Chapter 1 - The River
The first thing Garrett said after driving through the guardrail was my name.
Not screamed.
Not frightened.
Calm.
“Don’t fight it, Rosalind.”
Then the SUV hit the river.
Glass exploded somewhere behind me. My shoulder slammed against the door. The world turned black, silver, and freezing all at once.
For several seconds I did not know which way was up.
Then the vehicle settled crookedly beneath the surface, nose dipping downward, and water began pouring through the damaged front of the cabin.
“Garrett!”
My husband sat behind the wheel in his dark suit.
Too calm.
That was what I noticed first.
“Garrett, get us out!”
My brother Tobias was behind us in the wheelchair he had used for fifteen years. The chair had shifted violently during impact and wedged against the rear seat.
“Tobias!”
“I’m here.”
His voice was strained.
Alive.
I grabbed my seat-belt release.
Nothing happened.
Again.
Nothing.
“Mine’s stuck!”
Garrett looked at me.
Rainwater and river water ran down his face.
Then he said:
“I know.”
Everything inside me went still.
“What?”
Garrett unfastened his own belt.
One clean movement.
“Garrett?”
He lowered the driver-side window farther.
Water rushed inward.
I screamed.
“What are you doing?”
He climbed through.
Actually climbed out.
I grabbed for his sleeve and missed.
“Tobias is still inside!”
Garrett turned once from outside the vehicle.
Underwater lights distorted his face.
Then he pushed away.
Swam upward.
Left us.
I pulled frantically at my belt.
The buckle was not jammed.
Something beneath the seat was holding it.
I reached down.
Metal.
A thin secured line attached where it should never have been.
My terror changed shape.
This was not a crash.
I looked into the back.
“Tobias.”
“Keep your head.”
“My belt was altered.”
“I know.”
“What?”
Before he could answer, the SUV shifted lower.
Water reached my waist.
I grabbed the door handle.
Pressure held it shut.
“Tobias, what do you mean you know?”
“Not yet.”
I hated him for those two words.
Then I saw movement through the rain-streaked passenger window.
Garrett had reached the bank.
A figure stood beneath an umbrella.
Burgundy dress.
Dark hair.
One hand resting protectively over a visibly pregnant stomach.
Penelope Ward.
My half-sister.
My mother’s daughter from her first marriage.
The girl I had defended when our father’s relatives called her “not really Hayes.”
The woman who had toasted my marriage three years earlier.
Garrett stumbled out of the water.
Penelope dropped the umbrella long enough to wrap both arms around him.
He held her.
Not like someone receiving help after surviving an accident.
Like someone arriving where he intended to go.
My breath disappeared.
“No.”
Through the glass, I watched my husband kiss my pregnant sister.
Then both of them looked toward the river.
Toward us.
Penelope said something I could not hear.
Garrett smiled.
The water reached my ribs.
“Tobias.”
No response.
I turned.
My brother’s head was above water by inches.
His hands were gripping the wheelchair arms.
He had been twenty years old when our parents died.
The crash damaged his spine.
Doctors told us he might never walk independently again.
I was eighteen.
For fifteen years, Tobias had been the fixed point of my life.
Wheelchair.
Accessible vehicles.
Physical therapy.
Pain.
Anger.
Acceptance.
I looked at him now and started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
His expression sharpened.
“For what?”
“For bringing Garrett into the family.”
“Rosalind.”
“I thought he was different from his father.”
“Look at me.”
The water reached my chest.
“I’m going to get you out.”
I almost laughed.
“You can’t even—”
Tobias stood.
Not slowly.
Not impossibly.
He gripped the seatback, pushed himself upright, and stepped out of the wheelchair.
My mind refused the image.
“Tobias?”
He reached inside his jacket and removed a compact rescue tool from a waterproof pouch.
“Tobias.”
He moved toward me through the rising water.
“You can walk.”
“Later.”
“YOU CAN WALK?”
“Rosalind!”
His voice snapped me back.
He cut the restraint holding my belt.
I sucked in air.
Then he shifted toward the rear door, waited as the pressure changed, and forced an escape opening wide enough for us to move through.
“Stay with me.”
He pulled me into the river.
I kicked toward the surface.
Tobias caught my wrist.
“No.”
“We’ll drown!”
He pressed a small emergency breathing device into my hand.
“Use it.”
I stared.
“Why do you have this?”
“Because I stopped trusting Garrett two months ago.”
Above us, headlights swept the water.
He pulled me beneath the shadow of an old maintenance pier.
We surfaced inside a narrow dark gap between pilings where the road could not see us clearly.
I gasped.
Then shoved him.
“You lied to me for fifteen years!”
Tobias caught himself against concrete.
“No.”
“What do you call standing?”
His face twisted.
“I was injured for years.”
“How many?”
He did not answer.
“Tobias.”
“Rosalind, Garrett is still watching.”
I looked toward shore.
Garrett had one arm around Penelope.
They were staring at the place our SUV disappeared.
Waiting.
Tobias whispered:
“They need to believe we’re dead.”
“Why?”
His eyes met mine.
“Because if Garrett knows we survived, he’ll finish what his father started.”
I stopped breathing.
“What are you talking about?”
Tobias glanced toward the submerged SUV.
Then back to me.
May you like
“Our parents’ crash wasn’t an accident.”
And for the second time that night, the river disappeared beneath my feet.
