CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Riley was sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat on a hardwood floor in a very large room.

She was in a circle of maybe twenty women who were seated the same way.

Or are they real women? Riley wondered.

They all seemed to be absolutely motionless. Riley saw that none of them even seemed to be breathing. They seemed more like mannequins than real people.

Suddenly, the air was pierced by a cry of despair.

Riley turned and saw that the woman sitting next to her had come to life and had burst into tears.

“He’s a monster,” she said. “My husband’s a monster.”

She kept on sobbing, and the same thing happened to the woman sitting on Riley’s other side …

“He’s a monster,” she wailed. “My husband’s a monster.”

In a matter of seconds, grief and anguish shuddered through the whole circle of women.

They were all crying out, not in unison but in a chaotic cacophony …

“He’s a monster. My husband’s a monster.”

Riley’s eyes quickly fell upon one woman who wasn’t crying and wailing.

She was sitting directly across from her, but Riley couldn’t see her clearly. Of all the women there, only she seemed to be in shadow.

But a faint light revealed that the woman’s lips were moving.

She was saying something, but Riley couldn’t hear it over all the wailing.

One by one, the women in the circle seemed to become aware of the woman in the shadows.

One by one, the others fell silent.

They all stared at the woman in the shadows.

They all listened.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I can fix it …”

Little by little, the words she was saying became clearer …

“I can make everything better … Just trust me … Just wait … You’ll see … Everything will be better …”

Now the women were all listening to her in rapt silence. They seemed to be taking comfort in those words.

And indeed, the voice sounded soothing and gentle.

But Riley shuddered at the sound of that voice. She heard something that none of the other women could hear.

It was hatred—insane, murderous hatred and fury.

She wanted to warn the others not to trust the woman …

I’ve got to make them understand.

She opened her mouth but no words came out.

*

Riley’s eyes snapped open.

Where am I?

She looked around and saw that she was lying in bed in a hotel room.

Most of the clothes she’d worn yesterday were scattered on the floor. She’d slept in her underwear.

She struggled to remember. She knew she’d had too much to drink last night.

She remembered feeling that old attraction to Bill.

Had they …?

No. She remembered that Bill had led her back to her room but had left her there.

Riley felt a flood of gratitude that he had handled things so well. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to deal with the terrible complications of an affair with her best friend and her developing relationship with Blaine.

Why, she wondered, can’t I ever just have just a simple happy relationship?

Was it because she was so good at her job?

But now she wasn’t doing much of a job. She had a sense of dread that this killer wasn’t finished.

She groaned and sat up in bed. Sunlight was peeping through the crack between the closed curtains.

She had to get up. Everybody would be expecting her to tell them what they were going to do next. But she didn’t really know what to do next.

They couldn’t just wait around for another death.

Before Riley could shake herself completely awake, wisps of sounds and images began to run through her mind. She remembered women wailing. She remembered someone saying, “I can fix it …”

She realized she’d a nightmare. And like many of her nightmares, it had told her something.

She shuddered. But she forced herself to remember what she could of it.

There had been a circle of women sitting on yoga mats …

One woman had been speaking …

That was it!

She had to throw aside her self-doubt.

She had to trust her instincts …

The killer really is a woman.

She really does go to LifeGrasp meetings.

And somehow, LifeGrasp was the key to finding and stopping the killer.

Riley scrambled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. She needed a quick shower. She needed to get dressed and call Bill.

She knew what she was going to do today.