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PROLOGUE
Rachelle Castillo was finally alone.
She heaved a little sigh, closed her eyes, and allowed the water to lap against her shoulders. Her feet floated in front of her, toes poking out from the crystal blue liquid. The scent of chlorine lingered above the swimming pool. The dark windows of the enormous mansion behind her gazed down dispassionately.
The windows were like eyes, but they were indifferent to her. The same couldn’t be said for the people who stopped in the street just to take a photo of her: some out of awe for celebrity, and others out of hatred for her father’s politics.
Rachelle floated a bit more, listening to the steady splash of the waterfall. And then she heard another splash.
There was a disconnect between the tumbling water and this newest sound. She looked up and frowned. Droplets spilled down her face where she floated in the luxurious pool. The steam from over the hot tub wafted up to the sky like ash rising over a firepit.
She listened. “H…hello?” she called out.
Was it one of her father’s bodyguards? She glanced towards the small garden gate and then went still. Her arms spread out behind her, resting on the edge of the pool, kept her aloft. The sound of the splash had faded, but the figure collapsed in the entrance to the garden stood out, obvious and clear.
Anders. She forgot his last name. The ugly guard...His face rested on the marble ground. He lay motionless, the gate lodged against his back leg. Was it a stroke? A heart attack?
“Anders!” she yelled. She began to turn, hands pressed against the pool edge to lift herself.
And that’s when she spotted the blood. It was spreading, pooling beneath Anders, and staining his black shirt with an even deeper, darker hue. His lifeless eyes stared at her.
And then she heard another faint splash.
She turned sharply, her heart pounding a mile a minute.
A figure was cutting towards her under the water. She hadn’t seen it at first. A scream burst from her lips. She scrambled back, splashing. The thing under the water kept coming, fast, angling towards her legs.
She yanked herself from the pool, splashing and kicking.
But a gloved hand shot out from the water, snatching her leg.
“Hel—”
Her scream was cut short as the figure in the water yanked her under. She splashed and kicked desperately, sending droplets flying. She tried to shove off the oppressive figure.
But it was impossibly strong as it yanked her under the pool. She didn’t have time to choke out another scream. She submerged, air exploding as bubbles fled up past her cheeks, tickling as they fled. There was no air in her lungs. And he kept pulling her down—deeper and deeper into the depths of the luxurious swimming pool.
CHAPTER ONE
Cora bit her lip as she marched down the front steps of the patio, listening to the sound of her parents arguing behind her.
Just like old times. Except now, she wasn’t some kid. She wore a sleeveless t-shirt; the tattoos on her arms standing out in the glimpses of sunlight over the quaint, West Virginian rural town.
“He didn’t mean it, Cora!” her mother’s voice called from the porch.
She turned, scowling up at her mother. The woman, wearing an apron stained with flour, held a door open with one arm. Everything about the image seemed so...predictable. Even this part: the angry argument with her father.
The slammed door.
Her mother trying to make peace on behalf of something her husband said.
“He did mean it!” Cora called back, pausing by the mailbox and frowning. “We both know it.”
“No, no,” said her mother, shaking her head. Some of the flour dislodged from her apron. Silver curls bounced around a pleasant, round face. Those lips were pressed in a thin line, though. Not a disapproving line. Not an angry one.
Rather one of nerves and anxiety.
Cora’s mother was the sort to memorize bible verses, to quote one for every occasion, and to hang little pictures around the house of sunsets and inspirational quotes.
