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Chapter 1
Sadie
Don’t take the alley. Don’t take it. A little rain never hurt anyone.
Thunder cracks, rattling through me as I hurry down the city sidewalk.
Make that a lot of rain.
I glance up at the evening sky, unable to see more than tall buildings, the windows aglow.
I can’t believe I left my raincoat and umbrella at work. I knew rain was in the forecast. I showed up prepared, and yet I left everything behind—because I was in a hurry to beat the rain.
In my defense, I don’t usually work this late, only on rare occasions. I don’t like change. I don’t like being unprepared, and I don’t like anything potentially dangerous. Like alleys.
Atlanta might not be as big a city as Manhattan or Chicago, but to this small-town girl, it can be just as scary.
As an avid—obsessed—murder-show enthusiast, I know not to take a dark alley alone, even if it means getting home fifteen minutes faster and dry. I know this isn’t the safest part of town, although it’s not the worst. I know scary movies are made with openings like this, not that I watch horror flicks. Good old-fashioned serial killers and Dateline episodes are my thing.
Even my Uber driver warned me not to end the ride in this part of town. But we’d been in stand-still traffic for an hour due to an accident. I knew we’d be there for another hour, if not longer.
I had a choice. Brave the weather and walk the much shorter twenty minutes it would take on foot, or stay trapped in that Uber for two or more hours, while the driver made awkward small talk about dating in the city and not-so-subtly tried to gauge if I was single.
I made the smartest choice based on three facts:
The weather app on my phone showed no rain for thirty minutes.
I couldn’t stand another second in the car with Mr. I’m-A-Great-Guy-And-The-Woman-Here-Are-Too-Picky.
And I couldn’t remember if I fed Detective Pickles this morning when I left earlier than usual for work.
A fat raindrop lands on the top of my head. I feel it through my hair and tense. My gaze locks on the alley in the near distance. I know it. Have passed it before. It would shave ten minutes off my walk. But it’s dark, long, and not safe for a woman who’s barely five-five, lightweight, and who looks twenty, even though I’m a couple months away from turning twenty-four.
Another crack of thunder has my feet shuffling even faster. My earbud is still in my ear from the pretend call I took to get a break from the Uber driver.
I get my phone from the front pocket of my purse and call my bestie.
“Hey,” Everleigh answers, a smile brightening her voice. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Probably because I’m about to do something very out of character, so don’t hang up.”
“Why would I hang up? And why do you sound so serious?”
“In case I need you to call 911.”
“Why would I do that, Sadie?” Everleigh asks, her tone now laced with concern.
I swallow deep in my throat and turn between the two buildings. “Because I’m walking down an alley alone to get home faster.”
She snorts. “No, you’re not.”
“I am.” I dodge a puddle and question the source. It hasn’t rained yet today.
“Daire?” Everleigh shouts away from the phone. “Sadie’s walking down an alley and she’s alone.”
“Why are you telling Daire?” It’s not like her husband can do anything more than call 911 if I get into trouble. They live on his pecan farm two hours away.
“Yeah, right,” his deep voice sounds in the background.
