with me,” her mom suggested, watching as Violet’s hand shot up to cover her eyes against the sunlight pouring in through the kitchen window. “The fresh air might do you some good.”
Violet didn’t doubt it, not that she thought a little fresh air could cure what ailed her. But she knew how she must look, standing there in the kitchen wearing her rumpled pajamas, her hair unbrushed in a tangled halo around her head. The pills had worked, maybe a little too well, because now Violet felt as if she were squinting out through a dense fog that clung to her—following her like a second skin and trying to dampen her mood.
She glanced down, scowling at the empty mug in her hand, suddenly remembering what she’d been planning to do with it when her mom had sidetracked her. She turned to the coffeemaker, thinking, Caffeine. I just need caffeine to clear my head, as she grumbled, “No thanks. I have stuff to do today.”
“Like getting ready for school?” her mom inquired, still sounding skeptical.
“No, Mom, like stuff. Just stuff.”
Her mom made a sound that might have been meant as a laugh, but by the time it reached her lips it came out sounding more like a strangled sigh instead. “Suit yourself, Vi. But I’m not wasting another minute of this glorious day.” Violet watched as her mom gathered up her heavy canvas bag that was overflowing with brushes and charcoals, a sketchbook, and a small stretched canvas, as if she hadn’t yet decided whether she’d be drawing or painting today. She wondered if there was clay in there too, in case the urge to sculpt struck her while she was on this little field trip of hers.
“Have fun with that,” Violet quipped sullenly.
Pausing at the door, her mom met her gaze. “I can stay if you want me to. . . .”
Violet lifted her hand in a half wave, a puny effort to appease her mom since it wasn’t her fault that Violet’s head pounded or that she’d used up the last of her pills. “I’m fine. Go . . . enjoy your fresh air.”
Violet leaned back and ran her hands over the top of the cool grass beneath her as she stared out at the chicken wire that ran around a small patch of earth in her backyard. Shady Acres. Such a strange name, she thought, considering that she and Jay had been kids when they’d come up with it. She couldn’t remember why they’d decided to call it that in the first place, what exactly had inspired the cryptic name, but she remembered that when she’d heard it—whichever of them, she or Jay, had said it first—she’d known it was perfect. That it fit.
It was a good name for an animal graveyard.
It didn’t look like much, really. Just a mismatched collection of sticks and rocks and clumps of dirt—some with grass growing over them, and some not—in long, irregular rows. All surrounded by the chicken wire her dad had helped her construct to keep the live animals outside from digging up the dead ones inside. To anyone else it was a mess, the remains of what might have once been a garden or a compost pile or just a dead patch of lawn.
Violet could remember a time, when she was in the sixth or seventh grade, when she’d worried that one of her friends— Chelsea or Jules or Claire—might figure out what it really w
as, that they might discover her darkest secret. She’d been so bothered by the idea, so tortured by the thought, that she’d saved her allowance to buy seed packets from the store and she’d carefully mounted them on old Popsicle sticks, setting them up in perfect lines in the graveyard, making it look like it was a garden. Making it look like something might actually spring up from the ground at any minute.
Like it was a place of life, rather than of death.
She probably shouldn’t have worried; none of her friends had ever mentioned the place in her yard with the chicken-wire fence. None of them had ever seemed to notice its existence, except for Jay.
This had always been her place. Even now, sitting here and listening to it . . . feeling its staticky echoes reach for her, enfolding her, she felt at peace. She could almost forget she had an imprint of her own. As if those animals in there were offering her a brief moment of amnesty, repaying her kindness for giving them the peace they craved by covering her imprint.
Almost . . .
“Remember when you told your parents you wanted to be buried in there?” Jay’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and a small smile tugged at her lips.
“I remember my dad spent like three hours explaining why I had to be buried in a real graveyard,” she said, doing her best to mimic her dad’s pragmatic tone. “And why ‘proper channels’ had to be followed when someone died. He told me that people can’t just be buried in their own backyards. He even explained what embalming was, which totally grossed me out. I mean, I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, I think.
“And then my mom came home and I told her my idea about being buried in the backyard, and I think she said something like, ‘What a lovely idea, Vi. Then you could be with your animals forever.’” Violet giggled. “My poor dad. I thought he was gonna lose it for sure. Sometimes I wonder how him and my mom ever hooked up in the first place.”
Jay sat down in the grass next to her, their shoulders brushing. “And then you told me about ‘em-bombing.’ Remember?” He raised his eyebrows when he said the word the way Violet had said it to him all those years ago. “You told me all about how they stick hoses inside your body and drain out all the blood, and then fill you back up with chemicals that keep your body from rotting. I think you actually said the word rotting too. And we made a pact that we didn’t want anything to do with it. That we wanted to be cremated so we could have our ashes spread over the playground at school.”
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