Blake Pierce

Blake Pierce is author of the bestselling RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes fourteen books (and counting). Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising eight books; of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising six books; of the KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising five books; and of the new MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE mystery series, which begins with WATCHING.

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2018 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright  GrandDuc used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE

THE MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE SERIES

WATCHING (Book #1)

WAITING (Book #2)

RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES

ONCE GONE (Book #1)

ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)

ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)

ONCE LURED (Book #4)

ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)

ONCE PINED (Book #6)

ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)

ONCE COLD (Book #8)

ONCE STALKED (Book #9)

ONCE LOST (Book #10)

ONCE BURIED (Book #11)

ONCE BOUND (Book #12)

ONCE TRAPPED (Book #13)

ONCE DORMANT (Book #14)

MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)

BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)

BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)

BEFORE HE SINS (Book #7)

BEFORE HE HUNTS (Book #8)

BEFORE HE PREYS (Book #9)

AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)

CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6)

KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

A TRACE OF MUDER (Book #2)

A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)

A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)

A TRACE OF HOPE (Book #5)

PROLOGUE

Morgan Farrell had no idea where she was or where she had just come from. She felt as if she were stepping out of a deep, thick fog. Something or someone was right there in front of her.

She leaned forward, staring, and saw a woman’s face staring back at her. The woman looked just as lost and confused as Morgan felt.

“Who are you?” she asked the woman.

The face mouthed the words in unison with her, and then Morgan realized …

My reflection.

She was looking at her own face in a mirror.

She felt stupid not to have recognized herself right away, but not completely surprised.

My reflection.

She knew she was looking at her own face in a mirror, but it felt like looking at a stranger. This was the face she’d always had, the face that people called elegant and beautiful. Now it looked artificial to her.

The face in the mirror didn’t look quite … alive.

For a few moments, Morgan wondered if she had died. But she could feel her slightly ragged breathing. She felt her heart beating a little fast.

No, she wasn’t dead. But she seemed to be lost.

She tried to pull her thoughts together.

Where am I?

What was I doing before I got here?

Weird as she felt about not knowing, it was a familiar problem. This wasn’t the first time she’d found herself in some part of the huge house without knowing how she’d gotten there. Her sleepwalking spells were caused by the multiple tranquilizers the doctor had prescribed, plus too much scotch.

Morgan only knew one thing—Andrew had better not see her looking like she looked right now. She had no makeup on, and her hair was a mess. She lifted a hand to push a strand of hair off her forehead, then saw …

My hand.

It’s red.

It’s covered with blood.

She watched as the mouth on the reflected face dropped open with shock.

Then she lifted her other hand.

It was also red with blood.

With a shudder of revulsion, she impulsively wiped her hands on the front of her clothing.

Then her horror mounted. She had just smeared blood on her extremely expensive silk nightgown.

Andrew would be furious if he found out.

But how was she going to clean herself up?

She glanced around, then hastily reached for a hand towel hanging next to the mirror. As she tried to clean her hands with it, she saw the monogram …

AF

This was her husband’s towel.

She forced herself to focus on her surroundings … the plush monogrammed towels … the shimmering gold-colored walls.

She was in her husband’s bathroom.

Morgan sighed with despair.

Her nighttime wanderings had taken her into her husband’s bedroom a few times before. If she woke him up, he was always furious at her for violating his privacy.

And now she had wandered all the way through his bedroom into his adjoining bathroom.

She shivered. Her husband’s punishments were always cruel.

What’s he going to do to me this time? she thought.

Morgan shook her head, trying to pull herself out of her mental fog. Her head was splitting and she felt nauseous. Obviously she’d had a lot to drink on top of too many tranquilizers. And now, not only had she gotten blood all over one of Andrew’s precious towels, she saw that she had made prints all over the white bathroom counter. There was even blood on the marble floor.

Where did all this blood come from? she asked herself.

A strange possibility occurred to her …

Did I try to kill myself?

She couldn’t remember doing that, but it certainly seemed possible. She’d contemplated suicide more than once since she’d been married to Andrew. And if she ever did die by her own hand, she wouldn’t be the first to do so in this house.

Mimi, Andrew’s wife before Morgan, had committed suicide.

So had his son Kirk, just last November.

She almost smiled with bitter irony …

Did I just try to continue the family tradition?

She stepped back to get a better look at herself.

All this blood …

But she didn’t seem to be wounded anywhere.

So where had the blood come from?

She turned and saw that the door leading into Andrew’s bedroom was wide open.

Is he in there? she wondered.

Had he slept through whatever had happened?

She breathed a little easier at the possibility. If he was sleeping that soundly, maybe she could get away without him noticing that she’d been here.

But then she stifled a groan as she realized it wasn’t going to be that easy. There was still all this blood to deal with.

If Andrew came into his bathroom and found this terrible mess, of course he’d know that she was somehow to blame.

She was always to blame for everything as far as he was concerned.

Her panic rising, she began to wipe the counter with the towel. But that was no good. All she was doing was smearing the blood all over the place. She needed water to clean things up.

She almost turned on the faucet in the sink when she realized the sound of running water would surely wake Andrew up. She thought maybe she could softly close the bathroom door and run the water as quietly as she could.

She crept on tiptoe across the enormous bathroom toward the door. When she got there, she cautiously peeked out into the bedroom.

She gasped aloud at what she saw.

The lights were turned low, but there was no mistaking Andrew lying there in bed.

He was covered with blood. The sheets were covered in blood. There was even blood on the carpeted floor.

Morgan rushed over to the bed.

Her husband’s eyes were wide open in an expression of frozen terror.

He’s dead, she realized. She hadn’t died, but Andrew had.

Had he committed suicide?

No, that was impossible. Andrew had nothing but contempt for people who took their own lives—including his wife and son.

“Not serious people,” he’d often said about them.

And Andrew had always prided himself on being a serious person.

And he’d always raised that issue with Morgan …

“Are you a serious person?”

As she looked more carefully, she could see that Andrew had bled from many different wounds all over his body. And nestled among the blood-soaked sheets beside his body she saw a large kitchen knife.

Who could have done this? Morgan wondered.

Then a weird, euphoric calm fell over her as she realized …

I finally did it.

I killed him.

She’d done it in her dreams many times.

And now, at long last, she’d done it for real.

She smiled and said aloud to the corpse …

“Who’s a serious person now?”

But she knew better than to bask in this warm and pleasant feeling. Murder was murder, and she knew that she had to accept the consequences.

But instead of fear or guilt, she felt a deep sense of contentment.

He was a horrible man. And he was dead. Whatever happened now, this was well worth it.

She picked up the phone next to his bed with her sticky hand and almost dialed 911 before she thought …

No.

There’s someone else I want to tell first.

It was a kindly woman who had shown concern about her welfare some time ago.

Before she did anything else, she needed to call that woman and tell her that she needn’t worry about Morgan anymore.

Everything was just fine at last.

CHAPTER ONE

Riley noticed that Jilly was twitching a little in her sleep. The fourteen-year-old was in the adjoining seat, with her head resting on Riley’s shoulder. Their plane had been in the air for about three hours now, and it would be another couple of hours before they would land in Phoenix.

Is she dreaming? Riley wondered.

If so, Riley hoped that the dreams weren’t bad.

Jilly had lived through horrific experiences during her short life, and she still had lots of nightmares. She’d seemed especially anxious since that letter from social services in Phoenix had arrived, informing them that Jilly’s father wanted his daughter back. Now they were flying to Phoenix for a court date that would settle the matter once and for all.

Riley couldn’t help but worry as well. What would become of Jilly if the judge didn’t allow her to stay with Riley?

The social worker had said she didn’t expect that to happen.

But what if she was wrong? Riley wondered.

Jilly’s whole body started twitching more sharply. She began moaning quietly.

Riley shook her gently and said, “Wake up, sweetheart. You’re having a bad dream.”

Jilly sat bolt upright and stared straight ahead for a moment. Then she burst into tears.

Riley put her arm around Jilly and reached into her purse for a tissue.

She asked, “What is it? What were you dreaming about?”

Jilly sobbed wordlessly for a few moments. Then she said, “It was nothing. Don’t worry.”

Riley sighed. She knew that Jilly harbored secrets that she didn’t like to talk about.

She stroked the girl’s dark hair and said, “You can tell me anything, Jilly. You know that.”

Jilly wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

Finally she said, “I was dreaming about something that really happened. A few years ago. My dad was on one of his serious drunks and he was blaming me as usual—for my mother leaving, for his not being able to keep a job. For everything. He told me he wanted me out of his life. He dragged me by the arm to a closet and threw me inside and locked the door and …”

Jilly fell silent and closed her eyes.

“Please tell me,” Riley said.

Jilly shook herself a little and said, “I was afraid to scream at first, because I thought he’d drag me back out and beat me. He just left me in there, like he’d forgotten all about me. And then …”

Jilly choked back a sob.