Page 2 of By the Time You Read This

But sometimes paranoia was justified.

The first time Isabel had ruined her life, Raisa had been only three years old. Isabel had killed their parents—Tim and Becks Parker—in their bed, too many stab wounds between them to count. She’d maneuvered their brother, Alex, into the claw-foot tub in theirparents’ bathroom, slit his wrists, and then left a suicide note “written by him” that confessed to the murders.

Isabel had been fifteen years old.

The second time, Isabel had wanted to see how Raisa, who’d been adopted by kind and loving parents, was growing up. That had kicked off a series of events in which Raisa’s adoptive parents died in a car crash. Raisa had survived a series of progressively worsening foster homes until she’d pretty much landed on the streets, raising herself.

The last time Isabel had tried to ruin Raisa’s life ... well. Raisa had ended up with a scar and the memory of pulling a trigger with the intent of killing her own sister.

There was no reason to think the letter came from Isabel.

And yet, somehow, Raisa knew it did.

The darkness no longer seemed welcoming, but sinister, her home—her haven—now tainted with the presence of a monster.

Raisa fought the urge to call the correctional facility to have them go check to make sure Isabel hadn’t escaped from her cell. Of course she hadn’t. This wasn’t a movie. However this letter had gotten to Raisa, it wasn’t because Isabel was crouching in the bushes outside her bungalow.

The image was enough to break the spell her paranoia had cast. Raisa laughed at the thought of Isabel—who wanted nothing more than to be thought of as brilliant, cool, and mysterious—trying to peek into her window.

Raisa picked up the envelope because it wasn’t a bomb.

Not one that would explode in her hands at that moment, at least.

Whatever was inside might explode her life, but that would be something she would have to deal with whether she stared at it until the morning or ripped off the Band-Aid now.

She glanced at the pane of glass in her door, caught only her reflection, and then dropped to the floor. Anyone outside could see her. Safety procedures were still smart, no matter what the actual threat level was.

Raisa took a deep breath and finally opened the envelope.

There was a single piece of paper inside.

By the time you read this, I’ll be dead.

Beneath that was an address on the Olympic Peninsula, one Raisa didn’t recognize at a glance.

The paper trembled in her hands, surprise overtaking any other emotion.

There was no doubt in her mind that it was from Isabel.

It could be a lie, but what would that accomplish?

It would get Raisa to visit.

She hadn’t seen her sister in more than a year. In fact, Raisa had tried to completely forget that Isabel even existed. She’d blocked her name on all the social media apps, she’d made sure to stay away from the suggested listens on any podcast platform, she even squinted at the home screens of all the streaming services because now was about the time that docuseries were coming out about Isabel’s long and violent killing career.

Maybe Raisa had done too good a job. Maybe there was a reason Isabel was trying to summon her and, having grown frustrated with any previous attempts to do so, went for the shock value.

But Isabel hated looking foolish about as much as she hated being wrong. She would never have sent this note if it weren’t true.

Raisa’s breathing had gone ragged, and she only realized it when black started creeping in from the sides of her eyes.

She didn’tcareif Isabel was dead, not like she probably should at losing one of her two remaining family members. Nothing in Raisa’s life would really change at all. And yet the idea of it sent shock waves through her body.

Losing something that was evil was still losing something.

After that night when she and Isabel had aimed guns at each other and both pulled the trigger, Raisa had wondered if her family was simplybad. After all, there had been a moment during the standoff where Raisahad been sure that Delaney Moore, their third sister, would help Isabel get away with killing her.

She had grappled with that idea for a long time—for if Raisa had been born to a family of monsters, what did that make her?

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