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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
About the Author
To Martin and Jeremy Hodkin for always betting on me
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not exist without the extraordinary effort of many people, but there are four in particular who rise to the top of the list:
Courtney Bongiolatti: I learned so much from you and your time, talent, and limitless patience are appreciated beyond words. You made this one great, and you are missed.
Alexandra Cooper: In such a short time, you have brought so much to this book. I can’t believe my good fortune in having won the editor lottery twice.
Barry Goldblatt: No matter how heavy things get, you never let me sink. Thank God you’re on my side.
And last but not at all least, to Kat Howard. Kat, you helped me find the words I needed to write and you pulled them out of me one by one. You were with me every day even though we were thousands of miles apart. Thank you will never be enough.
Thanks also to Ellen Hopkins for helping me hear Noah’s voice, and to Nova Ren Suma, for rescuing me again and again. You are both so gracious and wise, and I am lucky to call you friends.
To Justin Chanda, Paul Crichton, Siena Koncsol, Matt Pantoliano, Chrissy Noh, Amy Rosenbaum, Elka Villa, Michelle Fadlalla, Venessa Williams, and the entire team at Simon & Schuster, I am grateful for you all every day. And to Lucy Ruth Cummins for designing yet another stu
To Stephanie, Emily L., Sarah, Bridget, Ali, A
And as always, thanks to my family for their infinite love and support: Janie and Grandpa Bob, Jeffrey, Melissa, Uncle Eddie, Aunt Viri and Uncle Paul, Barbara and Peter, Na
Martin & Jeremy, you got the dedication. Don’t be greedy.
Finally, thanks to my mother, Ellen, for always believing me. Even when she shouldn’t have.
“Can we become other than what we are?”
—Marquis de Sade, Justine
PREFACE
YOU WILL LOVE HIM TO RUINS.
The words echoed in my mind as I ran through clots of laughing people. Blinking lights and delighted screams bled together in a riot of sound and color. I knew Noah was behind me. I knew he would catch up. But my feet tried to do what my heart couldn’t; they tried to leave him behind.
I finally ran out of breath beneath a leering clown that pointed to the entrance to the Hall of Mirrors. Noah caught up to me easily. He turned me to face him and I stood there, my wrist in his grasp, my cheeks wet with tears, my heart splintered by her words.
If I truly loved him, she said, I would let him go.
I wished I loved him enough.
1
LILLIAN AND ALFRED RICE
PSYCHIATRIC UNIT
Miami, Florida
I WOKE UP ON THE MORNING OF SOME DAY IN SOME hospital to find a stranger sitting in my room.
I sat up gingerly—my shoulder was sore—and studied the stranger. She had dark brown hair that bled into gray at the roots, and hazel eyes with webs of crow’s feet at the corners. She smiled at me, and her whole face moved.
“Good morning, Mara,” she said.
“Good morning,” I said back. My voice was low and hoarse. It didn’t sound like my own.
“Do you know where you are?”
She obviously didn’t realize that the floor directory was positioned directly outside the window behind her, and that from the bed, I had a clear view. “I’m at the Lillian and Alfred Rice Psychiatric Unit.” Apparently.
“Do you know who I am?”
I had no idea, but I tried not to show it; she wouldn’t have asked me if we’d never met, and if we had met, I should remember her. “Yes,” I lied.
“What’s my name?”
Damn. My chest rose and fell quickly with my breath.
“I’m Dr. West,” she said evenly. Her voice was warm and friendly but not at all familiar. “We met yesterday, when you were brought in by your parents and a detective by the name of Vincent Gadsen.”
Yesterday.
“Do you remember?”
I remembered seeing my father lying pale and wounded in a hospital bed after he was shot by the mother of a murdered girl.
I remembered that I was the one who made her do it.
I remembered going to the police station to confess to stealing my teacher’s EpiPen and releasing fire ants in her desk, which is why she died of anaphylactic shock.
I remembered that it wasn’t true—just a lie I would feed the police so they would keep me from hurting anyone I loved again. Because they wouldn’t believe I wished my teacher dead and that not long after, she died. Choked to death on a swollen tongue, exactly the way I imagined she would.
I remembered that before I could tell anyone any of this, I saw Jude at the Thirteenth Precinct of the Metro Dade Police Department. Looking very much alive.
But I did not remember coming here to the hospital. I didn’t remember being brought. After Jude appeared, I remembered nothing else.
“You were admitted yesterday afternoon,” the stranger—Dr. West—said. “The detective called your parents when they couldn’t get you to stop screaming.”
I closed my eyes and saw Jude’s face as he walked by me. Brushed past me. Smiled. The memory stained the backs of my eyelids, and I opened them quickly, just to see something else.