Prologue

Memories of his last birthday flickered through Grayson Saunders' mind as he regarded the thirteen candles on his cake. They hadn't cut the cake last year until 11:00 P.M. because his father had to work late, but Grayson hadn't minded. Dad's job with the state police was important. He'd given Grayson the best birthday gift ever—a brand-new paintball gun and two containers of ammunition. Too bad they'd never gotten to use them together. Jerry Saunders had died two months later in a sting operation.

Grief knuckled Grayson, followed by regret. Staring into the flames of his candles this year, he could still hear his father singing the "Happy Birthday" song off-key while his mother and sister held the melody. What did I wish for last year?

His gaze rose to take in the people standing around him. Their dining room was in a different house in Suffolk, Virginia. His mother's brown eyes, set in her heart-shaped face, shone with worry, not with happiness. Her voice was as tuneful as ever, though, as she and Olivia, his blonde, freckle-faced little sister, sang to him. This year, a baby nestled in his mother's arms—his father's legacy, supposedly. And the man standing next to his mother, smiling slightly but not singing, wasn't his father.

Grayson had nothing against the baby, three-month-old Mary Mae. Her whimsical smiles and sky-blue eyes made it hard not to love her. She looked a lot like Olivia's baby pictures, which suggested she was just what his mother had said: a parting gift from their father. But that head of auburn curls was the exact same hue as his mom's new boyfriend's hair. Supervisory Special Agent Casey Fitzpatrick worked for the FBI, and from the day he'd swept into Grayson's life, it was obvious his mother loved him.

Whenever people saw them all together, the baby's hair made everyone think they were one big, happy family. But they weren't even a family at all. And Jerry Saunders, the rock on which Grayson had built his life, was gone.

As the song came to an end, his mother frowned at Olivia, who was standing next to him with her lungs expanded and her lips puckered. "Honey, let Grayson blow out his own candles."

Grayson gestured. "Go ahead. I don't even want any stupid cake."

He swiveled on the balls of his tennis shoes and stalked out of the formal dining room, ignoring his mother's protest. Down the hallway and out the front door of the old farmhouse he went, shutting it forcibly behind him.

"I hate this place."

Soon after his father's death, they'd moved to what used to be their grandparents' horse ranch in the middle of nowhere. He hated his new school and the country bumpkins who attended it. He hated the way Fitz had stepped into his father's shoes, canceling out Jerry Saunders like he'd never existed.

Fueled by the feelings roiling in him, Grayson ran in the direction of home—his old home, even though it was almost nightfall. He tore up the long driveway toward the country road, rocks crunching under the soles of his shoes. The white gravel seemed to glow in the twilight, keeping him from running into the pine trees pressing in on either side.

By the time he reached the two-lane highway where the sign for his mother's hippotherapy business stood, he was breathing hard and pressing a fist into the stitch in his side. He paused to catch his breath. What am I doing?

He couldn't just run all the way to Norfolk, which was several miles away. And as much as he wished he could, he couldn't turn back the hands of time.

"Dad?"

If only he could talk to his father, Dad would tell him what to do. He'd always had such good advice—like the time Grayson was being bullied in school. His father had told him to walk with a buddy, to keep his cool, and not let the bully get to him. "He's just looking for a victim, so don't become one." Grayson had done exactly what his father said, and the bullying stopped.

His mom didn't solve problems as well as his dad had. Her idea of helping was to stick Grayson into a room with a counselor who forced him to talk about his feelings. He would rather go to the dentist and have every one of his teeth pulled.

Dashing the moisture from his cheeks, Grayson hugged himself against the late-October chill. Isolation wrapped cold fingers around his heart. Only the crickets and the tree frogs in the woods were aware of his presence. Even the moon, which sometimes peered down at him with motherly concern, was hiding her face behind the cloud cover.

All at once, the beams of a car shot through the darkness, startling him with its proximity. A car had been parked just up the street on the shoulder of the road, idling so quietly he hadn't even heard it.

As it started forward, heading toward Grayson, he asked himself if he couldn't catch a ride to Norfolk. The car approached him slowly, the only vehicle in sight. It was a ratty, dark-colored Buick with a dented fender. The driver's window came down, and a middle-aged man with a mane of gray hair stuck his elbow and his face out to regard him.

"Hey, you want to go somewhere?"

Grayson couldn't tell for sure, but in the glow of the man's dash, it looked like his face was tattooed. "No, I'm good." He took a precautionary step toward home, then another.

The man sent him a lopsided smile. "You look just like him."

Goose bumps scrabbled up Grayson's arms. He'd heard that line all his life: He had his mother's coloring but his father's features. "You knew my father?" What were the odds that this man would be waiting right here on the very night Grayson was remembering his dad?

"Sure. I knew him. Great guy. Wanna go for ride? We'll talk about him."

Intuition whispered for Grayson to run. "No thanks. I have to go back now."

Right on cue, he heard his mother's whistle, a shrill sound that could be heard a mile away.

Grayson gestured toward it, whirled, and sprinted back up the driveway, fueled by fright this time. "Coming!"

Casting glances behind him the whole way back, he reached the house in record time, even with the stitch returning. His mother stood in the front yard, a lonely silhouette backdropped by the lights in their big yellow farmhouse. He ran up to her, intending to tell her about the creepy man in the street.

"Grayson." She met him midway, then pulled him into her honeysuckle embrace and held him fiercely. It felt strange being an inch taller than she was, more like he was supposed to be comforting her.

"Gosh, I can feel your heart pounding." Stepping back, she eyed him in the dark while brushing his hair out of his eyes—he wouldn't let her cut it. "Honey, it's okay to be sad and angry. I miss your father, too. Every day. And I've decided we should go to counseling together. That way it won't be so bad."

Hearing the emotion and the worry in her voice, Grayson realized telling her about the weirdo in the car wasn't what she needed to hear. "It's fine, Mom. You don't have to."

"No, I want to. I've wanted to for a while. I've just been busy. Come on inside. Try your cake; it's really good."

Reentering the house with her, Grayson spotted Fitz sitting in his dad's favorite armchair giving the baby a bottle, and his resentment came surging back. Sure, Fitz would leave and go back to his own home soon, but it was only a matter of time before he married Grayson's mom and moved in with them.

Maybe I should have gotten in the car with the stranger.

How much worse could it be to run away than to live here pretending everything was fine, knowing it would never be fine again?