Page 5 of Claws and Feathers

James joined him over by the coffee station, holding a flyer in his hand. He ran his fingers over the dark five o’clock shadow along his jawline, pursing his lips together. “This just came through. A missing girl."

“Shit. We haven’t had one of those since those seniors got lost near the bay.” Cooper fiddled with the Keurig machine. “Elderly?”

“No, actually. Twenty-eight. Daphne Vaughn just called it in.”

This grabbed Cooper’s attention and his head shot up, a whisper of dread creeping into his skin. “What?”

James slapped the flyer down onto the table and folded his arms across his barreling chest. “She was last seen leaving your father’s bar last night.”

Cooper’s blood ran cold when he looked down at the missing person’s flyer. He picked it up, scanning the familiar face. Violet eyes peered back at him. Haunted eyes.

Abigail Stone.

Abby.

Chapter Two

“Abigail, you’re not going anywhere in that outfit.”

Abby halted in her tracks, one of her comically high-heeled stilettos snagging on the living room rug. She turned toward the kitchen where Gina Stone was surveying her daughter with a disapproving glare. The Mom Glare. The scent of Nana Cecily’s beloved lasagna recipe wafted out from the kitchen as Gina tossed a dinner salad with two wooden spoons.

Abby sighed in dismay. “I’m just going to the movies with Jordan,” she said, her tone full of teenage exasperation.

Her brother, Ryan, let out a laugh from the couch, his eyes fixed on his Call of Duty video game. “And then what? Trying out for that call girl ad I saw in the paper?”

Abby stuck her tongue out at him.

“Give me one good reason I should let you out of the house looking like that,” Gina said. She set down the spoons and waited, her fingers tapping against the marble countertop.

Abby glanced down at her low-hanging halter, miniscule leather skirt, and designer shoes she’d klepto-ed from Liv’s closet. “My heel can double as a weapon if anyone gets frisky with me?”

Gina squinted her eyes at her daughter. “Upstairs, young lady. Points for creativity, though.”

Abby groaned in response, a dramatic eye roll following close behind. She marched up the stairs, as only a defiant teenager could.Stomp, stomp, stomp.

And then:Crash.

Abby raced back down the steps and into the kitchen. Her mother had dropped the pot of simmering marinara sauce.

Gina glanced up at her daughter, her normally warm eyes turning to stone. “Look at what you’ve done.”

“I – I didn’t do it,” Abby argued.

The marinara oozed into the tile cracks – seeping, sullying, staining the plaster and grout. And then it flashed and flickered, transforming into something else.

Blood.

There was so muchblood.

Gina shook her head. “You need to clean this up, Abigail.”

Abby’s eyes shot open, her chest heaving, her mind disoriented.It was just a dream.A nightmare – it wasn’t real.

And yet… it was still so dark. Abby blinked, forcing herself to wake up. Forcing her surroundings to come alive, to take shape, to assure her that she wasn’t stuck in that recurring nightmare. But the darkness did not abate. It still consumed her.

Why was it so dark?

Her head was throbbing, her stomach in ropes.

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