Besides the maniac chasing her, only one other thing was on her mind as she crouched in the crook of that fallen hemlock. She wondered about Hayley.
Her twin.
Her other half.
Taylor could feel the tears running down her face as she struggled to stay composed in that dank, dark forest. It was dead silent—the kind of silence that she hoped would conceal her location.
“Come out now. I won’t hurt either of you,” the man called again.
Either of you, Taylor thought with relief. Hayley must be alive.
Taylor rolled on her side and took cover in a ratty nest of sword ferns, trying to make sense of what had happened to her sister and her, and why. First there was a text message from someone with important information, a deeply hidden secret about the twins, and something about the videotape that Savannah Osteen had shown them. Then there was that fateful meeting with a stranger.
The twins had followed their crime-writing dad’s rules, if only partially. They had gone together. They didn’t go in anyone’s car. They agreed to meet in a public place. They did all of that. They were not stupid. They were raised on Bundy, Manson, and that somewhat appealing Craigslist killer. They understood that evil didn’t always look the part.
And yet there Taylor was, hiding from sure death, literally scared stiff. Wondering whether she deserved this. Whether she’d been good enough to the world. Whether what happened to Moira was their fault. Whether karma had knocked on their door with a poisoned edible arrangement.
Trying to steady herself, Taylor started to stand. A fan of dark-green ferns parted and a patch of hot pink, a color so wrong for the dank, cedar, and fir-laden forests of Washington State, caught her eye.
Pink?
She leaned closer, feeling the earth shift under her feet as fear swallowed her into the heavy, black earth.
Pink.
It took every ounce of self-control she had to keep from screaming. There was a bra. Pretty and pink. Lacey and torn. A garment in a place meant to conceal it forever.
Taylor touched it with a bloody fingertip and she knew immediately what she had stumbled on.
Brianna Connors. The bra belonged to her.
Brianna had been missing from school for weeks.
Twigs snapped and the sound of boots sloshing through a creek a few yards away ricocheted over the forest floor. Hayley?
Then, the voice again.
“I just want to talk to you,” the man said.
Like hell, killer.
What Taylor didn’t allow herself to think was what she already knew, a truth that was deep in the marrow of her bones. He had answers. Answers to questions about their past that nobody else had ever dared ask—not even she or Hayley. He held a piece of the puzzle they’d only begun to realize had started to take shape.
There was only one way to find out what they wanted to know. But how was she going to make sure she wouldn’t be on the losing end of the man’s knife?
Exhaling slowly, Taylor took a deep breath and stepped away from what remained of Brianna Connors, out into the clearing.