Page 11 of Perfect Liar
And she never showed up.
CHAPTER 3
A wave of anxiety hit me just as I turned the key to unlock the front door.
I lived in my family’s beautifully restored Victorian house with my sister, her daughter, and our grandmother. I had been there my entire life. The same house where my father had grown up. And the same house he and my mother had shared.
It was dark inside the house. And very quiet. The smell of Gran’s evening chamomile tea didn’t greet me. No one moved about beyond the foyer.
And no one was there to see my terror when I switched on the light.
I clasped my hand over my mouth.
My body and my voice froze, trapping me inside a nightmare. But I was awake.
There, on the floor, Isabel and our grandmother held hands as they lay in a pool of blood that got bigger as each second passed.
Someone had shot them.
Gran had already passed.
Isabel blinked. Horror marked her beautiful face. She tugged on some paper in her pocket until she exhausted her strength, and her arm fell to the floor. Her fading words floated away on her last breath.
“Find Lissie and get out…” she whispered.
She stopped blinking, her eyes still staring up at me but seeing nothing.
“Isabel…no, you can’t leave me…no, no, no!” I shouted.
And then I fell on my knees between my grandmother and my sister, holding their cold hands in mine, pulling our hands to my chest.
They were both gone.
A forceful wail pushed hard at my lungs, but I wouldn’t allow it to come out.
Stinging tears flooded my eyes.
Painful seconds, heartbreaking seconds that dragged on for an eternity tore up my heart.
The clock chimed eleven times, startling me, and I jerked wildly.
Looking around the room, I realized I had to get up. I had to dismiss it all…because…Lissie. I had to find her.
Fear for her life and mine took pain’s place.
I grabbed the paper my sister had been tugging on. When I unfolded it, I saw my drawing. Will Hastings’s face. His eyes. Something senseless, something I couldn’t rationalize that was neither right nor wrong, skipped through my mind and banged around inside my skull.
Isabel had taken my sketch and printed the name “Ethan” and an international phone number on it.
I put the paper in my back pocket and jumped up, causing myself to slip, righting myself only to stumble and fall against the round entryway table. I anchored myself there for a second to catch my breath.
My mind reeled, sorting through frenzied thoughts, seeking answers, but no answers came. Only one word in all the rambling inside my head made any sense.
Run.
I rushed up the staircase and called out for Lissie.
Her bedroom was at the back of the house, and her door was already open when I got there. I pounded the side of my fist against the light switch. The room spun. I reached for the doorframe and pulled in a deep breath to fight the rush of adrenaline.