Chapter 1 - The Lady With Two Eyes
I stared at the little boy in the hospital bed.
My heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"What do you mean, the lady with two eyes?" I asked quietly.
He looked up at me with tears streaming down his bruised cheeks.
"Mom said to find the lady with two different colored eyes," he whispered.
I instinctively reached up and touched my face.
I have complete heterochromia, a rare genetic trait that left me with one bright blue eye and one emerald green eye.
Sarah and I used to joke about it when we were college roommates twelve years ago.
She was my best friend before she vanished without a trace, taking all her belongings and my ex-fiancé, David, with her.
"Leo, where is your mother right now?" I asked gently.
He shook his head, wincing in pain from his fractured wrist.
"A bad man in a black truck started hitting our car on the highway."
"Mom told me to unbuckle my seatbelt and jump into the bushes when she slowed down."
"She said she had to lead him away so I would be safe."
A cold chill ran down my spine.
This was not a random traffic accident on Interstate 5.
Someone was intentionally trying to run Sarah off the road.
The triage nurse stepped back into the room holding a clipboard.
"Ms. Sterling, the police are outside waiting to take a statement."
"They ran the license plates on the vehicle Sarah Hayes was driving before it was run off the bridge."
I stood up, feeling a sudden wave of dizziness.
"Is Sarah okay?" I asked, dreading the answer.
The nurse frowned and looked down at her notes.
"The police did not find a body inside the submerged vehicle."
"But they did find something very disturbing regarding the car's registration."
I gripped the metal railing of Leo's hospital bed to steady myself.
"What did they find?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
The nurse looked me dead in the eye.
"The car Sarah was driving is registered to your father, Thomas Sterling."
May you like
I stopped breathing entirely.
My father had been dead for ten years.
