Page 1 of Her Last Confession

PROLOGUE

Sandra Mitchell squinted through her wire-rimmed glasses at the GPS display. The blue line snaked deeper into the darkness of the Washington forests, far from Richmond’s familiar glow twenty miles behind her. Her sensible Honda's headlights carved twin paths through the darkness, illuminating a tunnel of towering evergreens that pressed in from both sides.

10:20 PM. What am I doing out here?

She tucked a strand of mousy brown hair behind her ear, a nervous habit she'd never managed to break. At forty-two, she was too old to be chasing mysterious text messages into the wilderness. The whole thing felt wrong. But the text had come from Alana, and she had never been the cryptic type before—just a casual work friend who occasionally joined her for lunch. But the message had been urgent:Need to see you tonight. Important. Follow these coordinates.

The pavement had given way to gravel twenty minutes ago. Each pothole sent judders through the steering wheel. Sandra's knuckles whitened as she gripped it tighter, her accountant's mind cataloging all the ways this could go wrong. Serial killers. Bears. Axe murderers. More bears.

The gravel narrowed to a logging road, really just two rough tracks through the undergrowth. No more gravel, just dirt. Tree branches scraped against her car's sides, sounding like fingernails. She checked her phone again—still no service. The coordinates pointed just ahead, where the road appeared to dead-end in a wall of darkness.

Her headlights swept across the clearing as she pulled in. Tall grass swayed in the breeze, creating shifting shadows that set her nerves on edge. To her right, a mass of fallen logs created a jumble of black spaces where anything could hide. The air feltthick with the musty smell of decay, which she could smell even through her closed windows.

Sandra's fingers trembled as she grabbed her phone and typed out a message back to Alana:What the hell is wrong with you? Where have you sent me?

The message wouldn't send. Of course, it wouldn't. The service out here was down to one bar that flickered in and out of existence at the top of her phone screen.

She reached for the gear shift, ready to reverse out of this nightmare, when something caught her eye. Just off the road, half-hidden in the grass, sat an object that had no business being there. It was sleek and white, its curved surfaces reflecting her headlights like something out of a sci-fi movie. About seven feet long and four feet high, it resembled a massive seed pod or cocoon. A thin seam ran along its length, suggesting it could open.

She hated that her first thought was a stupid one.Spaceship. Some sort of weird UFO…

But then she understood what she was seeing, and that somehow made it worse. Her breath caught in her throat. She recognized it immediately—an EndLight pod.

She'd seen the ads, read the controversies. Who would leave one of those million-dollar devices out here in the middle of nowhere? This had to be some kind of sick joke. But why would Alana joke about that?

What a bitch. She needed new friends.

Still, the fact that one of those pods was out here, in the idle of nowhere, was just weird enough to get her to open her door. She stepped out into the night, instantly feeling the presence of the tall, towering trees all around her. She stepped closer to the dead-end, toward the tall grass where the pod sat.

Her mind pulled up images she’d seen of the pods. This did indeed look like the EndLight pods—what some were calling,rather crudely, “suicide machines.” The pod’s off-white body rested on four articulated legs that kept it slightly elevated above the damp ground. A seamless clamshell lid topped the device, currently sealed but clearly designed to open along nearly invisible seams.

But there was something a bit different about this one. The shape, maybe? The way the bottom of this one was squared off rather than rounded off, almost like an egg in the pictures she'd seen? And there were supposed to be LED lights along the bottom…but those seemed to be missing.

She stepped into the grass, closer to the machine that was draped in the glow of her headlights.

Then, as her hand reached out to touch the side of the pod, movement flashed in her peripheral vision. A dark figure emerged from the trees, moving with purposeful speed. Sandra's hand flew up in surprise and shock as if to ward off the figure, but it was too late. Whoever it was, they were on her, grabbing her arm with iron strength. She screamed as she was dragged forward, her glasses flying off into the grass.

"No! Please!" Her voice sounded thin and desperate in the vast darkness. The figure said nothing, dragging her toward the waiting pod. He slammed an elbow into the small of her back to take the fight out of her. It worked. Her back spasmed and her legs gave out. It was also hard to breathe.

Sandra did her best to kick and thrash, but her attacker was too strong. He was dragging her to the pod, and just as she noticed this, the pod's seam split with a hydraulic hiss.

Her scream echoed through the trees, swallowed by the indifferent forest. No one could hear her. No one would find her. Not out here, not in time.

The last thing she saw was the star-filled sky above before she was shoved into the pod. And when the cover came down, the semi-translucent window on the top showed her those samestars, only skewed and distorted. She screamed again, but the sound of it was trapped inside the pod with her.

It was the last thing she ever heard.

CHAPTER ONE

Rachel studied the Monopoly board with exaggerated intensity. She let out a very long, drawn outHmmm. Across the table, Paige waited and watched, shaking her head. Behind her, morning sunlight streamed through the kitchen windows, casting warm squares on the aged wood surface between them.

"Mom, it's just Boardwalk. Either buy it or don't."

"Says the girl who already owns Park Place," Rachel argued. Rachel ran her fingers through her dark hair, pretending to agonize over the decision. In truth, she was savoring every second. Getting Paige to do anything that didn't involve a phone screen these days felt like a minor miracle. When Paige had even suggested they sit down and play a board gameon a Saturday morning, Rachel had wondered what, exactly, was wrong with her daughter.

She’d missed this side of Paige and was thankful whenever it decided to resurface.

From the living room came the steady click of laptop keys. Jack hadn't moved from his spot on the couch since he’d plopped down there at 8:30 with his coffee and a bagel, his face illuminated by the screen's blue glow. Even on weekends, his new role at the bureau meant endless reports and administrative duties…and added hours of working from home on the weekends.

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