Page 63 of Circle of Strangers
Shock. Panic. Grief. Horror.
Anything.
Nothing comes.
My mind whirs instead, a thousand thoughts firing all at once, dizzy with possible scenarios and motives involving Mara and Sozi, but none of them quite add up ... except for one.
Perhaps Sozi was telling the truth all along and Mara wanted to silence her—and frame me—to clear the path for her to have Will. Sozi’s easy prey, too—estranged from her family. No one will miss her. If she and Austin are broken up, he won’t report her missing.
But if he does . . .
I think about my last text to her, the one where I told her to stay away, the one where I threatened her. If that was our final exchange and she’s found dead in my garage, I’ll be an immediate person of interest.
I fumble with my phone, pulling up the security camera app. My fingers tremble so badly I almost drop it. When the app loads, my heart sinks.
The exterior cameras are all offline.
Apparently Will wasn’t lying when he said the system was acting strange lately.
There’s no footage; no way to prove who came or went, no record of who’s responsible for the dead body in my garage.
I close my eyes, trying to think clearly amid a haze of dizzying thoughts. If I can just get the kids to bed, I can clean this up—at least enough to get through the night. Enough to buy me some time to figure out the next step. Whoever did this to Sozi left her here formeto clean up.
And if I don’t, it’s all over for us.
But in cleaning her up, I risk incriminating myself if I leave evidence behind.
I don’t have a choice.
I can’t do anything about this until the kids are asleep, which will be several hours from now—enough time for me to think this through. Returning inside, I tend to the children, make dinner, and run baths like it’s any other night, all the while strategizing in silence.
Four of the longest hours of my life pass before I finally return to the garage.
Except it’s the strangest thing ...
There’s no metallic tang of blood hitting me like a wall.
No trace of early decay lingering in the air.
No lifeless, human-shaped lump in the northwest corner of the third stall.
With my heart inching up my throat, I smack the nearby light switch, missing it on the first attempt. The lone overhead light buzzes to life, casting a sterile glow over spotless concrete.
The butcher knife is gone.
The blood is gone.
And so is Sozi’s body.
49
The door clicks shut softly, and I listen to Will’s familiar footsteps as he moves through our house, dropping his keys on the console table by the door, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it in the hall coat closet, opening and closing the fridge, shuffling around.
The kids are asleep. The house is dark. I’m lying perfectly still in our bed, pretending to be out cold despite the fact that my mind is racing—caught in a relentless loop of what-ifs and worst-case scenarios.
It hasn’t stopped all night. Not once.
In fact, it’s only grown more intense in the two hours that have passed since the dead body went missing.
