My mom clenched my shoulder as she told me, looking me dead in the eyes. "You- Sweetheart, you don't remember the car accident?"
"What about my friends-" I asked, shaking my head in refusal as I struggled to recite their names, "-Kira, Tyler, Drake, Lauren, Clare, a-and Jude?" My eyes began to swell with tears, my chest heaving for air as a monotonous beeping sound from behind me increased in pace.
"They were- they were in the car with you, and they didn't make it, sweetheart, and I'm so, so sorry." I stared at my mom. She's lying. That can't be true. It's not true.
Adele knows she witnessed a murder - what she doesn't know is just how personal it is.
*****
A girl was brutally murdered in the basement of a sorority house in spring 2011. Adele Theroux thinks she saw the killer - and the killer definitely saw her. What she doesn't know is why this all happened and who this guy is. As she tries to solve the mystery from a distance while in witness protection, the connections keep getting weirder and more personal. Might she be able to relate to the killer in a way that no one else can? And what does that mean about her own psyche?
*2019 Watty Award for Mystery/Thriller*
[[word count: 50,000-60,000 words]]
Cover designed by April Alforque