HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: Everything She Feared by Rick Mofina

Every mother worries about their child. But Sara Harmon fears hers…

When a teen falls while taking a selfie at the edge of a cliff, the last thing she sees before plummeting to her death is Katie Harmon, the nine-year-old girl she was babysitting, looking down at her.

Investigators gather at the scene, and Katie’s mother, Sara, rushes to comfort her daughter. Yet there’s a small, secret ping of alarm in Sara’s heart that she cannot share—though rookie detective Kim Pierce senses it.

For years, others have tried to unravel this secret. From true-crime podcasters to a haunted journalist searching for a killer who vanished after being released from prison several years ago. And now, with detectives tightening the focus of their investigation, Sara is consumed by her darkest fear—that the babysitter’s death was not an accident.

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Near North Bend, Washington


SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD ANNA SHAW didn’t want to die.

Adrenaline surged through every nerve ending, her fingers digging into the tree branch jutting from the cliffside.

This was a nightmare. It couldn’t be real.

But it is real.

Anna had been atop the cliff, taking in the breathtaking panoramic view of the river, forests and mountains. Then in a heartbeat she was falling, falling some twenty feet, crashing into the big twisting branch sticking from the cliff face, catching herself, seizing it, struggling to hang on as it bent, now threatening to give way.

Gasping, she looked in horror a hundred feet straight down to the rocks at the banks of the rushing river below.

Wind gusted up, nudging her dangling legs. As she hung on for life, the branch cracked, her body jolted.

“Oh God!”

Anna glanced up at nine-year-old Katie Harmon looking down at her from the clifftop.

“Katie! Get help!”

Transfixed, Katie stared in wide-eyed silence.

Anna strained to move along the weakening branch closer to the cliff face to find a hold on the craggy rocks.

But pulling herself caused the branch to bob and shake, crackling more under her weight. Her hands landed on short branch spikes, like protruding nails piercing her palms with electrifying pain.

Suddenly the branch split and Anna jounced a few feet lower, clawing, clinging on to the fibrous remains.

“Katie!” she shrieked. “Oh God!”

Anna looked up.

Katie was gone.

The branch cracked again.

Run!

Every part of Katie’s brain screamed at her to run.

She flew along the trail, twisting, turning through the dense woods, hoping to catch up to the others who had continued moving ahead.

Anna’s fall had happened in a terrible instant.

So real and so frightening.

And no one else knows! No one was with us to see!

Katie willed herself to run fast, faster than she’d ever run in her life.

She felt like she was moving in slow motion but she blazed along the trail, coming to the clearing where her group from the Sunny Days Youth Center was setting up.

Katie glimpsed the joyful calm, nearly thirty kids and a sprinkling of adults supervising the day trip from the city, oblivious to the horror now on the cliff they’d all just passed. The boys were moving picnic tables together, others tossed a Frisbee. The girls were opening backpacks,

tearing into snacks and drinks while others took pictures.

It all stopped when Katie screeched: “Help!”

Heads turned, smiles melted, the Frisbee crashed.

“What’s up, Katie?” said Jackson, one of the supervisors.

“Anna fell!” Katie’s chest heaved; she was gasping for air. “Taking a selfie. Fell off the cliff! Hanging on to a tree!”

It took a moment for Jackson and the others to absorb the alarm and snap to attention.

“We’ll need ropes,” he said, glancing at the other supervisors, Adam and Connie, who’d grabbed a canvas bag, unzipped it and yanked out tent ropes. They turned to Katie, who’d already fled back on the trail, her sobbing echoing in her wake.

“Everyone stay here!” Connie said, starting to run with the two men as she called to another adult with the group: “Dakota, keep everyone here!”

The supervisors struggled to keep up with Katie, all of them racing back on the trail to the area of the cliff. Two backpacks on the ground marked the point where it happened. Katie stood there horrified when she looked down.

Only spear-like remnants of the branch reached from the cliffside.

Katie stepped back while Jackson, Adam and Connie, breathing hard, looked down, their eyes ballooning in disbelief.

“Oh God!” said Connie, her voice breaking.

“No! No! No!” Adam yelled.

Anna’s body was splayed on the rocks of the riverbank.

Ribbons of blood were webbing to the water.

******

IN THE TIME that followed, events unfolded like a tragic opera.

Connie’s 911 call went to the King County Communications Center. Panting with panic, she struggled to report the emergency.

“A girl fell off a cliff! We need—please, we need—”

“Take a breath,” said the operator, calm, professional, taking control. “Tell me exactly where you are and what happened.”

Connie collected herself, answering questions and following instructions, enabling the operator to dispatch paramedics and deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office North Precinct. The deputies then made a callout for Search and Rescue, setting the response in motion.

“I can’t look anymore.” Katie covered her face with her hands. Sobbing and trembling, she lowered her hands and asked: “Is Anna dead?”

“We don’t know.” Connie put her arm around her. “Help is coming.”


For their part, Jackson and Adam had found a safe route to hurry down from the cliff. Moving as fast as they could along the rugged riverbank, they came to Anna’s motionless body.

Her arms and legs were bent and twisted like a rag doll. She was lying faceup with her eyes open, staring skyward, blood dripping from the back of her neck. Jackson and Adam knelt next to her.

“Anna!” Adam said, knowing the worst but saying her name again.

Her stillness terrified them. They heard nothing but the river’s rush while Jackson felt her neck, warm but no pulse.

He began CPR.

Adam saw her palms, bleeding from branch fragments projecting like quills in testament to her fight to hang on. Gently holding her hand, Adam surveyed Anna, almost glowing on the rocks in her bright yellow T-shirt. He didn’t know that her mother had had it custom-made for her last birthday with the embroidered motto crowned over her heart: All We Have Is Today.

A small tattoo on her inner right wrist said Fearless, and on her inner left wrist was a small heart. Her jeans were faded, stylishly torn at the knees. One of her pink sneakers had been ripped away by the impact.

Anna’s head nodded in time with Jackson’s rhythmic pumping. But both men knew that the effort to save her was in vain.

Still Jackson refused to quit.

Adam’s phone rang—it was the emergency operator. She’d gotten his number from Connie.

“Yes… A lot of blood… No pulse… We both have CPR and First Aid… He’s doing CPR… Unconscious… Not responding… Tell them to hurry.”

Staying on the line to provide directions to the scene, Adam held Anna’s still-warm hand while watching Jackson’s unrelenting CPR. Blinking back tears. His gaze went from Anna to the rock face, his stomach lifting at the magnitude of the drop, his focus traveling up beyond the broken branch to the cliff, seeing Connie looking down at him.

Adam shook his head slowly.

Connie’s hand flew to her mouth. She turned, nearly doubling over before somehow getting enough control to pull Katie closer, comforting her. Slowly they started back to be with the others at their day camp.

Connie’s mind swirled as they returned to the clearing; twenty-four kids, aged nine to fourteen, were in the Sunny Days excursion, along with four adult supervisors and three older teen assistants—now, only two.

Moments ago they were all starting a blissful outing, only to see it turn into a day of horrible heartbreak, a day they would remember for the rest of their lives, Connie thought. Everything at their day camp came to a halt when Connie and Katie emerged.

“Is Anna okay?” asked Dakota, one of the supervisors.

Connie searched the group, meeting anxious, expectant faces, feeling Katie’s sobs against her. Holding her tight, Connie brushed at her own tears.

“Anna fell,” Connie said. “She’s hurt bad, really bad.”

“Did Anna die?” one of the girls asked.

Connie stared at her.

“I want to see!” said Dylan Frick, a boy who was also in Katie’s class at school.

“No!” Connie said loudly, then softened her voice. “We don’t know anything yet. We just have to wait.”

Some of the kids got on their phones, texting and calling their families, while a few of the girls rushed to Katie and Connie, encircling them in a group hug, their sobbing soon mingling with the tragic operatic chorus of distant sirens echoing over the treetops.


Excerpted from Everything She Feared. Copyright © 2023 by Rick Mofina. Published by MIRA Books.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Michael Mofina

Rick Mofina is a former crime reporter and the award-winning author of several acclaimed thrillers. He's interviewed murderers face-to-face on death row; patrolled with the LAPD and the RCMP. His true crime articles have appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, Reader’s Digest and Penthouse. He's reported from the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, Qatar and Kuwait's border with Iraq. This is his 31st book. For more information please visit www.rickmofina.com

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: I Love It When You Lie by Kristen Bird

The Williams women don’t just keep secrets…

They bury them.

The three Williams girls are as close as sisters can be, and they also share one special trait in common: each of them has a man in her life that she could do without.

Tara, the pastor’s wife, has been stealing money from the church and would prefer that her husband stay out of it. Then there’s June, who would do anything to have a baby of her own, even if her husband is dead set against it. Clementine, the youngest, is entangled in an affair with her professor, a man whose behavior she's starting to seriously question. Their sister-in-law Stephanie, an outsider, knows all the family dirt and is watching the three of them—and the men in their lives—closely.

When the woman who raised them, their beloved Gran, dies on the eve of her eightieth birthday, the Williams sisters return home to the Appalachian foothills to bury her. But their grandmother won’t be the only one they’ll put in a grave this weekend…because now someone has gone missing in the dark Appalachian woods.

And if Gran has taught them anything, it’s how to get rid of a good-for-nothin’ man.

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The Sheriff’s Office in Willow Gap, Alabama

One Week After

STEPHANIE

It would’ve been a touching moment except for the reality of the grave at their feet. Gran’s grave. I shiver just thinking about the three Williams sisters standing in the family cemetery, their arms entwined, gazing up at the sunrise, all that cool Alabama clay piled beside them, their fingernails packed with the red earth, the stench of what they’d done in their nostrils. It was Decoration Sunday, the one day of the year when the entire family descended on Gran’s property to pay respect to the dead and gossip about those still living.

Tara, June, and Clementine Williams are my sisters-in-law. For so long, I’ve waited for the day that their little coven would topple some man’s ivory tower. Now that the time has come, I realize that each of us has a man that we might be better off without, but only one of us is lucky enough to have actually rid ourselves of him.

Four men: a preacher, a doctor, a professor, and a mayor. One goes missing. It’s like our own little Willow Gap edition of Clue. How charming.

Sheriff Brady Dean, his badge shining in the interrogation lights, brings me back to the moment at hand, the moment of reckoning. The aged sheriff wants to know what I know, wants me to spill all the whys, whens, wheres, and hows of the Williams sisters over the past forty-eight hours.

“I’m sure you know why you’re here, Mrs. Williams.” The words emerge like a sigh. He’s been after this family for more than thirty years, ever since he was first elected. Poor guy. Must be exhausted.

I meet the sheriff eye to eye, tapping my recently painted nails—Los Angeles Latte, the dark bottle of polish had read—against the metal table in the claustrophobic office where he’s brought me for questioning. Not that I’m the one in trouble here.

My husband, Walker Williams, knew Sheriff Dean before Walker and I ever met and married a decade ago. Some say ours was a Yankee seduction, but I don’t care. Walker has been the mayor now for eight years, and they have to put up with me, the damn Yank in their midst.

I think of my three children—Walker Jr. and Auggie and Bella—their features too much like my husband’s. They’re fine, I remind myself. They’re with the nanny while I’m here tying up all of the loose ends. I shake my head to dislodge their faces from my mind. It’s important that I focus. I must get this right.

“Call me Ms. Chadrick. Or Stephanie. I’ll be using my maiden name soon enough,” I tell the sheriff.

Sheriff Dean clears his throat, and I follow his eyes to my hand. I’m still wearing my massive diamond, the one Walker bought for our last anniversary. To ten years, baby, and a lifetime more, he’d said as he slipped it on my finger in our Nashville hotel room. I’m not planning to part with my jewelry just because my husband can’t keep his dick in his pants.

I blink innocently at the sheriff and twist my ring around, pressing the stone into my palm until it bites. “I’m here to tell you what I saw after Gran Williams’s funeral. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes’m.” The sheriff lets out a heavy breath that reaches all the way down to the gut hanging over his belt. “I know these women are your husband’s sisters, but we’re hoping…”

“Soon to be ex-husband,” I fire back, reminding him once again.

“Fine. As I was saying, we’re hoping you’ll be willing to give us an account of the movement of your sisters-in-law these past few days. With a missing person, time is of the essence.”

He gives me one of those indulgent smiles saved only for a wronged woman. He knows about my cheating bastard of a spouse, and I breathe, reminding myself again that I’m in good company. Jackie O., Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary—all of these fine ladies were cheated on by their infamous yet politically savvy husbands. Remembering them makes it easier for me to deal with the fact that everyone knows about Walker and his lying ways.

When I first moved here from DC, I thought my new husband and his town were adorable, quaint even. As I prepared for Walker’s bid for mayor, I even got a kick out of researching its history at the local library, trying to understand the place where generations of Walker’s family had lived for so long.

Alabama. Some historians say the word is from a Native American language and means “tribal town” or “vegetation gatherers.” My favorite definition of the word, though, was penned by one Alexander Beauford Meek, a highly unreliable

source, but isn’t that what history is made of? Mr. Meek said that the word means “here we rest.” Alabama: here we rest. It’s deliciously spooky, isn’t it? Like something from one of those Faulkner stories I couldn’t get enough of in college.

To be fair though, my problem isn’t actually with the great state of Alabama. It’s with these people, this town, this family. They forget so easily that I’m a part of them now, for better or worse. They forget that I know where all the bodies are buried, and I’m not just talking about their kinfolk in the family cemetery a couple hundred yards down the hill from Gran’s house.

The sheriff clears his throat and tries again. “As I was sayin’, we’re hopin’ you can give us a clearer account of who all was there and what exactly went on, so we can understand what led to our missing person. He’s an important man, a good man, and the last time anyone laid eyes on him was Saturday evening a few hours after the funeral at Gran Williams’s cabin.”

Our missing person. There’s something so possessive in the phrase. I almost giggle, realizing that this man is handing me my chance on a silver platter, an opportunity to expose every inch of the Williams family drama.

“Sheriff, ask me any question, and I’ll tell you exactly what you want to hear.” I cross my legs and study my cuticles. “Although, if you want to know the whole truth, you need to go a lot further back than the past few days.”

I take a sip of the coffee he brought me earlier and stretch my arms in front of me as if preparing for a catnap. I wonder if the sheriff realizes just how far back he needs to reach, how far down he needs to dig until he hits something like the truth.

The sheriff nods at me to continue, and I notice again the plump circles hanging under his eyes. He sneezes into the crook of his arm and settles in for the real reason why people involved with the Williams family might just disappear.

I sit up straighter. “All right, then. Let’s start with the dead one.”




Excerpted from I Love It When You Lie. Copyright © 2023 by Kristen Bird. Published by MIRA Books.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Bess Garlson 

Kristen Bird lives outside of Houston, Texas with her husband and three daughters. She earned her bachelor’s degree in music and mass media before completing a master’s in literature. She teaches high school English and writes with a cup of coffee in hand. In her free time, she likes to visit parks with her three daughters, watch quirky films with her husband and attempt to keep pace with her rescue lab-mixes.

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: It's One of Us by J.T. Ellison

From the New York Times bestselling author comes this twisting, emotionally layered thriller about a marriage torn apart when the police arrive at an infertile couple’s door and reveal the husband’s son is the prime suspect in a murder. The perfect blend of exhilarating suspense and issue-driven book club fiction.

Everybody lies. Even the ones you think you know best of all . . .

Olivia Bender designs exquisite home interiors that satisfy the most demanding clients. But her own deepest desire can’t be fulfilled by marble counters or the perfect rug. She desperately wants to be a mother. Fertility treatments and IVF keep failing. And just when she feels she’s at her lowest point, the police deliver shocking news to Olivia and her husband, Park.

DNA results show that the prime suspect in a murder investigation is Park’s son. Olivia is relieved, knowing this is a mistake. Despite their desire, the Benders don’t have any children. Then comes the confession. Many years ago, Park donated sperm to a clinic. He has no idea how many times it was sold—or how many children he has sired.

As the murder investigation goes deeper, more terrible truths come to light. With every revelation, Olivia must face the unthinkable. The man she married has fathered a killer. But can she hold that against him when she keeps such dark secrets of her own?

This twisting, emotionally layered thriller explores the lies we tell to keep a marriage together--or break each other apart . . .

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1

THE WIFE

There is blood again.

Olivia forces away the threatening tears. She will not collapse. She will not cry. She will stand up, square her shoulders and flush the toilet, whispering small words of benediction toward the life that was, that wasn’t, that could have been.

She will not linger; she will not acknowledge the sudden sense of emptiness consuming her body. She will not give this moment more than it deserves. It’s happened before, too many times now. It will happen again, her mind unhelpfully provides.

There is relief in this pain, some sort of primitive biological response to help ease her heavy heart. Olivia has never lied to herself about her feelings about having a child. She wants this, she’s sure of it. Wants the experience, wants to be able to speak the same language as her sisters in the fertility arts, her friends who’ve already birthed their own. And she loves the idea of being pregnant. Loves the feelings of that early flush of success—the soreness and tingling in her breasts, the spotty nausea, the excitement, the fatigue. Loves remembering that moment when she realized she was pregnant the first time.

She’d known even before she took the test. She could feel the life growing inside her. Feel the quickening pulse. A secret she held in her heart, managing several hours with just the two of them, alone in their nascent lives. Every room of the house looked new, fresh, dangerous. Sharp corners and glass coffee tables, no, no, those would have to be tempered, replaced. The sun glancing off the breakfast table—too bright here, the spot on the opposite side would be best for a high chair. The cat, snoozing in the window seat—how was she going to take an interloper? The plans. The plans.

After a carefully arranged lunch, fresh fruit and no soft cheeses, she’d driven to the bookstore for a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, accepted the sweet congratulations of the bookseller—think, a complete stranger knew more than her family, her husband. She tied the plastic stick with its beautiful double pink lines inside two elaborate bows—one pink, one blue—and gave it to Park after an elegant dinner.

The look on his face—pride and fear and terror and joy, all mingled with desire—when he realized what she was saying. He’d been struck dumb, could only grin ear to ear and pat her leg for the first twenty minutes.

So much joy between them. So much possibility.

Olivia replayed that moment, over and over, every time she got pregnant. It helped chase away the furrowing, the angles and planes of Park’s forehead, cheek, chin, as they collapsed into sorrow when she’d miscarried the first time. And the next. And the next. Every time she lost their children, it was the same, all played out on Park’s handsome face: exaltation, fear, sorrow. Pity.

No, the being pregnant part was idyllic for her, albeit terribly brief. It’s only that she doesn’t know how she feels about what happens ten months hence, and the lifetime that follows. The stranger that comes into being. But that’s normal—at least, that’s what everyone tells her. All women feel nervous about what comes next. Her ambivalence isn’t what’s killing her babies. She can’t help but feel it’s her fault for not being certain to her marrow what she wants. That God is punishing her for being cavalier.

Of course, this internal conversation is moot. There is blood. Again.

She hastily makes her repairs—the materials are never far away. If she stashed the pads and tampons away in the hall cabinet, it would be bad luck. Too optimistic.

Not like they’re having any luck anyway. Six pregnancies. Six miscarriages. IUIs and IVF. Needles and hormones and pain, so much pain. More than anyone should have to bear.

With a momentary glance at the crime scene in the toilet, she depresses the handle.

“Goodbye,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

Olivia brushes her teeth, then pulls a comb through her glossy, prenatal-enriched locks, rehearsing the breakfast conversation she must now have.

How does she tell Park she’s failed, yet again, to hold the tiny life inside her?

Downstairs, it is now just another morning, no different from any over the past several years. Just the two of them, getting ready for the day.

The television is on in the kitchen, tuned to the local morning show. Park whistles as he whisks eggs in a bright red bowl. Park’s breakfasts are legendary. Savory omelets, buckwheat blueberry pancakes, veggie frittatas, yogurts and homemade granola—you name it, he makes it. Olivia handles dinner. If she cooks three nights out of seven, she considers that a success. They eat like kings in the morning and paupers at night, and they love it.

She pauses at the door, watching him bustle around. He is already dressed for work, jeans and a button-down, black lace-up brogues. His “office” is in the backyard, in a shed Olivia converted for his use. A former—reformed—English professor on a semipermanent sabbatical, Park has launched a second career ghostwriting psychological thrillers. He claims to love the anonymity of it, that he can work so close to home, and the money is good. Enough. Not obscene, but enough. They’ve been able to afford four rounds of IUI and two in vitros so far. And as he says, writing is the perfect career for a man who wants to be a stay-at-home dad. There’s no reason for him to go back to teaching. Not now.

A pang in her heart, echoed by a sharp cramp in her stomach. They are throwing everything away. She is throwing everything away. This round of IVF, she only produced a few retrievable eggs, and this was their last embryo.

My God, she’s gotten clinical. She’s gotten cold. Babies. Not embryos. There are no more frozen babies. Which means she’ll have to do it all again, the weeks-long scientific process of creating a child: the suppression drugs, the early morning blood tests, the shots, the trigger, the surgery, the implantation. The rage and fear and pain. Again.

The money. It costs so, so much.

She has frozen at the edge of the kitchen, thoughts roiling, and Park senses her there, turns with a wide smile. The whisk clicks against the bowl in time with her heartbeat.

“How are my darlings feeling this morning? Mama and bebe hungry?”

She is saved from blurting out the truth—mama no more, bebe is dead—by the ringing of the doorbell.

Park frowns. “Who is here so early? Watch the eggs, will you?”

Even chickens can do what she cannot.

It’s infuriating. House cats escape into the woods and sixty days later purge themselves of tiny blind beings. Insects, birds, rats, rabbits, deer, reproduce without thought or hindrance.

Nearly four million women a year—a year!—manage to give birth.

But not her.

She’s not depressed, really, she’s not. She’s come to terms with this. It happens. Today will be a bad day, tomorrow will be better. They will try again. It will all be okay.

Mechanically, Olivia moves to the stove, accepts the wooden spatula. Park disappears toward the foyer, shoulders broad and waist nearly as trim as the day she met him. She will never get over his handsomeness, his winning personality. Everyone loves Park. How could you not? He is perfect. He is everything Olivia is not.

The television is blaring a breaking news alert, and she turns her attention to it, grateful for something, anything, to focus on beside the intransigent nature of her womb and the fear her husband will abandon her. The anchor is new, from Mississippi, with a voice soft as honey. Tupelo? No, Oxford, Olivia remembers; Park took her to a quaint bookstore there on the square one summer, long ago.

“Sad news this morning, as it has been confirmed the body found in Davidson County earlier this week belongs to young mother Beverly Cooke. Cooke has been missing for three months, after she was last seen going for a hike at Radnor Lake. Her car was found in the parking lot, with her purse and phone inside. Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Vanda Priory tells Channel Four Metro is working with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Forensic Medical to determine her cause of death. The Cooke family released a statement a few minutes ago. ‘Thank you to everyone who has helped bring Beverly home. We will have more information on her burial soon. We ask for privacy during this difficult time.’ Metro now turns their attention to identifying a suspect. In this morning’s briefing, Homicide Detective William Osley stated that Metro has a lead and will be pursuing it vigorously. Next up, time to break into the cedar closet, it’s finally sweater weather!”

Olivia sighs in regret. That poor woman. Like everyone in Nashville, Olivia has followed the case religiously. To have a young mother—the kind of woman she’s so desperate to mold herself into— disappear into thin air from a safe, regularly traveled, popular spot, one Olivia herself hikes on occasion, has been terrifying. She knows Beverly Cooke, too, albeit peripherally. They were in a book club together a few years ago. Beverly was fun. Loud. Drank white wine in the kitchen of the house and gossiped about the neighbors. Never read the book.

Olivia stopped going after a few meetings. It was right before she’d started her first official fertility treatments, had two miscarriages behind her, was hopped up on Clomid and aspirin, and all anyone could do was talk babies. Beverly had just weaned her first and was drunk for the first time in two years. She alternated between complaining and cooing about the trials and joys of motherhood. Olivia couldn’t take it, this flagrant flaunting of the woman’s success. She stood stock still in the clubhouse kitchen, fingers clenching a glass of Chardonnay, envisioning the myriad ways she could murder Beverly. Cracking the glass on the counter’s edge and swiping it across Beverly’s pale stalk of a neck seemed the most expedient.

Honestly, she wanted to murder them all, the sycophantic breeders who took their ability to procreate for granted. They had no idea what she was going through. How she was tearing apart inside, month after month. How she felt the embryos detach and knew it was over. How Park’s face went from joy to disdain every time.

Some people wear their scars on the outside.

Some hide them deep, and never let anyone in to see them.

Olivia is still staring at the screen, which is blaring a commercial for car insurance, processing, remembering, fists balled so tightly she can feel her nails cutting the skin, when she hears her husband calling her name.

“Olivia?” His voice is pitched higher than normal, as if he’s excited, or scared.

Park enters the kitchen from the hall between the dining room and the butler’s pantry.

“Honey, they found Beverly—” she starts. But her words die in her throat when she sees two strangers, a man and a woman, standing behind him, people she knows immediately are police officers just by their wary bearing and shifting eyes that take in the whole room in a moment, then settle on her appraisingly.

“I know,” Park says, coming to her side, shutting off the gas. She’s burned the eggs; a sulfurous stench emanates from the gold-encrusted pan. He takes the spatula from her carefully. “It’s been on the news all morning. Liv, these detectives need to talk to us.”

“About?”

The man—stocky, slick smoky-lensed gold glasses, perfectly worn-in cowboy boots and a leather jacket over a button-down—takes a small step forward and removes his sunglasses. His eyes are the deepest espresso and hold something indefinable, between pity and accusation. It’s as if he knows what she is thinking, knows her uncharitable thoughts toward poor dead Beverly.

“Detective Osley, ma’am. My partner, Detective Moore. We’ve been working Beverly Cooke’s case. I understand you knew her? Our condolences for your loss.”

Olivia cuts her eyes at Park. What the hell has he been saying to them?

“I don’t know her. Didn’t. Not well. We were in a book club together, years ago. I don’t know what happened to her. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

“Oh, we understand. That’s not why we’re here.” Osley glances at his partner. The woman is taller than he is, graceful in the way of ex–ballet dancers even in her street clothes, with a long, supple neck, hooded green eyes devoid of makeup and blond hair twisted into a thick no-nonsense bun worn low, brushing the collar of her shirt.

“Why are you here, exactly?” Olivia asks.

Park frowns at her tone. She’s come across too sharp, but my God, what she’s already handled this morning would break a lesser woman.

“It’s about our suspect in the Cooke case. Can we sit down?”

Olivia reigns in her self-loathing fury and turns on the charm. The consummate hostess act always works. Park has taught her that. “Oh, of course. Can I get you some coffee? Tea? We were making breakfast. Can we offer you some eggs, or a muffin? I have a fresh pan here—”

“No, ma’am, we’re fine,” Moore demurs. “Let’s sit down and have a chat.”

Olivia has a moment of sheer freak-out. Was it Park? Had he killed Beverly Cooke? Was that why they wanted to talk, because he was a suspect? If he was a suspect, would the police sit down with them casually in the kitchen? Wouldn’t they want something more official? Take him to the station? Did they need to call a lawyer? Her mind was going fifty thousand miles an hour, and Park was already convicted and in prison, and she was so alone in the big house, so lonely, before she reached a hand to pull out the chair.

She needs to knock off the true crime podcasts. Her husband is not a murderer. He is incapable of that kind of deceit.

Isn’t he?

Sometimes she wonders.

“Nice kitchen,” Osley says.

“Thank you.”

Olivia loves her kitchen. It is the model for all her signature looks. Airy, open, white cabinets with iron pulls, leathered white marble counters. A black granite–topped island just the right size for chopping and serving, light spilling in from the big bay window. A white oak French country table with elegant cane-backed chairs. It was the heart of her home, the heart of her life with Park.

Now, though, it is simply the site of his greatest betrayal. Forevermore, from this morning—with the burned eggs and the somber police and Park’s face whiter than bone—until the end of her tenure here, and even then, in remembrance, she would look at this precious place with fury and sadness for what could have been. The ghosts of the life they were supposed to have clung to her, suckled her spirit like a babe at her breast never would. Everywhere she looked were echoes of the shadow existence she was supposed to be living. Here, a frazzled mother, smiling despite her fatigue at the children she’d created. There, a loving father, always ready to lend a hand tossing a ball or helping with homework. And look, a trio of towheaded boys and a soft blonde princess girl, the teasing and laughter of their mealtimes. How the table would seem to grow smaller as the boys got older and took up more space. The girlfriends came, the boyfriends. The emptiness when it was just the two of them again, the children grown with their own lives, the table bursting at holidays only. The grandchildren, happiness and racket, the noise and the joy creeping out from the woodwork again.

She is alone. She will always be alone. She will not have this life. She will not have this dream.

Park made it so.

As the detectives continue to speak, softly, without rancor, and her world splinters, Olivia hardens, compresses, shrinks. She watches her husband and holds on to one small thought.

I have the power to destroy you, too. Dear God, give me the chance.

Excerpted from It’s One of Us @ 2023 by JT Ellison, used with permission by MIRA Books.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Kidtee Hello Photography

J.T. Ellison is the NYT and USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 novels, and the EMMY-award winning co-host of A WORD ON WORDS, Nashville's premier literary show. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and has been published in 26 countries. Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens.

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica

A husband’s disappearance links two couples in this twisty thriller from New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica

Jake Hayes is missing. This much is certain. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he is blowing off steam at a friend’s house after their heated fight the night before. But then a day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found.

Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and coworker, thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina. But Nina is out there looking for her husband, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered.

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PROLOGUE

I gasp and stagger backward. My hand goes to my mouth, bearing down.

My brain screams at me to run. Run.

I can’t at first. Shock and fear hold me captive. They keep me from moving, like a ship that’s dropped anchor. I’m moored to this spot, my eyes gaping in disbelief. My breath quickens and I feel the flailing of my heartbeat in my neck, my throat and in my ears.

Run, my brain screams at me. Go. Fucking run.

There is movement on the ground before me. The sound that comes with it is something heathen and raging, and some part of me knows that if I don’t go now, I may never leave this place alive.

I turn away. It’s instantaneous. One minute I’m unmoving and the next I’m moving so fast that the world comes at me in vague shapes and colors, streaks of brown and blue and green. I barely feel the movement of my legs and my feet as I run. I don’t feel the impact of my shoes colliding with the earth, moving quickly across it. I don’t look back, though I want more than anything to steal a look to know that I’m alone. That I’m not being followed. But I don’t look. It’s too risky. Looking back would cost precious seconds that I don’t know that I have. If I do, those seconds could be my last.

Sounds come, but I’m so disoriented that I don’t know where they come from. Is it only my pulse, the rush of blood in my ears?

Or is someone there?

I feel something tangible against my hair and then my spine. My back arches. I jerk away, pitching forward, landing hard on my hands and knees.

The world stops moving.

I have only two thoughts in that moment: staying alive, and that this isn’t the way it was supposed to happen.

Christian

Lily is sitting on the leather chair in the family room when I come in. Her back is to me. I see her from behind, just her long brown hair spilling down the back of the chair. She stares toward the TV on the opposite wall, but the TV is off. It’s just a black box, and in it, I see a murky reflection of Lily on the screen, though I can’t tell if her eyes are open or shut.

“Hey,” I say, coming in through the garage door, closing it quietly and stepping out of my shoes. I set my phone and keys on the counter, and then ask, “How was your day?”

It’s getting dark in the house. Out the window, the sun is about to set. Lily hasn’t bothered with the lights, and so the in- side of the house is colorless and gray. We face east. Any pretty sunset is the other way. You can’t see it from here, if there even is one to see.

Lily says nothing back. She must have fallen asleep, sitting upright in the chair. It wouldn’t be the first time. She’s been extremely tired lately. The pregnancy is getting the best of her, not to mention that she’s on her feet teaching all day. These two things in combination exhaust her. It used to be that Lily would be in the kitchen, cooking dinner when I got home, but these last few weeks, she comes home from work ready to drop. I don’t mind that she’s not cooking. I’ve never been the kind of person to need a home-cooked meal after work, but that’s the way Lily was raised. Her mother did it for her father, and so she thinks she should do it for me. She’s been apologetic that she hasn’t had it in her to cook dinner, but she’s been queasy, too, and the last thing she needs to be doing is cooking for me. I called from the car and ordered takeout already; it will be here any minute.

I step quietly into the family room. I come around to the other side of Lily to face her. Lily isn’t asleep like I thought. Her eyes are open, but her expression is blank. Her skin looks gray, washed-out like the room, and I blame the poor lighting.

Lily’s head turns. She looks up at me as if in slow motion.

“Hey,” I say again, gently, smiling. “You okay? Did I wake you?”

I flip on a side table light, and she winces from the bright- ness of it, her eyes taking time to adjust. I apologize for it, realizing that her pale face had nothing to do with the lack of light.

In the warmth of the lamp’s glow, I see that Lily’s hair is wet. She wears maroon-colored joggers and a sweatshirt. She’s showered and changed since coming home, which is more than she usually does. Usually, she falls flat on the couch and doesn’t leave until it’s time to go to bed.

I drop to my knees in front of her. I reach forward and run a hand the length of her hair. “You look exhausted, babe. Do you want to just go to bed? I can help you up. Takeout should be here soon. I’ll bring it up to the room for you when it gets here.”

Lily blinks three times, as if to clear the fog. She finds her voice. It’s husky at first, dry, like after a day of shouting at a football game, which is not that different than a day of teaching rowdy high school kids math. “No,” she says, shaking her head, “I’m fine. Just tired. It was a long day.”

“You sure? I wouldn’t mind dinner in bed myself.” I had a long day too, but it doesn’t seem right to compare them when only one of us has another human growing inside of them.

“That sounds messy,” she says.

“I promise I’ll be neat.”

Lily smiles and my heart melts. I love it when she smiles at me. “When are you ever neat?”

“Never,” I say, feeling better if she can still poke fun at me.

I’ve done my research on pregnancy and childbirth. I’ve read that the fatigue women feel during the first trimester is maybe the most tired they’ll feel in their whole lives. Growing a human is exhausting. Caring for one is too, but we’re not there yet.

“You need anything?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

Takeout comes. I convince Lily to come sit on the couch with me, where we both fit. We watch TV and, as we do, I ask her about her day and she asks me about mine. She’s quieter than usual tonight. I do most of the talking. I’m a market research analyst, while Lily teaches high school algebra. We met in college over of our shared love of math. When we tell people that, it makes them laugh. We’re math nerds.

When it’s time for bed, Lily goes up to the room before me. From downstairs, I hear the sink run as she washes up. I clean up from dinner. I throw the takeout containers in the trash. There is a package waiting on the front porch. I step outside to get it, where the night is dark, though the sky is clear. It must be a new moon.

Lily is standing at the top of the stairs when I come back in. She’s there in the upstairs hall, standing in the dark, backlit by the bedroom light. Gone are the maroon sweats she wore earlier. She has on my flannel shirt now. Her legs are bare, one foot balanced on the other. Her hair is pulled back, her face still wet from washing it.

“Don’t forget to lock the door,” she says down over the railing, patting her face dry with a towel.

I wouldn’t have forgotten to lock the door. I never do. It’s not like Lily to remind me. I turn away from her, making sure the storm door is shut and locked, and then I push the front door closed and lock the dead bolt too.

Our house sits on a large lot. It’s old on the outside, but has a completely revamped, modern interior. It boasts things like a wraparound porch, beamed ceilings, a brick fireplace—which Lily fell in love with the first time she laid eyes on the house, and so I knew I couldn’t say no despite the price—as well as the more modern amenities of a subzero fridge, stainless steel appliances, heated floors and a large soaker tub that I was more enthusiastic about. The house is aesthetically pleasing to say the least, with an enormous amount of curb appeal. It practically broke the bank to buy, but felt worth it at the time, even if it meant being poor for a while.

In the backyard, the river runs along the far edge of the property, bound by a public hiking and biking trail. We were worried about a lack of privacy when we first moved in, because of the trail. The trail brought pedestrians to us. Strangers. People just passing by. For most of the year, it’s not a problem. The leaves on the trees provide plenty of privacy. It’s only when they fall that we’re more exposed, but the views of the river are worth it for that small sacrifice.

“Done,” I tell her about the locks, and she asks then if I set the alarm. We’ve lived here years and hardly ever set the alarm. I’m taken aback that she would ask.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

Lily says, “Yes, fine.” She says that we have an alarm. We pay for it. We might as well use it. She isn’t wrong—it’s just that she’s never wanted to before.

I set the alarm. I make my way around the first floor, turning off lights. It takes a minute. When I’m done, I climb the stairs for the bedroom. Lily has the lights off in the room now. She stands at the window in the dark, with her back to the door.

She’s splitting the blinds apart with her fingers and is looking out into the dark night.

I come quietly into the room. I sidle up behind Lily, setting my hand on the small of her back and asking, “What are you looking at?” as I lean forward to set my chin on her shoulder, to see what she sees.

Suddenly Lily reels back, away from the window. She drops the blinds. They clamor shut. I’ve scared her. Instinctively, her hands rise up in self-defense, as if to strike me.

I pull back, ducking before I get hit. “Whoa there, Rocky,” I say, reaching for her arms.

Lily’s hands and arms remain motionless, suspended in air.

“Shit, sorry,” she says, knowing how close she came to im- pact. The realization startles us both.

“What was that?” I ask as I gently lower Lily’s arms. Lily isn’t usually so jumpy. I’ve never seen that kind of reaction from her.

She says, “I didn’t know it was you.”

“Who did you think it was?” I ask, as a joke. She and I are the only ones here.

Lily doesn’t answer directly. Instead she says, “I didn’t hear you come up the stairs. I thought you were still downstairs.”

That doesn’t explain it.

“What are you looking at?” I ask again, gazing past her for the window.

“I thought I heard something outside,” she says.

“Like what?”

She says that she doesn’t know. Just something. We stand, quiet, listening. It’s silent at first, but then I hear the voices of kids rising up from somewhere outside. They’re laughing, and I know there are teenagers clowning around on the trail again. It wouldn’t be the first time. They never do anything too bad, though we’ve found cigarette butts and empty bottles of booze. I don’t get mad about it. I was a stupid teenager once. I did worse.

I go to the bed. I pull the blankets back. “It’s just dumb kids,

Lily. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Come to bed,” I say, but, even as she turns away from the window and slips under the sheets with me, I sense Lily’s hesitation. She’s not so sure.

Excerpted from Just the Nicest Couple @ 2023 by Mary Kyrychenko, used with permission by Park Row Books.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Sarah Lupori

Mary Kubica is a New York Times bestselling author of thrillers including The Good Girl, The Other Mrs., and Local Woman Missing. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages and have sold over two million copies worldwide. She’s been described as “a helluva storyteller” (Kirkus) and “a writer of vice-like control” (Chicago Tribune), and her novels have been praised as “hypnotic” (People) and “illuminating” (L.A. Times). She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and children.

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