In Her Shadow

by Kristin Miller

  In Her Shadow is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Kristin Miller

  Excerpt from The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives by Kristin Miller copyright © 2021 by Kristin Miller

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives by Kristin Miller. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  ISBN 9781524799496

  Ebook ISBN 9781524799489

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Jen Valero, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Ella Laytham

  Cover photographs: © LisaInGlasses / Getty Images (house); Nic Skerten / Millennium Images, UK (woman); abriendomundo / Shutterstock (hair); Sky-Blue Images / Stocksy (forest)

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Sunday: One Week Until Colleen’s Murder

  Monday: Six Days Until Colleen’s Murder

  July Fifteenth of Last Year

  Tuesday: Five Days Until Colleen’s Murder

  Wednesday: Four Days Until Colleen’s Murder

  July Sixteenth of Last Year

  Thursday: Three Days Until Colleen’s Murder

  Friday: Two Days Until Colleen’s Murder

  Saturday: The Day Before Colleen’s Murder

  Sunday: The Day of Colleen’s Murder

  Two Hours Before Colleen’s Murder

  One Hour Before Colleen’s Murder

  Twenty-four Hours After Colleen’s Murder

  Forty-eight Hours After Colleen’s Murder

  One Week After Colleen’s Murder

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives

  About the Author

  Desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

  JAMES 1:15

  COLLEEN

  “Help.” My voice is hoarse. Fading fast. Someone help me.

  But no one’s coming. No one knows I’m down here. My head pounds. My vision blurs. A stream of blood leaks from my nose, tickling my lips before dripping onto the wine-cellar floor. Pain splinters through my legs, which are crumpled beneath me. Out of instinct and sheer terror, I haul myself across the tile, first one arm and then the other. I shift my weight from side to side, careful not to smash my pregnant belly.

  A cracking sound draws my attention to the stairs.

  At the top, the dark silhouette of a man blocks the doorway, obstructing the glow that’d spilled into the cellar moments before.

  He’s not finished with me.

  I have to get out of here. He’s insane. Not in his right mind. He staggers down the stairs, crying out my name. Behind him, a flash of orange illuminates the kitchen. Smoke billows, dark and thick, clinging to the ceiling as it rolls toward the living room. Something has gone terribly wrong.

  Ravenwood is burning.

  “Please, for the love of God,” I pray. My stomach throbs from where I landed during the final tumble. “Take me if you have to, if it’s my time, but—oh, please, God, don’t—please don’t take our baby.”

  I don’t know what I would do if we lost our baby now. We are so close to having everything, to being blissfully happy with our little family.

  “Please…” I can’t move another inch, and I don’t have the energy to fight back. “Please, you don’t have to do this….”

  He descends further.

  Breathless, heart racing, I roll onto my back. I can’t escape him. There’s nothing more I can do. My vision swims. The acrid scent of smoke burns my nostrils, and I realize if he doesn’t kill me, the fire will. Darkness closes in.

  Oh, please, God, no…

  I’m going to die. And it will have all been for nothing.

  COLLEEN

  “Home sweet home,” Michael says, turning in to his driveway at the corner of Beach and Cypress Street. “Impressed?”

  I can’t breathe, let alone gather my thoughts. I haven’t even set foot on his property and I’m already stunned into silence by a throttling mixture of shock and fear.

  Stacked boulders guard the entrance like a barricade, and towering eucalyptuses line the narrow, winding drive, shrouding his home. Overhead, tree branches arch like the ceiling of some magnificent cathedral, twisting and tangling, allowing only slivers of morning light to pierce the fog. When we finally emerge from that tunnel of shade, Michael makes a wide, sweeping turn around the circular driveway, passing a six-bay garage before coming to a stop in front of a flight of dark limestone stairs.

  He shoves his Maserati into park and races around the front of the car to open my door. Cradling my belly, I step out of the car and brace myself. A thick blanket of mist covers everything in a gray haze. Blasts of frigid air hurtle over the garage and whip through the drive, and I reach up to push the hair out of my eyes. Even the weather has conspired against me. I’m wearing capris and a sweater too thin to stave off the cold; I wasn’t prepared for any part of today. He closes the car door behind me with a thud, momentarily drowning out the banging of my heart. The sound echoes off the stone facing of his house and garage and the archway of watchful trees.

  “No reason to be nervous,” Michael says, patting my hand. “You’re going to love it here.”

  “I’m sure I will,” I say, hesitant. “It’s a lot to take in, that’s all.”

  Deep down, I know it’s more than that. I don’t belong here. Not in a home as magnificent as this. Michael and I come from such starkly different backgrounds; the chasm has never felt more profound than it does now, as I stare up at the towering walls of his home. It feels as if I’ve walked into a designer shoe store, knowing I can’t afford a single pair of heels on the shelf. Pretending to be something I’m not, I’ve tried on my favorite pair and fallen in love, damn the consequences. I’m trying hard to fit into this lifestyle that’s so foreign, but I’m already faltering, before I’ve taken a single step.

  On the drive here, Michael said his home was a sanctuary, the only place in the world where he felt he could let his guard down. He told me the house was south of San Francisco, a short drive along the coast, in a private neighborhood off the beaten path. He’d left out the fact that it’s prime real estate on a huge corner lot, across the street from a Monterey cypress grove with a stunning view of the sea. He’d forgotten to mention how it was built to look like a gothic castle, with black arched doors and wrought iron accents. How the circular driveway was painted a silvery shade of gray, with a starburst pattern in the center made of some kind of crushed shell. Couldn’t he have explained how the fenced-in yard stretched around back, consuming the block? Or how the house was so close to the sea, I could taste the salty sea air on my tongue?

  But until an hour ago, when we were sitting in the ca
r, his hand on my knee, Michael hadn’t said much about his home at all. For all he’d revealed, it could’ve been an apartment in Oakland or a three-bedroom, two-bath house in Pleasanton. He never, not once, let on to the fact that he lived in a mansion plucked from Luxury Living magazine.

  Michael hadn’t ever let me visit his home, let alone move in. I would’ve thought, after five months of dating and frequenting my tiny apartment in the city, he would’ve wanted to invite me over if for no other reason than to show off this place. A few times I’d asked why it seemed as if he was hiding his home from me. He assured me he wasn’t concealing anything; he simply needed more time to open up. How could I be mad? He was an intensely private person, and that was one of the reasons I loved him so much. He was quiet and strong, confident without being confrontational. I liked to believe that he wanted to keep his home private because that was just the way he was, that it had nothing to do with me personally.

  Now I try not to think about the obvious truth: he didn’t want to bring me here, into his world, because he knew I wouldn’t fit in. He’d be right in his assessment, and that hurts above all.

  “Come on,” he says, grabbing my hand and leading me up the limestone steps. “Grand tour starts this way.”

  I would laugh, but I fear he’ll hear the tremble in my voice, betraying my anxiety. The stone-covered walls are impossibly tall, with details that can’t be taken in all at once. The carvings and decorations must’ve taken years to design. High above, on the eastern side of the house, pointed-arch windows are closed tight with thick swags of dark fabric. A curtain moves suddenly as if touched by a draft, and balloons inward.

  I’m being watched.

  Breath frozen in my throat, I follow Michael through the massive front door and into the entryway, and gape at the enormousness of it all. Colossal vaulted ceilings. Sparkling multi-tiered chandeliers. Ornate, gold-rimmed mirrors. Paintings—original and renowned, I’m sure—color the walls. On the left, a dark wood staircase wide enough for Michael and me to traipse upstairs hand in hand coils like a serpent to the second floor. I can’t help but compare it to the grand staircase of the Titanic shown in the film—the only thing missing is the gold cupid smirking in the foreground. At my feet, a mosaic of colored marble stretches to a room that’s paneled in pale maple and furnished sparsely with black leather couches. Ahead, glimpsed through an oversize window and a set of glass double doors, an emerald lawn rolls toward Cypress Street and the Monterey cypress grove beyond.

  That must be the public entry, I realize, as the crisp ocean air wafts through the open windows. And we’d just come in through the back door, the servants’ entrance.

  Servants.

  This place is too large for Michael to keep up himself. Will there be people cleaning up after us, cooking our meals, and caring for the landscaping? Never in a million years would I have dreamed I could have anyone seeing to my needs, let alone the staff of a grand house.

  To think, if I hadn’t gotten a job at Harris Financial, Michael’s company in the city, we would never have met. Under different circumstances, I might have visited the cypress grove one Sunday afternoon and walked right past this place. I would have wondered what kind of people could afford to live this way, so close to California’s coastline, and fantasized about what went on inside these walls.

  “This way,” Michael says, leading the way past two powder rooms. “I’ve been wanting to show you this since the first time I saw you burying your face in a mystery novel.”

  We enter the library through a set of heavy double doors. The air is staler in here, as though the windows looking out on the lawn haven’t been open in some time. A Persian rug in rich shades of brown and red stretches out beneath our feet, worn in the center from years of padding across the knotted silk and wool. Shelves crowded with books cover three walls, and on the fourth, a marble fireplace promises to radiate warmth through the room. Plump chairs face the hearth, and I wonder if this is Michael’s personal space. Will I sit beside him here, reading one of my favorite novels? Or will we spend our time in the living room with its breathtaking view overlooking the grove?

  “It’s grand,” I say, because I’m feeling smaller by the minute. “Is this where you unwind at the end of the day?”

  “Sometimes.”

  But he doesn’t offer any more than that.

  If I want to belong here, I’ll have to learn the routines Michael already has in place. I’ll need to fit seamlessly into the day-to-day.

  It’ll take a long time to adjust.

  “So?” Michael asks, when we’ve returned to the sun-flooded brilliance of the living room. “You love it, right?”

  “It’s…” Intimidating. “…beautiful.”

  “We call it Ravenwood.”

  We.

  The word stings, burrowing deep in me with a poison that makes me ashamed of myself. He doesn’t mean him and me, and we both know it. This is the home he occupied with his wife—his missing wife. Joanna isn’t missing in the sense that someone kidnapped her, only that she moved back to Los Angeles to live with her sister, and hasn’t been heard from since last July. Six months without a single word.

  At least that’s what Michael tells me.

  He hasn’t filed for divorce yet, and the thought bothers me more than I’ll ever admit aloud. He doesn’t say much about their marriage or its demise, and I don’t ask about either. Don’t want him to think I’m meddling. Adding my two cents where they don’t belong. The last thing I want is to push him away or have him close down completely. So I’ve given him time and space to figure things out on his own. Eventually though, we’ll have to address it, and I assume the time is coming soon.

  They were married five years, Michael and Joanna, and before she vanished Ravenwood was their home. When my heart starts to ache with the fear that he didn’t truly want to invite me here, I remind myself Joanna is his past. I am his future. Michael wouldn’t have invited me to move into this gorgeous estate, he wouldn’t be starting a family with me, if he didn’t believe we have what it takes to make a relationship last.

  All that matters is the health of our baby.

  Last month, after I awoke to find spots of blood on my sheets, I was terrified of hearing the worst, of losing the baby. Rest, the doctor insisted. He said the spotting was probably caused by overexertion at work. Nothing to be too concerned about, but I’m desperate to give our baby as much of a chance as possible.

  Stay off your feet, no stress or strain.

  I soared with relief, knowing our baby was still growing inside me, but I had no idea how much my life would change in order to meet this prescription of rest and relaxation. When I told Michael, he immediately insisted I quit my job. He said he’d provide for us and suggested we live at his home in Point Reina until the baby was born. Sometimes I wonder: If the pregnancy had been smooth sailing, and the baby had been fine, would we have continued sleeping at my place? Would I be moving in? Or would Ravenwood still be a giant secret between us?

  It kills me that I know the answers to those questions without even asking them.

  “The people before us must’ve named the place,” Michael goes on. “They engraved its name into the exposed beam above the front door. See? Didn’t feel right changing it.”

  Letting my gaze wander over the letters gouged into the wood, I stroke my hands over my growing belly—something I’ve caught myself doing a lot lately.

  Ravenwood.

  I wonder who named this home, who walked across this gleaming floor before Michael and Joanna, what secrets are still hiding here. Moving to the wide span of living room windows, I stare at the twisted branches of the cypress grove across the street. After our baby is born, we’ll take long walks at sunset, I promise myself. Follow the winding dirt path into the dark, past that first row of trees, and then deeper, where the cool ocean breeze
will filter through the green canopy, filling us with a sense of peace.

  It’ll be heavenly.

  A flat-screen television is mounted above a fireplace so clean I’d eat off the stones. On the mantel, a carving of a raven perches proudly, keeping watch over everything. Wings tucked against its narrow wooden body. Head tilted upward. The leather couches are flanked by matching armchairs, and when I slide my hand over the cushions, I don’t leave a single imprint. Definitely can’t see cuddling up to watch my late-night shows on that thing. I don’t even know if we’d both fit side by side. Spooning is going to be near impossible. The books on the coffee table are all hardbound, stacked in a gradient scale from dark to light. Someone had too much time on his hands.

  “Because this area is off the main highway and hidden behind the grove, it’s quiet,” Michael says, his tone direct. As if he’s on a business call, hammering out the details of a new deal. “Not many people know about it. It’s our private sanctuary. Perfect for what you and the baby need right now.”

  The baby.

  Not his baby. Not yet. Funny how such a small word can kill you inside. Just once, couldn’t it be our baby?

  He leads me to the dining room. It features a grand table that easily seats twenty, a cabinet full of china, and a stocked mahogany bar.

  “The ceiling was modeled after a cathedral we visited in England,” he says dryly, pointing upward without so much as a glance. “It’s called a rib-vault. Every room on this level has a fireplace. You won’t feel a chill the rest of the winter.”

  My mouth hangs open in awe as I glance up. The ceiling is nothing less than magnificent. Painted in starkly contrasting dark and light, the rib-like beams branch out overhead like a spiderweb.