Prologue
SOMEONE IS FOLLOWING ME.
I hear the footsteps coming closer, quiet on the thick, wet leaves of the forest floor. I duck behind a white pine tree, then realize it’s big enough to hold my weight and scramble upward, hands pulling me into the branches, where I cling to the trunk like a monkey, praying they haven’t seen me. The steps stop, but the forest isn’t tricked; the birds are silent as the grave, the squirrels frozen in their perches. They know evil has come to their world.
My breath is too loud; sweat is prickling on my brow. I see the blood then, on my hands—his blood—and swallow hard against the sudden spike of nausea.
He is gone. He is gone, and now I am alone.
Tears drip down my face, fall off my chin. I swipe my jaw against my shoulder so they don’t splatter onto the leaves below and draw attention to my hiding place.
A starling bursts from the brush fifteen feet to my left, and startles me. I nearly fall out of the tree but hang on. Even my fingers know the danger of letting go.
This dance, inextricably tying us together, is entering its final moments.
They have come for me. I will not let them take me alive.
FRIDAY
“A human being is only breath and shadow.”
—Sophocles
“You are a human being, and so you must honor thy mother; she is the life of all things, the soul of your breath, your stars, your moon, the bringer of air, the guide of the tides. I am your mother, your breath, your sight and your feelings. Honor not me, but what I can be for you.”
—Curtis Lott
Chapter
1
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Washington, D.C.
DR. SAMANTHA OWENS stared out the window of her office, admiring the view she’d be enjoying for the next several years. Trees. Lots and lots of trees. The Georgetown University campus was landscaped to perfection, bringing the joys of wildlife and green space to their urban oasis. Maples and willow oaks, zelkovas and ginkgo, viburnum and holly, and more she had no names for. In truth, this deep into the warm, wet D.C. summer, everything was so green it made her eyes hurt. It was all so bloody alive.
And so different from her anonymous, stainless-steel office in Nashville. A welcome change. A change she’d openly pursued, sure to the core she no longer wanted to work in law enforcement. The idea of keeping herself separate from the hurt and fear and messiness of the real world appealed to her.
Her new reality: she was the head of the burgeoning forensic pathology department at Georgetown University Medical School. Her first classes would start the following week, though students were already on campus doing their orientations. And now that she was here, the sense of adventure and excitement were gone.
Looking out at the tree-lined campus, she couldn’t help wondering, yet again, if she’d made a mistake. The freedom she’d hoped for, planned on, felt like a noose around her neck. Even though she was calling the shots, she was increasingly feeling trapped. So many people were counting on her. She’d developed the forensic program, made a commitment to the university, even signed a contract. She was stuck.
No longer a medical examiner, no longer a part of organized law enforcement. She was a teacher, with two class sections of doctors who wanted to help solve crimes. Students who seemed so young, teenagers, almost, though many were in their twenties, and even thirties. Untouched by tragedy; unknowing of the world’s painful embrace.
They’d learn soon enough, especially with her at the helm. She’d seen more than most in her career, especially during her tenure as the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Tennessee. Her job was to teach them everything she knew so they could stride out into the world in pursuit of justice.
The way she used to do.
Sam turned from the window to her desk, a thick slab of oak polished to a high gleam, and casually straightened the stack of papers in her out-box. Her OCD was under strict rein, especially in front of all these new people, but there was no need for things to be messy.
She should be eager for this new life to begin. She honestly had been, until a few weeks ago, when her friend John Baldwin, from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, sat her down and threw a bomb into her world. Sent her spinning, unsure of all the choices she’d made over the past few months.
He’d come to town for a case two weeks earlier, taken her out for lunch and, before the food arrived, got straight to business.
“I wish you’d talked to me before you made this drastic change.”
“It’s the best thing for me. I don’t want to be out there anymore, Baldwin. I paid my dues,