I hear the footsteps coming closer, quiet on the thick, wet leaves of the forest floor. I duck behind a white pine tree, then realize it’s big enough to hold my weight and scramble upward, hands pulling me into the branches, where I cling to the trunk like a monkey, praying they haven’t seen me. The steps stop, but the forest isn’t tricked; the birds are silent as the grave, the squirrels frozen in their perches. They know evil has come to their world.

My breath is too loud; sweat is prickling on my brow. I see the blood then, on my hands—his blood—and swallow hard against the sudden spike of nausea.

He is gone. He is gone, and now I am alone.

Tears drip down my face, fall off my chin. I swipe my jaw against my shoulder so they don’t splatter onto the leaves below and draw attention to my hiding place.

A starling bursts from the brush fifteen feet to my left, and startles me. I nearly fall out of the tree but hang on. Even my fingers know the danger of letting go.

This dance, inextricably tying us together, is entering its final moments.

They have come for me. I will not let them take me alive.

FRIDAY

“A human being is only breath and shadow.”

—Sophocles

“You are a human being, and so you must honor thy mother; she is the life of all things, the soul of your breath, your stars, your moon, the bringer of air, the guide of the tides. I am your mother, your breath, your sight and your feelings. Honor not me, but what I can be for you.”

—Curtis Lott

Chapter

Georgetown University School of Medicine

Washington, D.C.

DR. SAMANTHA OWENS stared out the window of her office, admiring the view she’d be enjoying for the next several years. Trees. Lots and lots of trees. The Georgetown University campus was landscaped to perfection, bringing the joys of wildlife and green space to their urban oasis. Maples and willow oaks, zelkovas and ginkgo, viburnum and holly, and more she had no names for. In truth, this deep into the warm, wet D.C. summer, everything was so green it made her eyes hurt. It was all so bloody alive.

And so different from her anonymous, stainless-steel office in Nashville. A welcome change. A change she’d openly pursued, sure to the core she no longer wanted to work in law enforcement. The idea of keeping herself separate from the hurt and fear and messiness of the real world appealed to her.

Her new reality: she was the head of the burgeoning forensic pathology department at Georgetown University Medical School. Her first classes would start the following week, though students were already on campus doing their orientations. And now that she was here, the sense of adventure and excitement were gone.

Looking out at the tree-lined campus, she couldn’t help wondering, yet again, if she’d made a mistake. The freedom she’d hoped for, planned on, felt like a noose around her neck. Even though she was calling the shots, she was increasingly feeling trapped. So many people were counting on her. She’d developed the forensic program, made a commitment to the university, even signed a contract. She was stuck.

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