Chapter 1

The world snapped back into focus with the sound of a doorbell.

It was the same chime, the same time of day, the same woman standing on my porch. Debra Fowler. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. It was a mask of grief I knew all too well.

"Hi, Gabrielle," she said, her voice trembling. "I' m so sorry to bother you. You just moved in."

My own voice was a ghost in my throat. I couldn' t speak. My heart was a hammer against my ribs. I remembered this. I remembered the cold dread that followed.

Debra wrung her hands. "It' s my son, Caleb. He has... he has leukemia. It' s terminal."

The words were a physical blow, even though I knew they were coming. They were the start of the end. My end.

"The neighborhood is putting together a Meal Train for us," she continued, her gaze dropping to the clipboard in her hands. "And a fundraiser. We were hoping... well, I was hoping you might be the first to sign up. A blessing, you know? A good start from the new neighbor."

The memory was so vivid it felt like I was watching a movie of my own death. The fall down the porch stairs. The sharp, cracking sound as my head hit the concrete. The darkness.

Then, a voice from behind me, sickly sweet and full of false concern. "Of course she will, Debra! Gabi has the biggest heart."

It was Molly. My best friend. My sister in all but blood. The one who held my hand at my parents' funeral. The one who convinced me to move into this house. The one who smiled as she helped set the trap that would kill me.

I turned slowly, my eyes locking on her. She was standing in the kitchen, a box of my mother' s old plates in her hands, a bright, helpful smile on her face. The sight of her made my blood run cold.

She wanted me dead. She wanted this house, my inheritance. She wanted the man next door, Matthew Fowler, Debra' s charismatic, cheating husband.

They had a plan. A simple, brutal plan. Frame me for weakening Caleb with a meal, use his inevitable death to turn the neighborhood against me, and then get rid of me. In the first timeline, it worked perfectly.

But I was back. And this time, I knew everything.