Page 1 of Sneak Attack

CHAPTER1

EDEN

Marysville, Tennessee, population four thousand one hundred and twenty-two.

The green sign welcomed me while the lunch I ate on the road threatened to revolt. There I was, returning to the town I swore I’d never see again.

I swore I could still see the blood staining my hands as they gripped the steering wheel. Sure, it’d been seven years, and no one else could see it, but it was there. A monster inside of me coiled tight, waiting for the moment to strike again.

There was only one person who could bring me back there.

Marley Bickerstaff. The small town’s grandma to everyone and the neighbor I met the day my parents’ moving truck pulled in across the street from her house.

I owed her a favor for not telling my parents about the night she caught me drinking in Mr. William’s barn.

She’d called that favor in, and it was Marley. No one could say no to her, not even me, even though I’d learned how to use that word with rapid frequency since leaving this place.

Hard to argue with her most recent letter, though.

I’m dying, Eden. Please come stay with me. Let me see you one more time before I leave.

A lump lodged in my throat as I reached town. Familiar sights dotted Main Street, one of the few ways to get to Marley’s home, were as vivid in my memory for the last seven years as they were in person. Few things had changed, but I noticed differences. The laundromat appeared ready to crumble at the next gust of wind, but the lights were still on, and a handful of people were inside. The old hardware store now held a teal and cream sign, curly lettering across the front of a bagel. Some buildings’ brick fronts were in desperate need of repair. Others freshly painted.

My palms turned clammy as the diner appeared on the corner. Burgers and milkshakes after football games and sitting outside on tailgates of trucks…memories I had never been able to squash.

It was the middle of a Wednesday. Streets from the hair salon down to the bars had cars lined up out front. I was careful not to focus on anyone who might recognize me, not that the odds were high. My car would keep me anonymous until word got out.

No one would argue with Marley for inviting me back, but I had no doubt they’d save their vindictiveness and their arrows spiked with hatred for when I was alone.

Which meant I might be returning to Marysville for a while, but I’d be returning to town as infrequently as possible. The road curved as I left the small downtown, sharp turns uphill as I turned to the side roads of the hilly farming community twenty miles north of Nashville. My engine roared as the last steep hill had me turning almost one hundred and eighty degrees. I curved past Pheasant Lake with its resort, large enough to help boost the summer economy, small enough that the memories I gathered there in the one year I lived in this town pummeled me. My tires rumbled over the bridge past the bait shop and then it was a sharp left.

That food in my stomach rolled and twisted.

Two more minutes and I’d be back there.

Staring across the street at the home I once lived in.

The home next door that had once held the only boy I’d ever loved.

I couldn’t do this.

Wouldn’t.

What had I been thinking?

Marley had an entire town of people who would take care of her. She didn’tneedme.

I yanked my car to the side of the road and checked for traffic before cranking it into a three-point turn and headed back to town.

I’d let Marley down. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’d call her. She was asking too much. Hell, I’d had this same mental argument for the last nine hours, but now that I was there, I couldn’t do it.

My pulse raced and my speeding heart thundered in my ears as I white knuckle gripped the steering wheel back through the tightly wound streets. I turned right before I reached downtown and pulled into the park’s parking lot. It hadn’t changed a bit.

This was stupid. So very, very stupid. Why in the hell had I come back here?

I never should have left Florida. Never should have agreed to this. I should have gone on and continued talking to Marley through handwritten letters.

No one would want me here. No one would welcome me back into their small town like they’d once done.

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