Next Door

BEFORE HE PREYS (Book #9)

BEFORE HE LONGS (Book #10)

AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)

CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6)

KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

A TRACE OF MURDER (Book #2)

A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)

A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)

A TRACE OF HOPE (Book #5)

Prologue

Chloe sat on the front steps of her apartment building beside her twin sister, Danielle, watching as the police led their father down the front stoop, in handcuffs.

A large cop with a round belly stood in front of Chloe and Danielle. His black skin glistened with sweat as the summer night beamed down on them.

“You girls don’t need to see this,” he said.

Chloe thought it was a silly thing to say. Even at ten years old, she knew he was simply trying to block out the sight of their father being led into the back of a cop car.

That sight was the least of her problems. She’d already seen the blood at the bottom of the stairs. She’d seen how it was splattered on the bottom step and then soaked into the carpet that led into the living room. She’d seen the body, too. It had been facedown. Her father had tried very hard not to let her see it. But no matter what he did, the sight of all that blood had stuck itself to the walls of her head.

It was what she saw as the fat cop stood in front of her. It was all that she saw.

Chloe heard the door to the police car slam closed. She knew it was the sound of her father leaving them—she sensed, forever.

“You girls okay?” the cop asked.

Neither of them answered. Chloe was still seeing all of that blood at the bottom of the stairs, soaking into the blue carpet. She looked quickly over at Danielle and saw that her sister was staring at her feet. She wasn’t blinking. Chloe was pretty sure something was wrong with her. Chloe thought Danielle had seen more of the body, maybe even the really dark spot where all of the blood seemed to have come from.

The fat cop looked up the front stoop stairs all of a sudden. Under his breath, he said in a hissing voice: “Christ, can’t you wait? The girls are right here…”

Behind the cop, they brought a body bag out of the building and down the steps. It was the body. The one that had leaked all of that dark red blood on the carpet.

Their mother.

“Girls?” the cop asked. “One of you want to talk to me?”

But Chloe did not want to talk.

Sometime later, a familiar car pulled up behind one of the remaining cop cars. The fat cop had stopped trying to get them to talk and Chloe sensed that he was just there with them so they would not feel alone.

Beside Chloe, Danielle said her first word since they had been brought out to the front stoop.

“Grandma,” Danielle said.

The familiar car that had showed up belonged to their grandmother. She got out of the car as quickly as her legs would allow. Chloe saw that she was crying.

She felt a tear sliding down her face but it was not like crying. It felt like something breaking.

“Your grandmother is here,” the cop said. He sounded relieved, happy to be rid of them.

“Girls,” was the only word her grandmother got out as she came up the stairs. After that, she started to sob and took both of her granddaughters in an awkward embrace.

Oddly enough, it was that embrace that Chloe would remember.

The sight of the blood would become faint. The fat cop faded after just a few weeks, as did the surreal sight of the cuffs.

But for her entire life, Chloe would remember that awkward hug.

And the feeling of something deep inside cracking, and then breaking.

Had her father truly killed her mother?

Chapter One

17 Years Later

Chloe Fine climbed up the stairs of her new home—the home that she and her fiancé had hunted for, for months—and she could hardly contain her excitement.

“That box too heavy?”

Steven dashed up the steps beside her, carrying a box labeled PILLOWS.

“Not at all,” she said, hefting her own box, which read DISHES on the side.

Steven set his box down and took hers.

“Let’s trade,” he said with a smile.