Page 1 of By the Time You Read This

Chapter One

Raisa

Day One

FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto wanted to go home.

It was a novel feeling, considering she hadn’t lived anywhere that had felt likehomein nearly two decades. But six months ago, she’d finally given up her attachment to off-white walls and gray linoleum and moved into a 1930s-era bungalow with wood floors that had more personality than her past six apartments combined.

Putting down roots.

The concept scared her more than she wanted to admit, but on nights like these, driving back to her house exhausted after hunting down a killer, she was glad she’d put on her big-girl panties and applied for that mortgage.

She still had to find time to make it actually feel likehers—including decorating literally any room—but she no longer hated the place she lived.

Baby steps, as her quasi-partner, forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny, would say. For him, anything that made her a slightly more open, vulnerable human and slightly less of a gremlin with concrete walls around her was a victory.

Even if those walls were well earned.

As Raisa pulled to a stop at a light, her fingers found the place where a bullet had torn through ligament and muscle two years earlier. The ache wasn’t real—she had completely healed from the injury. But it pulsed sometimes, a ghost, reminding her of how far she’d come over the past two years.

How far she still had to go.

Just the thought of it had her checking her rearview mirror, as if Isabel, her psychopathic serial killer sister, were following her through the outskirts of suburban Tacoma well after midnight.

There were plenty of reasons why that idea was ridiculous, but the primary one was that Isabel—on that night she’d put a bullet into Raisa—had finally been arrested after a prolific and violent twenty-five years of an ever-escalating victim count.

When Raisa turned onto her street, her fingers relaxed against the steering wheel, the anxiety that came with thinking about Isabel blessedly releasing her from its grip. Her sister was safely behind bars at a high-security women’s correctional facility serving multiple life sentences. And Raisa? Raisa was home.

It was past midnight and all the houses around hers were dark, everything soft, quiet, and cozy. Tucked in. The silence when she walked into her bungalow welcomed her rather than putting her on edge.

The moonlight shifted and Raisa caught sight of a white envelope that someone had clearly slipped under the door. Her name was written across the front, but that was the only thing on it—there was no postage or return address. Raisa’s heartbeat ticked up a notch, but just as soon as it did, she remembered Alicia from down the street had mentioned sending her a flyer about a block party later that month.

Considering Raisa had been gone for almost two weeks, Alicia’d probably gotten tired of knocking.

Raisa picked the envelope up and dropped it on the side table, along with her keys and purse. She would deal with everything in the morning. What she wanted now, more than anything, was sleep.

She barely managed to drag her clothes off before collapsing into bed.

But she didn’t fall asleep.

Instead, she stared at the ceiling, something itching at her brain. The sensation was similar to wondering if she’d turned off the oven before leaving on vacation.

It was the envelope. It was seeing it right after thinking about Isabel and that night two years ago.

Raisa sat up and grabbed a sweatshirt on her way out of bed. The thing was oversize and worn-in and offered a comfort she shouldn’t be craving right now. She also thought about getting her gun—which would offer a different sort of comfort—but that was probably overkill. Especially if she opened the envelope and found an invitation to a block party.

A few strides later, and she was standing in front of her entryway side table.

She had read plenty of letters in her life as a forensic linguist for the FBI. Bomb threats, kidnapping demands, manifestos, terrorist plots, suicide notes—the list went on. She’d seen the worst humans could write to each other, the words somehow more damning when put down in ink rather than just spoken.

Raisa was never nervous to read any of them. They were problems that needed to be solved, peeks into the darkest souls that satisfied a curiosity in her that she’d had since she was young.

Her heart never raced like this when simply looking at any of them.

Once again, her fingers found the spot where a pink, puckered scar lived.

She was being paranoid, she knew.

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