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Her phone beeps. It’s an email, picked up by the Wi-Fi service. Lenna squints at the sender’s name, then draws in a breath.
“What?” Sarah asks sharply.
“It’s…fromRhiannon,” Lenna whispers.
Sarah moves closer. Lenna taps the email notification. The body of the message contains no text, only an audio file. All kinds of possibilities zoom through her mind.
With a shaking finger, she presses on the file, and the file slowly loads, flickering against her and Sarah’s faces.
PART
THREE
23
Rhiannon
June
Two years before
When Rhiannon Cook received the message that would change her life, she was in her office at work. She was so surprised, she dropped her phone into her trash can, which happened to be right beneath where she was sitting at her desk.
When she fished it out, she stared in amazement at the note on the screen. Her heart banged hard in terror and confusion. But it also soared with hope.
“Hey!”
Rhiannon jolted up. Her friend Lenna leaned in the doorway. But then her face fell. “Oh. Sorry. Am I interrupting?”
Rhiannon looked again at her phone, trying to appear neutral. “Just lots of work.”
Lenna nodded, but she didn’t leave right away. “So I was thinking of seeing a movie. Maybe around six?”
Rhiannon shook her head. “Can’t, love. Sorry.”
Lenna sighed, but then she left the office. When Rhiannon wassure she was alone, she stared at her phone again. There reallywasa message.
Fromher.
The new message seemed to almost glow radioactively. Rhiannon couldn’t concentrate on anything else. She slipped her phone into her pocket and hurried down the building’s stairs to avoid Lenna seeing. She felt guilty, deceiving her friend, but she needed time to process this. It wasn’t really something she could explain.
She pushed open the door to the lobby. It was empty, save for one person, who spotted her right away.
“Rhiannon! Hey!” that overbearing—and, let’s face it, creepy—woman Gillian said, her smile broadening.
Rhiannon’s whole body tensed. “Hey,” she said in monotone, and kept walking.
Gillian fell in step. “How are things? You busy?”
“Yes. Very.”
“God, me, too.Wellnessis running me in circles.”
Wellness.Right. That was where she worked. Rhiannon didn’t reply.
“So I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch? You and—Lenna, is it?”
Rhiannon’s head throbbed. Why did this woman seem so fascinated with her? She’d noticed her watching them so many times. Finally, at the revolving doors, Rhiannon stopped short and looked at her. “I don’t think so. Not with me, and not with Lenna, either.”
