If that means not letting myself sleep so I can be vigilant about what's happening around me, even when I'm on the train, that's what I'm going to do. And I will read the same newspaper for the tenth time to keep my brain going even though it's creeping well past sundown. Fortunately for this particular mission, the section of paper tucked in my bag when I got on the train has just the bloody, disturbing story to keep my mind from wanting to relax.

  Unfortunately for me, that bloody, disturbing story is the exact reason I'm on this train headed to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Or more precisely, to a train station, a forty-five-minute drive from the tiny town in the middle of nowhere. There I'll pick up the car left for me by another agent. It all feeds into the narrative, the persona I'm taking on for this investigation.

  Going undercover isn't new to me. My foray into being Brittany was just the latest in a long line of operations that had me slipping in and out of the life of people who didn't really exist. It's all with the goal of wedging myself into a situation in just the right way to make it crack open. This assignment is different. I don't have my team beside me. There are no other agents planted strategically on the train, and I won’t have to pretend not to know them when they show up in town. Creagan sent me alone. There's no backup to help in case things start to go wrong.

  Which means I sure as hell better keep them from going wrong.

  And that brings me to the hours I've been keeping myself awake, paying attention to every face that walks past. The trip didn’t actually have to be this long. I could have driven straight from my neighborhood right outside of Quantico in less than seven hours. But the direct path would have been too easy to track. Instead, I’ve been on a round-about adventure, changing trains and following a few different routes to get me on this final leg. After every stop, I get up and stroll through the cars, taking note of passengers who got on and off. I can only hope each of them gets to their destination and none end up dead along the tracks.

  My eyes sweep over the newspaper in my hands again. Ten sets of eyes in stark black and white stare back at me. For at least two of them, this train was the last thing they saw. For the other eight… well, they'll have to be found before anyone will know that.

  These ten are why I'm going undercover in Feathered Nest, Virginia. With a name like that, the population of the town can't be high, making the number of victims all the more staggering. Eight of the ten are still missing. According to the information Creagan gave me during my briefing, the amount of blood found at the scene of each disappearance, along with there being no sign of any of them since, give credence to the theory they are all dead. The two found mangled by the railroad tracks offers a glimpse into the possibility of what might have happened to them.

  It's the interesting positioning of the tracks that brought me into this. Though the two bodies were found in locations within a few hundred yards of each other, the curve of the track meant one, the young woman, was actually in North Carolina. Once the blood starts spattering over state lines, we tend to get involved.

  Personally, I think creating a collection of eight missing person posters on the utility pole of such a small town is a bit extreme of a distance to go before calling in help. But I'm here now. And I'm going to figure out what's happening to these people and stop the son of a bitch doing it before it happens again.

  A few minutes before pulling into the station, the sleepy-eyed conductor makes his way down the aisle, letting us know we'll arrive soon. Neon note cards tucked above each pair of seats contain abbreviations indicating our destination. It's no surprise I'm the only one getting off at my station. It's the closest one to Feathered Nest, which is hidden somewhere in the woods we rumbled past several minutes ago and consists of a single platform. A small booth takes on the responsibilities of a station building.

  By the time I toss my bag over my shoulder, gather up my small suitcase, and head out of the train, my larger luggage is already leaning against the booth. I don't know how it managed to get there so fast, but the train isn't playing around. I haven't even picked up my bigger suitcase before the train lets out a loud whistle and chugs away. It seems just as suspicious of the surroundings as everyone else has gotten.

  Just as Creagan promised, a car sits in one of the four parking spots behind the booth. It's just old and nondescript enough not to get noticed. It is the oatmeal of sensible cars. My phone rings in my pocket as I fish the hidden key out of the wheel well and unlock the trunk to haul my luggage inside.

  “Are you there yet?” Bellamy whispers loudly through the line.

  I chuckle and shut the back door before slipping behind the wheel.

  “You don't have to whisper, Bells. There's no one around here to hear you. I just got to my car.”

  I grab the rearview mirror and tilt it to reflect the entirety of the backseat.

  “What about hidden people? You just checked your mirror for someone balled up in front of your backseat, didn't you?” she asks.

  I've been called out. As one of my two best friends, and the person in my life who has known me the longest, Bellamy might very well have too much insight into me.

  “You would, too, if you saw this place. I didn't know there was this much dark in the world.”

  She gasps. “Oh, no. What happened? Did you already see something horrible happen?”

  “No,” I tell her, pulling out of the parking space and onto the road behind the platform. “I mean actual dark. Like lack of light. There are two light posts on the platform, and I'm currently driving away from them. Speaking of which, I need my GPS to get to the house, so I've got to go.”

  “Okay. Well, stay safe. Keep me updated.”

  “I will.”

  I hang up and plug the address of the house where I'll be staying for the duration of the job into my phone. It pulls up a twisty path through the woods, and I set to it. The quiet outside the car is incredible. I can't decide if it's better to have music on or not. It makes the quiet inside the car less oppressive, but at the same time, seems to make the tangible silence outside more unnerving. The music means I can't catch any sounds beyond the car. I'm even more isolated.

  The music situation goes back and forth a few times before I finally pull up in front of the house. Cabin is a more appropriate term. I find it at the end of a long driveway barely visible under a thick layer of leaves and pine needles, the log and river rock house is totally dark and facing a lake. Creagan arranged the rental, and I know the owner is expecting me. But apparently, that doesn't translate into making sure the house is welcoming for when I actually get here.

  I park to the side, with my headlights shining on the door and go up onto the porch. A key hangs from a piece of twine off a nail in the middle of the door. I assume it used to be the seasonal home of a wreath. Just above it are the slightly rusty, dingy house number digits.

  13. Well, that’s not ominous at all.

  Unlocking the door, I feel around for a switch. When the room fills with hazy yellow light, I make my way back to the car and unload everything before turning the car off. I step inside, closing and locking the door behind me.

  Here I am. Officially a temporary resident of Feathered Nest.

  I should want to crawl into bed right now, but the exhaustion from the train is gone. I change into stretchy pants and ward off the chill of the night with a baggy sweatshirt. Twisting my hair up onto my head, I make my way into the living room to look through the files I brought with me. Reading through the stories of the people who have gone missing sends chills along my spine and makes my skin prick. But it isn't just their eyes haunting me.

  Looking at them makes thoughts I try to keep pushed to the back of my mind rush forward. In the dark-haired man laughing from a lawn chair as fireworks reflect just in the bottom corner of his sunglasses, I see my father. The corners of my eyes sting just thinking of him. In the nine years since he disappeared, I haven't stopped wondering what happened to him. I won't stop looking for him.

  My throat tightens more when my eyes move over to the picture of a younger man sitting astride a motorcycle at the edge of a dirt road. Greg would never have ridden a motorcycle. I cringe at the thought. I'm thinking of him in past tense again. I can't do that. He's out there somewhere. I have to tell myself that and really believe it. There's a reason he went missing. Just like there's a reason our last conversation, just three weeks before he disappeared, was a breakup that came out of nowhere.

  Forcing both men out of my mind, I replaced their images with the details about the case. I'm trying to lay them out to coordinate with a map of the town and surrounding areas so I can visualize the places where they disappeared. It doesn't make any sense. There aren't any patterns or obvious meaning to any of the locations. My phone rings, and I pick it up from the corner of the table where I set it, glancing at the screen before answering.

  “Hey, Eric.”

  “Did you get into the deep, dark woods okay?” my other best friend asks.

  I can almost see the laughter in his light brown eyes.

  “You were in on this, weren't you?” I ask. “You knew what they were sending me into.”

  “I thought you wanted to be back out in the field.”

  “Of course I do. That doesn't mean I love the circumstances. Especially since I know what the Boys' Club has been saying about it.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “You know exactly what I mean. Every guy on the team has been muttering and griping about Creagan sending me here rather than any of them. They think I can't possibly handle something like this, and he only chose me because I'm a woman and will be able to manipulate the people of the town more easily.”

  “I don't think that's really what they think,” Eric says.

  “One of them called the case the Mayonnaise Jar,” I tell him.

  “The what?”

  “The Mayonnaise Jar. Like when a girl can't open a jar of mayonnaise and a guy does it, but she says she loosened the lid? Yep. That's what they think of me. Van Drossen came up to me right before I left and told me not to worry. All I needed to do was a little snooping and see if I can get a lead or two, then you boys would swoop in and finish it up for me. I wasn't going to have any trouble.”

  “He said that to you?” Eric asks incredulously.

  “With his arm wrapped around me,” I say, shifting a few of the pictures.

  I put the phone on speaker and set it down, so I have both hands to work with.

  “And he still has all of his appendages?”

  “He's lucky as hell I'm still on a short leash after the Mr. Big incident. But it's fine. It will just make him look all the worse when I figure this out myself and don't need any knights in shining FBI badges to come rescue me,” I mutter.

  “You're going to solve the case yourself?” Eric asks.

  “Was that a note of disbelief I heard in your voice?” I ask.

  “No. Just keeping up on the news.”

  I laugh. “Well, that's the news. I'm tired of having these guys look at me like I'm not good enough or that they're better agents than me. Even worse are the ones who are treating me like glass since Greg.”

  I swallow hard to rid my throat of the sudden tightness.

  “We're going to find him, Emma,” Eric tells me gently.

  I nod even though he can't see me. “I know. But I can't really think about that right now. I have to concentrate on this and how I'm going to figure it out.”

  “Have you made any progress?”

  “Not really. I've been looking over the files for the last week, and nothing has fallen into place. I can understand why the local police didn't immediately link the disappearances. They don't seem to have anything to do with each other. There's no pattern other than the people being gone and there being blood. They all come from this same tiny town, but that's about it. No other real connection. I can't really imagine a police force in a place like this has a tremendous amount of experience with murder cases, much less mass disappearances.”

  “Are you sure you don't want me to come out there to help? I could take a backseat and just give you a hand when you need it.”

  “No. Thanks, but I really need to do this on my own. This is my chance to get back into the Bureau's good graces, and it really is a fascinating case. I'm looking forward to trying to unravel it. Besides, it would be more suspicious if there were two strangers who suddenly showed up in town and started poking around.”

  “Well, the offer stands,” he says. “You let me know, and I'm on the first covered wagon out to you.”

  My laugh almost drowns out the sound of the two slow knocks on the front door of the cabin. I scoop up my phone to carry it with me.

  “Hold on. I think the owner of the cabin where I'm staying just showed up. Give me just a second.”

  I cross to the door and pull it open. The man outside stares at me with widened eyes, then collapses onto the porch with a heavy thud.

  “Emma?” Eric says.

  “I'm going to have to call you back,” I tell him, my eyes locked on the blood soaking through the man's shirt.

  I shove the phone in my pocket and crouch down over the massive form. He's gripping something in his hand, and I pull it out. The folded piece of paper feels hot and damp from his palm despite the chill of the night. I unfold it slowly, with trembling hands.

  My heart wedges in my throat. Scrawled across the paper, in heavy writing, is my name.

  Chapter Two

  Then

  She cowered behind the banister, gripping a spindle in each hand as she watched what was going on in the landing beneath her. She was too old to be hiding this way, she knew it, but that didn't take away any of the fear that kept her locked in place on the steps. All the men in dark suits shuffling around on the shiny polished floor made her think of ants in the summertime.

  No matter what they did, the tiny little sugar ants made their way through the windows and gathered on the kitchen counters and in the bathroom sinks. They were so tiny they looked like specks; their legs invisible until you were right up on them. They always looked so busy, so determined to do whatever they needed to do. Sometimes she would put her finger down right in the middle of their line just to see what would happen. The ones ahead of her fingertip marched forward, unbothered by the sudden appearance of an obstacle behind them. Those she blocked scrambled back and forth, trying to decide which way to go. When they finally did, the line fell into place, and they just continued on their way.

  Nothing would stop them. Nothing deterred them.

  Carry on; she would giggle to herself.

  That's what the men down in the landing were doing. They called each other and scrambled in place, moving around quickly. She knew something terrible had happened. You could feel it in the air. Every breath was harder to take, and it seemed like the pressure in the atmosphere was pushing down around her until she might be crushed. She needed somebody to talk to her. Somebody needed to come up onto the steps and tell her what was going on so she would be able to let the air go and move. But they didn't. Nobody did. Not even her father.

  She saw him once. Among the men in the dark suits scrambling around the foyer. He was there, just for a second, a bright spot in pale blue striped pajamas among all the unfamiliar darkness. All the men spoke to him with respect and dignity, like they didn't notice he was in his pajamas. She couldn't tell what they were saying, but the way they held their bodies and leaned into him when he spoke said he was in charge, if only for those seconds when he was there. And then he was gone.

  She didn't see him again until much later. Long after the strange metal bed draped in white wheeled out of the back room and through the foyer out of the house. She knew what it was. She was old enough to have seen a stretcher before. She even rode on one when she fell and broke her wrist during a game of kickball. But the blankets weren't pulled up over her then. They didn't even make her lie all the way down. Half the bed sat upright, propping her tiny frame up while a woman in blue clothes far too tight for her body and a smile just wide enough for all her bright white teeth talked to her and took her blood pressure.

  But she knew what it was. She knew why it was covered all the way up and why no one was hurrying to get it outside. They only didn't hurry when there was nothing they could do. Even when she broke her wrist, they hurried. They hurried her onto the stretcher, and they hurried her into the ambulance. They even hurried her through the emergency room and to the little cup of liquid Tylenol the nurse gave her to lessen the pain.

  But they weren't hurrying this time. Which meant the stretcher was holding someone who didn't need help anymore.

  Her mother. Her mother didn't need help anymore.

  Later that night, her father came back home. He didn't leave her alone. One of his friends stayed there with her, but she didn't talk to him. She didn't even see him. He was just downstairs in the living room with the TV sending up the sounds of a game show and commercials for Easter candy and Spring Break. She didn't move. She stayed right on the step, gripping the spindles, and watching the door for her father to come back in.

  When he finally did, he didn't notice her. The door closed behind him, and he pressed against it, his head falling back as he slid down to sit on the floor with his knees pulled up high to his chest. His elbows rested on his thighs, and he combed his fingers back through his hair, holding it so tight it looked like he was trying to pull it out of his head. He wasn't wearing his blue striped pajamas anymore. She didn't know when or where he changed his clothes, but he was suddenly in one of the dark suits like the ant-men who roamed around before the stretcher was wheeled out of the house. She wished he was still in his pajamas. She had never seen her father cry, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him and bring him to bed, to tuck him in and give him something warm to drink.