Page 1 of The Butcher's Wife
PROLOGUE
ANNETTA
My husband is dead.
My hands stopped shaking an hour ago, but my heartbeat stutters every time I glance in the rearview mirror. I don’t recognize the black sedan that’s been following me for the past hundred miles.
I thought I had more time.
I should have known better.
Tall, formless trees loom over me, and rain beats on my windshield as I navigate over the stretch of dark, slick road barely visible past my headlights. My heart urges me to drive faster, to scream down the highway, but I can’t afford to. If a deer jumps out, I’ll crash.
Another glance in the mirror shows the black sedan pulling off on the exit I just passed.
I’m alone.
I’m free.
Something between a sob and a laugh burst out of me, and I clap my hand over my mouth.
I can’t cry, not yet. I have to get home first. I have to look my parents in the eye, tell them what I did, and crawl intomy sister’s bed to sleep, just like when we had nightmares as kids.
My wedding ring glints in the darkness, and I submit to a wild urge as I balance the steering wheel with my knee and tug at the ring, grinding it briefly against my knuckle until I cast it off. I lower the window and fling it into the forest.
My husband is dead, and I’m going home.
1
ANNETTA
Three Days Later
“You look good,”Mom says.
Her clear, steady voice is nothing short of a miracle after so much wine, but the slight droop in her left eyelid gives her away, despite having injected enough Botox over the years to kill a horse. A half-empty bottle of Pinot Grigio sits within arm’s reach on the bathroom counter, surrounded by a spray of sparkling droplets.
The face that looks back at me in the mirror isn’t my own. This woman has long, dark eyelashes glued to her eyes. Her lips are raw and puffy from a last-minute exfoliation. Self-tanner smears her skin with a false glow.
Serafina gazes back at me.
Except that isn’t right.
Serafina is gone.
I don’t move when Mom touches the ends of the new hair extensions that fall below my breasts.
“You look just like her,” she says.
I only look like Serafina if you’re drunk.
Her comment should annoy me, but instead, I’m numb.
The doorbell rings downstairs, and Mom startles. She turns to the mirror, plucks a tissue from a marble container, and dabs at her eyes.
“Leave this.” She takes what’s left of the pansy out of my hand and tosses it into the sink.
Bruise-colored petals circle my feet. My fingertips are wet and stained.
