Chapter 1

The smell of smoke, thick and choking, was the first thing.

Then the heat, a monstrous wave that seared my skin even through the memory.

My parents, Mark and Linda, owned a chain of hardware stores, successful ones, in our comfortable Oregon town. I was Sarah, eighteen, a college freshman, naive.

That was before.

Jessica, my cousin, was seventeen.

Her family lived in a trailer, out in a poor rural county.

They died in a fire.

A suspicious fire.

Only Jessica survived, supposedly at a friend's house.

My mother, Linda, her heart always too soft, felt a crushing guilt.

She said we hadn't been close enough to her sister's family.

She convinced Dad to let Jessica live with us.

Our house was big, suburban, safe.

I, in my foolishness, agreed.

Less than a month.

That's all it took.

Jessica, consumed by a jealousy I never saw, set our house on fire.

She wanted my college fund, the family assets, my life.

Mom and Dad died in that fire.

I nearly did, burns covering most of my body.

The ICU was a blur of pain and hushed voices.

Then Jessica was there, leaning close.

Tears streamed down her face, a perfect mask of grief.

"It's your fault, Sarah," she whispered, her voice a venomous caress.

"You had too much."

Her hand moved.

The alarms on my heart monitor went silent.

She pulled the oxygen mask from my face.

I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't scream.

Her face, twisted in triumph, was the last thing I saw.

My inheritance, or what was left of it, would be hers.