10 New Books That Are Going to Slay Us All in December 2019

April 1817

Oakbridge Estate, Hampshire, England

The lichen-kissed stone dropped onto the rock pile with a hollow clack. Lady Victoria Aston rested her aching hands on the rough stone. She wiped her muddy palms down the front of her thighs, smearing muck onto her father’s old tan breeches. When attempting to save the lives of a particularly bothersome flock of sheep, one had to make sacrifices.

With two more sizable stones, she would close the gap in the wall. Then she could scour Oakbridge’s 6,562 acres for the estate shepherd. Vicky narrowed her eyes at a shaggy old ewe: one of many she’d found out-of-bounds in the neighboring pasture. They’d jumped over the crumbling gap and gobbled a patch of indigestible clover. Soon, their bellies would bloat, and without the shepherd’s aid, they would certainly perish.

Inhaling the clean morning air, redolent with the perfume of freshly drying grass, Vicky bent for another rock. This would never have happened to Emma Woodhouse. Or rather, Emma Woodhouse would never have let it happen to her.

Having just finished reading Emma for the third time since its publication, Vicky had lately found herself comparing her own country existence to the heroine of said novel. Not that Emma was her favorite heroine from the four novels written by the author known only to the public as “a lady” (but whom most of the local Hampshire society knew to be one Miss Jane Austen). No, Vicky reserved that honor for Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice.

A clear picture of Elizabeth Bennet muddying her gown to fix a stone wall darted into Vicky’s mind—after all, Elizabeth had walked miles unaccompanied to see her sister, Jane, when she was ill and staying at Netherfield. Vicky’s lips curved into a smile at the idea that her favorite heroine would approve of her behavior.

As Vicky straightened, movement far in the distance caught her eye. She squinted. Amid the emerald-green fields on the other side of the wall, a rider in a russet coat and dark hat cantered adjacent to a short hedgerow. She couldn’t see his face, but his bearing looked familiar. She blinked.

Surely, it wasn’t the one person she had no wish to see on such a morning. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel.

She glanced down at her father’s muddy breeches. They didn’t exactly outline her legs, but they weren’t particularly loose either. They hugged her hips just tightly enough to allow her to tuck a muslin shirt into them and actually stay up without other assistance. She’d buttoned the top half of her olive-green riding habit almost up to her neck for a semblance of decency, but by any stranger’s standard, she was courting scandal.

She peered at the rider again. His attire proclaimed him a gentleman, and although she still couldn’t make out his features, he rode a peculiar chestnut of medium height that looked something like a working horse. She had never seen the breed before.

Well, if he—whoever he was—felt scandalized by her appearance, that was his affair. Breeches afforded more comfort on her post-dawn inspections across the estate and allowed her to ride astride. That meant she could be more efficient helping her father, especially when something went wrong, like today. Their management strategies shouldered the livelihoods of more than a hundred individuals; if her father or his steward couldn’t allocate funds or attention to one small piece of the puzzle making up the estate, someone less fortunate would suffer. Vicky helped wherever and whenever she could.

She hauled the stone up and set it on the pile with an involuntary squeak before glancing back at the rider.

He had jumped the hedgerow. Now he rode toward her, picking up speed. What was he—

Vicky’s stomach tensed as his face came into focus. It was just as she’d feared: the rider was Tom Sherborne. Blast! She looked at her breeches again and winced.

Still some fifty feet away, Tom raised his hand and something fluttered in her chest. But he wasn’t greeting her as she’d thought. With his whole arm, he pointed at something behind her.

She frowned. As she turned, something hard collided with the side of her head. White-hot pain burst through her skull. Her vision pitched sideways and her neck whipped to the right. As her knees smacked into the soggy turf, everything went black.

A rhythmic thudding invaded Vicky’s head. Was it her heart? The rumble grew louder with each thump. She inhaled, and the smell of wet grass, mud, and sheep droppings flooded her nostrils. She groaned and forced her eyes open.

Her head sat askew on the ground, though it seemed she’d fallen face-first. A tender spot on the side of her head made her wince. She traced it with careful fingers, but that only intensified the pounding in her ears.

What had struck her? Through the blades of grass, a blurred movement caught her eye. Each motion was an agony, but Vicky pushed herself off the soggy ground with both hands until she sat upright. Blinking to clear her vision, she concentrated on the moving shape coming toward her.

Her cheeks blanched. The horse and rider she’d seen earlier— correction, Tom Sherborne and his horse—effortlessly jumped the stone wall. Her stomach dropped.

She’d never seen Tom riding at such an early hour—not a single time since he’d returned to England. Although his own estate bordered Oakbridge, she’d only glimpsed him twice in the last year: once in the village from opposite ends of the high street where he’d promptly disappeared into a tavern, and once at the village fair where he’d bought a gingerbread square and promptly ridden away.

Anyone else might have considered these circumstances coincidental, but Vicky knew better. She knew Tom Sherborne was avoiding her. Unjustly in point of fact, and he had been doing so for the last five years. Yet there he sat, reining in his odd-looking chestnut a mere two and a half feet away.

“Are you all right?” he bellowed from the saddle.

Her head whirled as she stared up at the face she’d known so well as a child. His hair fell in the same mahogany-brown waves around his forehead and ears, contrasting slightly with his light brown eyes. He was clean-shaven just as he’d been at fourteen, but his jaw and cheeks now had the angular sharpness of a man. His nose and forehead could have been copied from a marble bust of some Roman emperor.

Her pulse thrummed in her ears, so she pulled in a breath. “Er . . .”

His lips compressed into a frown, and his dark brows knit together.

How she’d missed that serious countenance. Yet that boy she’d known had thrown away their friendship and never given her a reason.

“My head,” she muttered. She touched the lump materializing on her skull. “What happened?” She swallowed several times and wished for a glass of water.

“A man attacked you. I tried to warn you.”

“What do you mean, ‘attacked’? Who would possibly attack me?” She touched her head again.

Tom caught her eye for a brief moment before looking off into the distance behind her. “Whoever he was, he had a horse tethered at the edge of the trees.”

Vicky shook her head. “But why—I don’t understand—”

“I can still catch him,” Tom interrupted. “Are you well enough to stay here?”

She inhaled and tilted her head gingerly. The pain had dulled a bit. “I think so.” She looked up at him. “What do you mean stay—”

“Stay here,” he repeated, kicking his boots into his horse’s flanks. Clods of grass and mud flew into the air as they raced away.

“Wait!” But his horse had already carried him out of earshot.

Vicky clenched her jaw as she watched horse and rider disappear into a nearby copse of trees. How dare Tom hurry off and leave her sitting in a field? Especially if someone had attacked her! Well, if he thought she’d allow him to fight her battles for her, he was very much mistaken. She bent her knees and pushed herself off the ground. Stars reeled before her eyes. She swallowed an unladylike curse as she drew in a deep breath. Then she glanced in the direction Tom had disappeared.

If Tom had ridden that way, her attacker must have fled toward the road to London. If that were his goal, then the fastest way to head him off would be to ride across the field around the trees and intercept him. Tom should know as well as she did that he would never overtake the man by following him through the dense forest.

But she still could. Moreover, she was not about to sit here like an invalid just because her head hurt. Who did Tom think he was, trying to act the hero now? He’d been the one playing the coward these last five years.

Vicky stumbled to the tree where she’d tied her horse, Jilly. She unwound the reins, led her to an undamaged stretch of wall, and used it to jump into the saddle. A wave of dizziness washed through her head down into her stomach. She stilled and breathed, fully aware she was losing time.

Just get moving. Vicky gritted her teeth, pulled the reins to the right, kicked Jilly’s flanks, and urged her to gallop across the field toward the attacker.

Jilly’s ears pricked up, almost as though she sensed the urgency of the situation. They crossed the field in record time. The wind whipped Vicky’s loose hair back as she steered Jilly around the edge of the trees. Her heart hammered in her chest. Would she catch the villain before he reached the road to London?

Vicky scanned ahead, her gaze narrowing in on the country lane that fed into the London post road. She glanced to the left, where Tom and the attacker should emerge. She couldn’t see them yet, but they would soon arrive.

The thundering of hooves reached her ears.

With a satisfied breath, Vicky urged Jilly forward until they reached the edge of the road. But what could she do now that she had positioned herself in front of the chase? She looked around for something to give her an advantage. Just a smattering of broken twigs and dead leaves lay scattered on the road; she couldn’t see one fallen branch or throwable rock—nothing she could use to slow the assailant.

Several yards farther down, trees lined her side of the road. Opposite those trees, a tall, overgrown hedgerow began. If she could maneuver Jilly to stand across the road in that narrow space, the man would have to stop. She guided her horse to the spot and made her stand so her head was near the hedgerow. The gap wasn’t as narrow as it had looked. Just enough space for the man to maneuver around them remained, although there certainly wasn’t enough width for a horse galloping at full speed.

Pummeling horse hooves resounded up through the earth as a man with a handkerchief tied around his nose and mouth charged down the road toward her, his black greatcoat flapping in the wind like the cape of a demonic villain straight from the pages of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s preposterous romances. Vicky’s stomach quavered. It was too late to question her plan. Tom and his stocky horse followed close at the man’s back.

Vicky swallowed hard. The man wasn’t slowing.

That night, when Mrs. Chamberlain called, Emira could only piece together the words “… take Briar somewhere …” and “… pay you double.”

In a crowded apartment and across from someone screaming “That’s my song!,” Emira stood next to her girlfriends Zara, Josefa, and Shaunie. It was a Saturday night in September, and there was a little over an hour left of Shaunie’s twenty-sixth birthday. Emira turned the volume up on her phone and asked Mrs. Chamberlain to say it again.

“Is there any way you can take Briar to the grocery store for a bit?” Mrs. Chamberlain said. “I’m so sorry to call. I know it’s late.”

It was almost astonishing that Emira’s daily babysitting job (a place of pricey onesies, colorful stacking toys, baby wipes, and sectioned dinner plates) could interrupt her current nighttime state (loud music, bodycon dresses, lip liner, and red Solo cups). But here was Mrs. Chamberlain, at 10:51 p.m., waiting for Emira to say yes. Under the veil of two strong mixed drinks, the intersection of these spaces almost seemed funny, but what wasn’t funny was Emira’s current bank balance: a total of seventy-nine dollars and sixteen cents. After a night of twenty-dollar entrées, birthday shots, and collective gifts for the birthday girl, Emira Tucker could really use the cash.

“Hang on,” she said. She set her drink down on a low coffee table and stuck her middle finger into her other ear. “You want me to take Briar right now?”

On the other side of the table, Shaunie placed her head on Josefa’s shoulder and slurred, “Does this mean I’m old now? Is twenty-six old?” Josefa pushed her off and said, “Shaunie, don’t start.” Next to Emira, Zara untwisted her bra strap. She made a disgusted face in Emira’s direction and mouthed, Eww, is that your boss?

“Peter accidentally — we had an incident with a broken window and … I just need to get Briar out of the house.” Mrs. Chamberlain’s voice was calm and strangely articulate, as if she were delivering a baby and saying, Okay, mom, it’s time to push. “I’m so sorry to call you this late,” she said. “I just don’t want her to see the police.”

“Oh wow. Okay, but, Mrs. Chamberlain?” Emira sat down at the edge of a couch. Two girls started dancing on the other side of the armrest. The front door of Shaunie’s apartment opened to Emira’s left, and four guys came in yelling, “Ayyeee!”

“Jesus,” Zara said. “All these niggas tryna stunt.”

“I don’t exactly look like a babysitter right now,” Emira warned. “I’m at a friend’s birthday.”

“Oh God. I’m so sorry. You should stay —”

“No no, it’s not like that,” Emira said louder. “I can leave. I’m just letting you know that I’m in heels and I’ve like … had a drink or two. Is that okay?”

Baby Catherine, the youngest Chamberlain at five months old, wailed in the receiver. Mrs. Chamberlain said, “Peter, can you please take her?” and then, up close, “Emira, I don’t care what you look like. I’ll pay for your cab here and your cab home.”

Emira slipped her phone into the pouch of her crossbody bag, making sure all of her other belongings were present. When she stood and relayed the news of her early departure to her girlfriends, Josefa said, “You’re leaving to babysit? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Guys … listen. No one needs to babysit me,” Shaunie informed the group. One of her eyes was open and the other was trying very hard to match.

Josefa wasn’t through asking questions. “What kind of mom asks you to babysit this late?”

Emira didn’t feel like getting into specifics. “I need the cash,” she said. She knew it was highly unlikely, but she added, “I’ll come back if I get done, though.”

Zara nudged her and said, “Imma roll witchyou.”

Emira thought, Oh, thank God. Out loud, she said, “Okay, cool.”

The two girls finished their drinks in one long tip as Josefa crossed her arms. “I can’t believe you guys are leaving Shaunie’s birthday right now.”

Emira lifted her shoulders and quickly dropped them back down. “I think Shaunie is leaving Shaunie’s birthday right now,” she said, as Shaunie crawled down to the floor and announced she was taking a quick nap. Emira and Zara took to the stairs. As they waited outside for an Uber on a dimly lit sidewalk, Emira did the math in her head. Sixteen times two … plus cab money … Fuck yes.

Catherine was still crying from inside the Chamberlain house when Emira and Zara arrived. As Emira walked up the porch stairs, she spotted a small jagged hole in the front window that dripped with something transparent and slimy. At the top of the landing, Mrs. Chamberlain pulled Briar’s glossy blond hair into a ponytail. She thanked Emira, greeted Zara the exact same way she always did (“Hi, Zara, nice to see you again”), and then said to Briar, “You get to hang out with the big girls.”

Briar took Emira’s hand. “It was bedtime,” she said, “and now it’s not.” They stepped down the stairs, and as the three girls walked the three short blocks to Market Depot, Briar repeatedly complimented Zara’s shoes — an obvious but unsuccessful ploy to try them on.

Market Depot sold bone broths, truffle butters, smoothies from a station that was currently dark, and several types of nuts in bulk. The store was bright and empty, and the only open checkout lane was the one for ten items or fewer. Next to a dried-fruit section, Zara bent in her heels and held her dress down to retrieve a box of yogurt-covered raisins. “Umm … eight dollars?” She quickly placed them back on the shelf and stood up. “Gotdamn. This is a rich people grocery store.”

Well, Emira mouthed with the toddler in her arms, this is a rich- people baby.

“I want dis.” Briar reached out with both hands for the copper-colored hoops that hung in Zara’s ears.

Emira inched closer. “How do you ask?”

“Peas I want dis now Mira peas.”

Zara’s mouth dropped open. “Why is her voice always so raspy and cute?”

“Move your braids,” Emira said. “I don’t want her to yank them.”

Zara tossed her long braids — a dozen of them were a whitish blond — over one shoulder and held her earring out to Briar. “Next weekend Imma get twists from that girl my cousin knows. Hi, Miss Briar, you can touch.” Zara’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her bag and started typing, leaning into Briar’s little tugs.

Emira asked, “Are they all still there?”

“Ha!” Zara tipped her head back. “Shaunie just threw up in a plant and Josefa is pissed. How long do you have to stay?”

“I don’t know.” Emira set Briar back on the ground. “But homegirl can look at the nuts for hours so it’s whatever.”

“Mira’s makin’ money, Mira’s makin money …” Zara danced her way into the frozen-food aisle. Emira and Briar walked behind Zara as she put her hands on her knees and bounced in the faint reflection in the freezer doors, pastel ice cream logos mirrored on her thighs. Her phone buzzed again. “Ohmygod, I gave my number to that guy at Shaunie’s?” she said, looking at her screen. “He is so thirsty for me, it’s stupid.”

“You dancing.” Briar pointed up at Zara. She put two fingers into her mouth and said, “You … you dancing and no music.”

“You want music?” Zara’s thumb began to scroll. “I’ll play something but you gotta dance too.”

“No explicit content, please,” Emira said. “I’ll get fired if she repeats it.”

Zara waved three fingers in Emira’s direction. “I got this I got this.”

Seconds later, Zara’s phone exploded with sound. She flinched, said, “Whoops,” and turned the volume down. Synth filled the aisle, and as Whitney Houston began to sing, Zara began to twist her hips. Briar started to hop, holding her soft white elbows in her hands, and Emira leaned back on a freezer door, boxes of frozen breakfast sausages and waffles shining in waxy cardboard behind her.

Briar Chamberlain was not a silly child. Balloons never sent her into hysterics and she was more concerned than delighted when clowns threw themselves on the ground or lit their fingers on fire. At birthday parties and ballet class, Briar became sorely aware of herself when music played or magicians called for screaming participation, and she often looked to Emira with nervy blue eyes that said, Do I really have to do this? Is this really necessary? So when Briar effortlessly joined Zara and rocked back and forth to the eighties hit, Emira positioned herself, as she often did, as Briar’s out. Whenever Briar had had enough, Emira wanted her to know that she could stop, even though sweet things were currently happening to Emira’s heart. For a moment, twenty-five-year-old Emira was being paid thirty-two dollars an hour to dance in a grocery store with her best friend and her favorite little human.

Zara seemed just as surprised as Emira. “Oop!” she said as Briar danced harder. “Okay, girl, I see you.”

Briar looked to Emira and said, “You go now too, Mira.”

Emira joined them as Zara sang the chorus, that she wanted to feel the heat with somebody. She spun Briar around and crisscrossed her chest as another body began to come down the aisle. Emira felt relieved to see a middle-aged woman with short gray hair in sporty leggings and a T-shirt reading St. Paul’s Pumpkinfest 5K. She looked like she had definitely danced with a child or two at some point in her life, so Emira kept going. The woman put a pint of ice cream into her basket and grinned at the dancing trio. Briar screamed, “You dance like Mama!”

As the last key change of the song started to play, a cart came into the aisle pushed by someone much taller. His shirt read Penn State and his eyes were sleepy and cute, but Emira was too far into the choreography to stop without seeming completely affected. She did the Dougie as she caught bananas in his moving cart. She dusted off her shoulders as he reached for a frozen vegetable medley. When Zara told Briar to take a bow, the man silently clapped four times in their direction before he left the aisle. Emira centered her skirt back onto her hips.

“Dang, you got me sweatin’.” Zara leaned down. “Gimme high five. Yes, girl. That’s it for me.”

Emira said, “You out?”

Zara was back on her phone, typing manically. “Someone just might get it tonight.”

Emira placed her long black hair over one shoulder. “Girl, you do you but that boy is real white.”

Zara shoved her. “It’s 2015, Emira! Yes we can!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Thanks for the cab ride, though. Bye, sister.”

Zara tickled the top of Briar’s head before turning to leave. As her heels ticked toward the front of the store, Market Depot suddenly seemed very white and very still.

Autumn 1995. 

Detective Constable Kate Marshall was on the train home when her phone rang. It took a moment of searching the folds of her long winter coat before she found it in the inside pocket. She heaved out the huge brick like handset, pulled up the antenna, and answered. It was her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Conway. 

“Sir. Hello.”

“Finally. She picks up!” he snapped, without preamble. “I’ve been calling you. What’s the bloody point in having one of these new mobile phones if you don’t answer?”

“Sorry. I’ve been in court all day for the Travis Jones sentencing. He got three years, which is more than I–”

“A dog walker found the body of a young girl dumped in Crystal Palace Park,” he said, cutting her off. “Naked. Bite marks on her body, a plastic bag tied over her head.”

“The Nine Elms Cannibal…”

“Operation Hemlock. You know I don’t like that name.”

Kate wanted to reply that the name had now stuck and was bedded in for life, but he wasn’t the kind of boss who encouraged banter. The press had coined the epithet two years earlier, when seventeen-year-old Shelley Norris had been found dumped in a wrecker’s yard in the Nine Elms area of South West London, close to the Thames. Technically, the killer only bit his victims, but the press didn’t let that get in the way of a good serial killer moniker. Over the past two years, another two teenage girls had been abducted, each in the early evening, on the way home from school. Their bodies had shown up several days after their disappearances, dumped in the parks around London. Nothing sold newspapers more than a cannibal on the loose. 

“Kate. Where are you?”

It was dark outside the train window. She looked up at the electronic display in the carriage. 

“On the DLR. Almost home, sir.”

“I’ll pick you up outside the station, our usual spot.” He hung up without waiting for a response. 

–––––––

Twenty minutes later, Kate was waiting on a small stretch of pavement between the station underpass and the busy south circular where a line of cars ground slowly past. Much of the area around the station was under development, and Kate’s route home to her small flat took her through a long road of empty building sites. It wasn’t somewhere to linger after dark. The passengers she’d left the train with had crossed the road and dispersed into the dark streets. She glanced back over her shoulder at the dank empty underpass bathed in shadows and shifted on her heels; a small bag of groceries she’d bought for dinner sat between her feet. 

A spot of water hit her neck, and another, and then it started to rain. She turned up the collar of her coat and hunched down, moving closer to the bright headlights in the line of traffic. 

Kate had been assigned to Operation Hemlock sixteen months previously, when the Nine Elms Cannibal body count stood at two. It had been a coup to join a high-profile case, particularly because doing so had come with a promotion to the rank of plainclothes detective. 

In the eight months since the third victim’s body had been found––a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl called Carla Martin––the case had gone cold. Operation Hemlock had been scaled back, and Kate, along with several other junior officers, had been reassigned to the drug squad.

Kate squinted through the rain, down the long line of traffic. Bright headlights appeared around a sharp bend in the road, but there were no police sirens in the distance. She checked her watch and stepped back out of the glare. 

She hadn’t seen Peter for two months. Shortly before she was reassigned, she had slept with him. He rarely socialized with his team, and during a rare night of after-work drinks, they’d wound up talking, and she’d found his company and his intelligence stimulating. The had stayed late in the pub, after the rest of the team went home, and ended up back at her flat. And then the next night he had invited her over to his place. Kate’s dalliance with her boss, on not one but two occasions, was something that burned inside her with regret. It was a moment of madness. Two moments, before they both came to their sense. She had a strong moral compass. She was a good police officer. 

I’ll pick you up outside the station, our usual spot. 

It bothered her that Peter said this on the phone. He’d given her a lift to work twice, and both times he had also picked up her colleague, Detective Inspector Cameron Rose, who lived close by. Would he have said our usual spot to Cam?

The cold was starting to creep up the back of her long coat, and the rain had seeped in through the holes in the bottoms of the “good shoes” she wore for court. Kate adjusted her collar and huddled down in her coat, turning her attention to the line of traffic. Almost all the drivers where men, white, in their mid-to-late thirties. The perfect serial killer demographic. 

He comes over on Thursday of every week. That’s my day, I’m Thursday. It’s a hopeful day, lost in the middle of the more important days; not the beginning or the end, but a stop. An appetizer to the weekend. Sometimes I wonder about the other days and if they wonder about me. That’s how women are, right? Always wondering about each other — curiosity and spite curdling together in little emotional puddles. Little good that does; if you wonder too hard, you’ll get everything wrong.

I set the table for two. I’m a little buzzed as I lay out the silverware, pausing to consider the etiquette of what goes where. I run my tongue along my teeth and shake my head. I’m being silly; it’s just me and Seth tonight — an at-home date. Not that there’s anything else, we don’t do regular dates very often at the risk of being seen. Imagine that … not wanting to be seen with your husband. Or your husband not wanting to be seen with you. The vodka I sipped earlier has warmed me, made my limbs loose and careless. I almost knock over the vase of f lowers as I place a fork next to a plate: a bouquet of the palest pink roses. I chose them for their sexual innuendo because when you’re in a position like mine, being on top of your sexual game is of the utmost importance. Look at these delicate, pink petals. Do they make you think of my clit? — Good! To the right of the vaginal flowers sit two white candles in silver candlestick holders. My mother once told me that under the flickering light of a candle f lame, a woman can almost look ten years younger. My mother cared about those things. Every six weeks a doctor slid a needle into her forehead, pumping thirty cc’s of Botox into her dermis. She had a subscription to every glossy fashion magazine you could name and collected books on how to keep your husband. No one tries that hard to keep their husband unless they’ve already lost him. I used to think her shallow back when my ideals were untainted by reality. I had big plans to be anything but my mother: to be loved, to be successful, to make beautiful children. But the truth is that the heart’s desire is a mere current against the tide of nurture and nature. You can spend your whole life swimming against it and eventually you’ll get tired and the current of genes and upbringing will pull you under. I became a lot like her and a little bit like me.

I roll the wheel of the lighter with my thumb and hold the f lame above the wick. The lighter is a Zippo, the worn remnants of a Union Jack f lag on the casing. The flickering tongue reminds me of my brief stint with smoking. To look cool, mostly — I never inhaled, but I lived to see that glowing cherry at my fingertips. My parents bought the candleholders for me as a housewarming gift after I saw them in a Tiffany’s catalog. I found them to be predictably classy. When you’re newly married, you see a pair of candlestick holders and imagine a lifetime of roast dinners that will go along with them. Dinners much like the one we’re having tonight. My life is almost perfect.

I glance out the bay window as I fold the napkins, the view of the park spread out beneath me. It’s grey outside, typical of Seattle. The view of the park is why I chose this particular unit instead of the much larger, nicer unit overlooking Elliott Bay. While most people would have chosen the view of the water, I prefer a view of people’s lives. A silver-haired couple sits on a bench, staring out at the pathway where cyclists and joggers pass every few minutes. They’re not touching, though their heads move in unison whenever someone goes by. I wonder if that will be Seth and me one day, and then my cheeks warm as I think of the others. Imagining what the future holds proves difficult when factoring in two other women who share your husband.

I set out the bottle of Pinot Grigio that I chose from the market earlier today. The label is boring, not something that catches the eye, but the austere looking man who sold it to me had described its taste in great detail, rubbing his fingers together as he spoke. I can’t recall what he’d said, even though it was only a few hours ago. I’d been distracted, focused on the task of collecting ingredients. Cooking, my mother taught me, is the only good way to be a wife.

Standing back, I examine my work. Overall, it’s an impressive table, but I am queen of presentation, after all. Everything is just right, the way he likes it, and thus, the way I like it. It’s not that I don’t have a personality; it’s just that everything I am is reserved for him. As it should be.

At six o’clock sharp, I hear the key turn in the lock and then the whistle of the door opening. I hear the click as it closes, and his keys hitting the table in the entryway. Seth is never late, and when you live a life as complicated as his, order is important. I smooth down the hair I so painstakingly curled and step from the kitchen into the hallway to greet him. He’s looking down at the mail in his hand, raindrops clinging to the tips of his hair.

“You got the mail! Thank you.” I’m embarrassed by the enthusiasm in my voice. It’s just the mail, for God’s sake.

He sets the pile down on the little marble table in the entryway, next to his keys, and smiles. There is a tilt in my belly, heat, and a flurry of excitement. I step into the breadth of him, inhaling his scent, and burying my face in his neck. It’s a nice neck, tan and wide. It holds up a very good head of hair and a face that is traditionally handsome with the tiniest bit of roguish scruff. I nestle into him. Five days is a long time to go without the man you love. In my youth, I considered love a burden. How could you get anything done when you had to consider someone else every second of the day? When I met Seth, that all went out the window. I became my mother: doting, yielding, spread-eagle emotionally and sexually. It both thrilled and revolted me.

“I missed you,” I tell him.

I kiss the underside of his chin, then the tender spot beneath his ear, and then stand on my tiptoes to reach his mouth. I am thirsty for his attention and my kiss is aggressive and deep. He moans from the back of his throat, and his briefcase drops to the floor with a thud. He wraps his arms around me.

“That was a nice hello,” he says. Two of his fingers play the knobs of my spine like a saxophone. He massages them gently until I squirm closer.

“I’d give you a better one, but dinner is ready.”

His eyes become smoky, and I silently thrill. I turned him on in under two minutes. I want to say beat that,but to whom? Something uncoils in my stomach, a ribbon unrolling, unrolling. I try to catch it before it goes too far. Why do I always have to think of them? The key to making this work is not thinking of them.

“What did you make?” He unravels the scarf from his neck and loops it around mine, pulling me close and kissing me once more. His voice is warm against my cold trance, and I push my feelings aside, determined not to ruin our night together.

“Smells good.”

I smile and sashay into the dining room — a little hip to go with his dinner. I pause in the doorway to note his reaction to the table.

“You make everything beautiful.” He reaches for me, his strong, tanned hands tracked with veins, but I dance away, teasing. Behind him, the window is rinsed with rain. I glance over his shoulder — the couple on the bench are gone. What did they go home to? Chinese takeout … canned soup …?

I move on to the kitchen, making sure Seth’s eyes are on me. Experience has taught me that you can drag a man’s eyes if you move the right way.

“A rack of lamb,” I call over my shoulder. “Couscous …”

He plucks the bottle of wine from the table, holding it by the neck and tilting it down to study the label. “This is a good wine.” Seth is not supposed to drink wine; he doesn’t with the others. Religious reasons. He makes an exception for me and I chalk it up to another one of my small victories. I have lured him into deep red, Merlots and crisp Chardonnays. We’ve kissed, and laughed, and fucked drunk. Only with me; he hasn’t done that with them.

Silly, I know. I chose this life and it’s not about competing, it’s about providing, but one can’t help but keep a tally when other women are involved.

When I return from the kitchen with dinner clutched between two dishtowels, he has poured the wine and is staring out the window while he sips. Beneath the twelfth-floor window, the city hums her nightly rhythm. A busy street cuts a path in front of the park. To the right of the park and just out of view is the Sound, dotted with sailboats and ferries in the summer, and masked with fog in the winter. From our bedroom window, you can see it — a wide expanse of standing water and falling water. The perfect Seattle view.

“I don’t care about dinner,” he says. “I want you now.” His voice is commanding; Seth leaves little room for questions. It’s a trait that has served him well in all areas of his life.

I set the platters on the table, my appetite for one thing gone and replaced by another. I watch as he blows out the candles, never taking his eyes from me, and then I walk to the bedroom, reaching around and unzipping my dress as I go. I do it slowly so he can watch, peeling off the layer of silk. I feel him behind me: the large presence, the warmth, the anticipation of what’s to come. My perfect dinner cools on the table, the fat of the lamb congealing around the edges of the serving dish in oranges and creams as I slip out of the dress and bend at the waist, letting my hands sink into the bed. I’m wrist-deep in the down comforter when his fingers graze my hips and hook in the elastic waist of my panties. He pulls them down and when they flutter around my ankles, I kick free of them.

The tink of metal and then the zzzweeep of his belt. He doesn’t undress — there’s just the muted sound of his pants falling to his ankles.

After, I warm our dinner in the microwave, wrapped in my robe. There is a throbbing between my legs, a trickle of semen on my thigh; I am sore in the best possible way. I carry his plate to where he is lying shirtless on the couch, one arm thrown over his head — an image of exhaustion. I cannot remove the grin from my lips, though I try. It’s a break in my usual facade, this grinning like a schoolgirl.

“You’re beautiful,” he says when he sees me. His voice is gruff like it always is post-sex. “You felt so good.” He reaches up to rub my thigh as he takes his plate. “Let’s talk about that vacation we’re taking. Where do you want to go?” This is the essence of postcoital conversation with Seth: he likes to talk about the future after he comes.

Do I remember? Of course I remember. I rearrange my face so that it looks surprised.

He’s been promising a vacation for a year. Just the two of us.

My heart beats faster. I’ve been waiting for this. I didn’t want to push it since he’s been so busy, but here it is — my year. I’ve imagined all the places we can go. I’ve narrowed it down to a beach. White sands and lapis lazuli water, long walks along the water’s edge holding hands in public. In public.”I was thinking somewhere warm,” I say. I don’t make eye contact — I don’t want him to see how eager I am to have him to myself. I am needy, and jealous, and petty. I let my robe fall open as I bend to set his wine on the coffee table. He reaches inside and cups my breast like I knew he would.

He is predictable in some ways.

“Turks and Caicos?” he suggests. “Trinidad?”

Yes and yes!

Lowering myself into the armchair that faces the sofa, I cross my legs so that my robe slips open and reveals my thigh.

“You choose,” I say. “You’ve been more places than I have.” I know he likes that, to make the decisions. And what do I care where we go? So long as I get him for a week, uninterrupted, unshared. For that week, he will be only mine. A fantasy. Now comes the time I both dread and live for.

“Seth, tell me about your week.”

He sets his plate down and rubs the tips of his fingers together. They are glistening from the grease of the meat. I want to go over and put his fingers in my mouth, suck them clean.

“Monday is sick, the baby …”

“Oh no,” I say. “She’s still in her first trimester, so it will be that way for a few more weeks.”

He nods, a small smile playing on his lips. “She’s very excited, despite the sickness. I bought her one of those baby name books. She highlights the names she likes and then we look through them when I see her.”

I feel a spike of jealousy and push it aside immediately. This is the highlight of my week, hearing about the others. I don’t want to ruin it with petty feelings.

“That’s so exciting,” I say. “Does she want a boy or a girl?”

He laughs as he walks over to the kitchen to set his plate in the sink. I hear the water running and then the lid of the trash can as he throws his paper towel away.

“She wants a boy. With dark hair, like mine. But I think whatever we have will have blond hair, like hers.”

I picture Monday in my mind — long, pin-straight blond hair, a surfer’s tan. She’s lean and muscular with perfect white teeth. She laughs a lot — mostly at the things he says — and is youthfully in love. He told me once that she is twenty-five but looks like a college girl. Normally, I’d judge a man for that, the cliché way men want younger women, but it isn’t true of him. Seth likes the connection.

“You’ll let me know as soon as you know what you’re having?”

“It’s a ways off, but yes.” He smiles, the corner of his mouth moving up. “We have a doctor’s appointment next week. I’ll have to head straight over on Monday morning.” He winks at me and I am not skilled enough to hide my f lush. My legs are crossed and my foot bounces up and down as warmth fills my belly. He has the same effect on me as he had on the first day we met.

“Can I make you a drink?” I ask, standing up.

I walk over to the bar and hit play on the stereo. Of course he wants a drink, he always wants a drink on the evenings when we’re together. He told me that he secretly keeps a bottle of scotch at the office now, and I mentally gloat at my bad influence. Tom Waits begins to sing and I reach for the decanter of vodka.

I used to ask about Tuesday, but Seth is more hesitant to talk about her. I’ve always chalked it up to her being in a position of authority as first wife. The first wife, the first woman he loved. It’s daunting in a way to know I’m only his second choice. I’ve consoled myself with that fact that I am Seth’s legal wife, that even though they’re still together, he had to divorce her to marry me. I don’t like Tuesday. She’s selfish; her career takes the most dominant role in her life — the space I reserve for Seth. And while I disapprove, I can’t entirely blame her, either. He’s gone five days of the week. We have one rotating day that we take turns with, but it’s our job to fill the week with things that aren’t him: stupid things for me — pottery making, romance novels, and Netflix; but for Tuesday, it’s her career. I root around in the pocket of my robe, searching for my ChapStick. We have entire lives out-side of our marriage. It’s the only way to stay sane.

Pizza for dinner again? I used to ask. He’d admitted to me once that Tuesday was a takeout-ordering girl rather than a cooking girl.

Always so judgmental about other people’s cooking skills, he’d tease.

Sometimes the only thing to fear … is yourself.

Sunday, November 8.

Before the waitress delivers my breakfast, I take the sugar packets out of the container on the diner table and quickly sneak them into my pocket. I wolf down the “Kluhane Bay loggers’ three-egg special” she brings, then call her back to ask for more toast. I break the toast into bits, use them to mop up bacon fat and yellow smear of egg reside on my plate. I gulp down the rest of my coffee, then shoot a glance around the diner.

It’s empty.

The server has gone into the back.

I drink the contents of the cream pitcher. My belly is now bursting. Even so, I take a white napkin and wrap it carefully around a leftover piece of crust that I simply can’t fit in. I slip the crust into the pocket of my loaned down jacket where the sugar packets are hidden.

The diner is warm, yet I keep the jacket on because a deep-seated cold still lingers at the very marrow of my bones. The doctor said I’m fine. They said I was lucky. They said the same thing––the cops and paramedics, the search and rescue people. I believe it. I am incredibly lucky, and I thank the stars that aligned in order for me to survive.

And here I am, with only a bandage around my skull plus a headache and a few cuts and bruises. I’m the one who made it.

For in the end, there can only be one.

And to make it to the end is to reach a beginning, is it not? Wasn’t it T.S. Eliot who wrote words in that vein? That the end is where one starts, and only those who have risked going out too far can possibly learn just how far one can actually go?

Perhaps I will feel warm again tomorrow. Perhaps then my feral need to eat will subside.

A movement outside the window attracts my eye. It’s the female police officer, Constable Birken Hubble, coming up the sidewalk from the lake. Hubb, the others call her. Hers was the first face I saw when I came around at the tiny facility that serves as a hospital in this remote northern town. She’s one of the three cops stationed in Kluhane Bay, this place I found myself in after being plucked by helicopter from the raw jaws of the wilderness. 

I watch her walk. Hubb is short, blonde, and substantial, with a gun-belt swagger more akin to a waddle. She has a pink-cheeked, happy resting face that peeps out from under a muskrat hat with furry earflaps. Behind that deceptively congenial countenance, she’s still all cop, though. I know something about wearing a Janus mask. Perhaps that’s why they’ve sent her to fetch me––they think I might slip and tell her something. They believe I am hiding something.

The Kluhane Bay Mounties want to interview me again, formally, they said, at the tiny clapboard Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment down the road from the lake. They already asked me countless questions at the hospital after I was evacuated, and after I’d been stabilized by the doctor and nurses. I’ve told them everything I can. 

The diner door swings open. Hubb enters with a blast of cold air. She wipes her nose with the back of her big black glove and nods at me. I rise from the chair, pull on the gloves I’ve been loaned, and ask the waitress to put my meal on the hotel tab. I follow Constable Hubble out into a biting wind that blows from the lake. 

As I walk alongside Hubb, hunched into my borrowed jacked, the wind makes my eyes water and my nose run. I am struck by the poignant, incredibly sharp, almost unabsorbable exquisiteness of the world, of just being. It’s a feeling incommensurate with the direness of my situation. But fifteen days ago, I was dropped into a fathomless pit, right into the black wilderness of my very own soul. And down there, I saw the Monster, and the Monster looked back into my eyes, and I saw that the Monster was me. 

It was supposed to be almost spring. It didn’t feel like it. Not if you were standing outdoors on the brand‑new Nesselrode Plaza. A hard and bitter wind with a cold edge to it blew across the wide‑open space of the plaza. Nobody was surprised. This was Chicago, the Windy City. It was tough to be shocked when it lived up to its name.

But this wind was cold. The plaza itself was only half a block from the lake, so the wind was straight from Canada, and it’d had plenty of time to lose warmth and gather strength as it blew down from the Arctic Circle and across Lake Michigan.

Most people would have put their heads down and hurried across the large open space to find some shelter from the wind. The small crowd gathered here in the arctic morning air didn’t have that option. So they clustered together around the podium that stood in the center of the plaza, in the shadow of a huge statue. It was brand‑new, too, so new it was still draped with a cover, pending the dramatic unveiling. And the people who stood waiting, stamping their feet and trying to hunch away from the wind, devoutly wished it would be unveiled quickly so they could go someplace warm.

But of course, few of them were here by choice. They were mostly reporters and civic leaders, here because they had to be. The new Nesselrode Plaza was supposed to be important, the keystone to revitalizing this area of the lakefront. A US congresswoman was in attendance, a handsome woman in her fifties. Next to her stood a gray‑haired African‑American man, a state senator, and an elderly man so bundled up against the cold you could barely tell his species, let alone that he was a prominent federal judge. There was even a tall, rugged‑looking man, with a neat beard that didn’t hide the large scar running down his cheek, in the full dress uniform of a Coast Guard admiral.

And of course Arthur Nesselrode himself was here, the billionaire who had donated the statue and given the plaza its name. That meant the mayor had to be here, too. And the mayor had to give a speech that fit the occasion, made Arthur Nesselrode feel truly important and therefore happy to write more big checks in the future—and that meant a long speech.

Circling the perimeter of the small and shivering crowd were a couple of armed guards, hired because this was an expensive statue, made by a famous modern artist. There had been rumors that a cartel drug lord wanted the statue, rumors the mayor took seriously.

The guards did not. “Nobody’s gonna steal this fucker,” Denny Kirkaldi said to his partner, Bill Greer. He pointed at the base of the statue. “Lookit—twelve bolts, thick as my wrist, holding it down, and the fucking thing has to weigh ten tons.”

“Twelve and a half,” Greer said. Kirkaldi looked at him with surprise, and Greer shrugged. “It was in the paper.”

“Well, so twelve and a half tons. Tons, right? So who’s gonna steal something that weighs twelve and a half tons? That’s fucking stupid!”

Greer shook his head. “We get paid, even if it’s stupid.”

“We should get paid extra for stupid,” Kirkaldi said, “when it’s this fucking cold.”

Greer just shrugged. “It’s not that cold,” he said.

But it was cold, and the wet wind off the lake made it feel even colder. As the mayor’s speech went on—and on—it seemed even colder to the people who had to stand and listen to the praise being heaped on Arthur Nesselrode. Those who knew Nesselrode, or knew about him, were well aware that there was not very much praiseworthy about him. He had made his billions as owner and CEO of Nesselrode Pharmaceuticals. His company owned patents on a number of important drugs—the most significant being Zanagen, the most effective of the new genebased treatments for a number of difficult, and formerly fatal, cancers. Zanagen was truly a miracle drug, and the mayor mentioned it prominently in his speech. But as a politician, he very wisely didn’t mention that Arthur Nesselrode had set the price for his wonderful remedy at half a million dollars per dose. No amount of criticism in the press, pleas from doctors, or even censure from the US Congress could shake him from this grotesquely inflated price.

Nesselrode did not become a billionaire by acts of kindness and charity. Anyone who’d had the misfortune of crossing him would readily testify that he was not a nice man. Some even suggested he was a sociopath, and therefore immune from any feelings of guilt or shame. But Nesselrode was aware that public opinion could affect stock prices. And so he was here today to bolster his image by donating a huge $50 million steel statue to the city of Chicago and paying millions more to build this plaza that carried his name.

The money was insignificant to Nesselrode. He could give away this much every day for a month and still have a few billion left over. And like most men with this kind of wealth, Arthur Nesselrode felt himself insulated against the normal slings and arrows of life. But wealth was not sufficient to insulate him from the temperature. He was cold, and he didn’t like it. But the mayor was praising him, after all. It takes a better man than Arthur Nesselrode to cut that short.

“Jesus, lookit that,” Kirkaldi said, pointing out over the lake, where an enormous helicopter was circling. “Thing is huge!”

Greer glanced up. “Chinook,” he said. His partner stared at him. “I serviced them in the Corps,” Greer explained. “They can lift seventeen tons. Plus crew.”

“Well, I hope the fucker stays away, we got enough wind,” Kirkaldi said, and the two resumed their circuit of the statue.

And the mayor went on with his speech. He was well over ten minutes now and didn’t seem to be slowing down. Arthur Nesselrode glanced at his watch for the seventh time. Even hearing how wonderful he was had started to get tedious. He had been told the ceremony would be brief—a quick speech, and then the mayor would hand him an electronic box with a toggle switch.

Nesselrode would then say a few words himself and flip the switch, which would cause the veil to slip off the statue, and then the fountain would start up at the base, and they could all go back to work. Nesselrode wanted to be back at work. He was working on a hostile takeover of a French company that had had some promising results with a new synthetic insulin.

And damn it, it was really cold. Nesselrode wasn’t dressed for it, and he didn’t like it. He was not accustomed to being inconvenienced, even by the weather. And so, as the mayor passed the fifteen‑minute mark in his speech of praise that even the billionaire himself knew was a load of crap, he acted.

When the mayor paused to take a breath, Nesselrode stepped forward. With the confidence only billionaires can feel, he placed an arm on the mayor’s shoulder and pushed him to one side. He grabbed the microphone and, with a large and incredibly false smile, said, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, you’re much too kind. And on behalf of Nesselrode Pharmaceuticals, the true House of Miracles, I would just like to say, to you and to the people of Chicago, it is a great honor and privilege to be able to give you this wonderful work of art. And so,” he said, lifting the large electronic box resting on the podium, “I hereby dedicate . . . Nesselrode Plaza!” He raised the box high over his head and flipped the toggle switch.

Several impressive things happened at the same time.

The house also featured a new porch stocked with a number of whitewashed rocking chairs. Nubile young women occupied two of those chairs.

“Oh, hello,” one said in a cheerful way. “Shane’s writing, so he can’t see you right now. But we’d be happy to visit.”

“Interrupt him,” the cop said in such a flat tone that the cheerful girl blanched. “This is important.”

The girls looked at one another at this departure from the script.

When neither made a move to enter the house, Will did so himself. Staying outside, Anahera took in the girls in their short shorts and flannel shirts. One was blonde and perky, the other dark eyed and sensuous with a stud in her eyebrow, but they both had the dewy-eyed look of creatures who hadn’t yet had the shine rubbed off them. Nineteen, twenty at the most. “You’re Shane’s students?”

The blonde nodded, while the dark-eyed one gave Anahera an assessing look—as if checking out the competition. That one was tough and far more likely to survive life than the blonde bunny. Unless, of course, the bunny was fortunate enough to find someone who wanted to preserve her wide-eyed naïveté.

“We’re so lucky.” The bunny actually pressed her hands together in delight. “Shane is one of the most well-known novelists in the world and we get to have a residence with him.” Joy sparking off every word. “My book’s taking shape in ways I could’ve never imagined.”

A thirty-something man followed Will out onto the porch before Anahera could respond. All messed-up black hair and stubble along his jaw, Shane Hennessey was the epitome of the suffering artist. He had soft full lips, flawless skin the color of cream, a height two or three inches under the cop’s, and a build that said there was muscle beneath his ragged jeans and black shirt—a shirt he wore with the sleeves shoved carelessly up to his elbows. Only it wasn’t careless. He was a man who knew he was good-looking and who took full advantage of it.

Edward had been like that, though it had taken her far too long to see the truth.

“I’m sorry, Will,” the suffering artist said in an Irish accent so beautiful it couldn’t be real, even as his eyes scanned Anahera then came back for a second look; obviously she’d fulfilled a list of basic prerequisites and deserved closer inspection. “I’ve been consumed by my characters since lunch—the girls can tell you. I wouldn’t know if a flying pig went past, much less some local girl.”

Anahera saw Will’s face tense, his shoulders bunch. “Let’s go,” she said to him before he punched the pretentious asshole. “We have to check the other places.”

A curt nod, but he wasn’t done. “Did either of you see Miriama run past here today?” he asked the two groupies.

The girls shook their heads. Then they looked as one toward Shane Hennessey, as if waiting for him to tell them what to do next.

Anahera’s skin prickled.

She was glad to get out of there. “Is it always like that?” she asked after they’d pulled out of the drive and were back on their way to the dump. “Him with a harem?”

“I have it on good authority that the people who win Shane’s residencies are always young, female, and pretty. Such a strange coincidence.”

Anahera snorted. “You have a gift for understatement, cop.”

He didn’t reply, the lights of his SUV cutting through the inky blackness in front of them as he slowed down just before the ragged dirt track that led to the cleared but never developed patch of land that had become a dumping ground.

The tourists never saw this part of Golden Cove, never glimpsed the slick black rubbish bags torn open by feral cats, never had any idea of the abandoned couches and—“Is that a refrigerator?” Fury punched through her. “Even the worst asshole knows to take off the doors before dumping a fridge.”

Face grim, the cop brought his vehicle to a halt on the edge of the dump. “That wasn’t here last time I did a patrol—which was yesterday, just before I saw you on the road. I’ve got tools in the back.” Unsaid were the words that he’d take care of it before they left.

But first, they had to search for Miriama. That was when Anahera had a horrible thought. Heart thumping, she walked through the scattered debris to that fridge that hadn’t been there yesterday and that had appeared right when a girl had gone missing.

“Wait,” the cop said. “We need to preserve evidence if—” Leaving the rest of the chilling words unspoken, he grabbed a pair of thin rubber gloves from the kit he had in the back of the SUV.