Book Excerpt
Kailee leaned against her kitchen counter and stared at the headline posted on the Boston Globe's webpage.
Homecoming day at Northeastern. The accompanying picture displayed a group of students, holding worn backpacks and wearing baseball caps embroidered with the Boston Strong logo. All of them appeared at ease, the way they leaned into each other as they grinned at the camera.
But it was the man in the center of the photo who caught her attention, whose wire-rimmed glasses emphasized the faint scar that ran across part of his cheek. Just like...
She ran her fingers through her hair and let her palm rest at the back of her neck. He was probably a professor who'd taught there when she'd been a student. That's all.
Except for the scar across his face. That wasn't something you saw every day. Leaning closer, Kailee narrowed her eyes. There was something about his posture - the way he held himself stiffer than the others - that made it seem like he didn't belong.
She shivered. Her dreams were making it impossible to distinguish truth from fear. It was the sharpness of a particular image that clung to her now - one moment she kept seeing in her mind from her dream the night before, of two men studying a map under the beam of a flashlight. Steel supports criss-crossed behind them, their shadows blending with the buildings in the distance. Sweat dotted their foreheads. Kailee could feel the humidity, as if she were still in the dream. She could hear the low hum of their voices. And she could see their faces.
There was no way to be certain. But the man holding the flashlight in her dream looked just like the man in the Boston Globe photo.
Homecoming day at Northeastern. The accompanying picture displayed a group of students, holding worn backpacks and wearing baseball caps embroidered with the Boston Strong logo. All of them appeared at ease, the way they leaned into each other as they grinned at the camera.
But it was the man in the center of the photo who caught her attention, whose wire-rimmed glasses emphasized the faint scar that ran across part of his cheek. Just like...
She ran her fingers through her hair and let her palm rest at the back of her neck. He was probably a professor who'd taught there when she'd been a student. That's all.
Except for the scar across his face. That wasn't something you saw every day. Leaning closer, Kailee narrowed her eyes. There was something about his posture - the way he held himself stiffer than the others - that made it seem like he didn't belong.
She shivered. Her dreams were making it impossible to distinguish truth from fear. It was the sharpness of a particular image that clung to her now - one moment she kept seeing in her mind from her dream the night before, of two men studying a map under the beam of a flashlight. Steel supports criss-crossed behind them, their shadows blending with the buildings in the distance. Sweat dotted their foreheads. Kailee could feel the humidity, as if she were still in the dream. She could hear the low hum of their voices. And she could see their faces.
There was no way to be certain. But the man holding the flashlight in her dream looked just like the man in the Boston Globe photo.
