Shaye Archer Series

Except it’s not.

Crrrrrreeeeeeeeaaaaaaakkkkkkk.

The sound of the loose step sends her body into overdrive, and she rushes for the secret room behind the wall. The screech of old hinges echoes through the house as he enters her bedroom.

He starts whistling.

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.

She slaps a hand over her mouth, stifling her scream. 

He’s coming for her, but that can’t be.

She killed him last month.

Jinx LeDoux bolts upright, gasping for air, her heart pounding. Something has happened. Something she can’t quite remember.

Worse, she’s surrounded by darkness.

She puts her hands on the ground, trying to grasp something familiar. The splintered wood of her abandoned apartment isn’t there. It’s something hard, cold, and round.

She grabs the bars with both hands, but they don’t budge. 

She’s in a cage.

Nine years ago, police found Shaye Archer wandering in the French Quarter, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name. But her last case uncovered more than she ever anticipated.

She’s starting to remember.

“I’m launching an investigation,” Shaye says.

Eleonore, her friend and therapist sighs. “I figured you would.”

“I always knew my past was bad. It couldn’t have been otherwise.” 

Shaye holds up the piece of paper that had sent her life into a tailspin. “But I never imagined this.”

She bangs on the top of the enclosure, but the cushioned fabric only creates a dull thud. Beyond panicked, she screams until her throat burns and she doesn’t have another breath of air in her.

And that’s when it hits her.

She’s in a coffin.

She screams again.

The woman collapses, and Madison sucks in a breath. The man checks for a pulse then reaches into his pocket. He must be calling for help. But then Madison sees the glint of the knife. 

She grabs her cell phone and dials 911. If the police don’t catch him now, she can’t help them later. Her prosopagnosia—facial blindness—won’t allow her to identify the man. Or his victim.

But the killer doesn’t have the same limitations.

He looks up and stares directly at her. 

The phone slips from her hand, and everything goes black.

She steps up to the edge of the water and stares at the silver locket in her hand, a picture of two girls inside. One is her. The other…

Is waiting.

She begins to sing, and the winds pick up her tune. The water stirs, and from the center of the angry current, the young woman emerges. Her haunting voice carries over the water.

“Find me. I’m all alone.” 

Jenny Taylor bolts up in bed, her screams echoing throughout her bedroom. She falls back on the pillow, sobbing. She knows what she has to do. The dreams are too intense. Too frequent. 

It’s time to find Caitlyn.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” a voice whispers. 

“Welcome,” Nicolas says. “What do you have to confess?”

“I killed her.”

Nicolas’s pulse shoots up, and he sucks in a breath. “Are you saying you willingly took the life of another person?”

“Yes. God is the reason I killed her. Will you absolve me, Father?”

As Nicolas fumbles for his phone to send an urgent text for help, he hears the chair in the other booth squeak, and a shadow passes in front of the screen. His pulse pounds in his temples and he starts to sway, dizziness washing over him. 

Help isn’t going to make it in time.