Chapter 1

The smell of clay and antiseptic hung in the air of my lab. It was a sterile, familiar scent that usually brought me comfort. Tonight, it felt heavy, suffocating. Under the focused beam of my work lamp, the skull rested on its stand. It was just bone and a few strands of preserved hair, the silent remains of a woman nobody had claimed.

My job was to give her a face back. As a forensic artist, I rebuilt identities from nothing. I worked with the cold, hard facts of bone structure, tissue depth markers, and anthropological data. But there was always a part of it that was intuition, a whisper from the person that used to be.

For weeks, this case had consumed me. "Jane Doe, Case 734." Female, mid-fifties, found in a shallow grave in the state forest. No dental records matched, no DNA hits in the system. She was a ghost.

My fingers, smudged with gray clay, worked methodically, smoothing the cheekbone, shaping the curve of the jaw. I was close. The face emerging from the skull was becoming more and more familiar, in a way that made my stomach tighten.

I stepped back, my eyes tracing the lines I had so carefully created. The high cheekbones, the slight arch of the brow, the distinct shape of the chin. A cold dread washed over me.

It couldn't be.

I pulled up a picture on my phone. It was a photo from last year's Christmas party. I stood between my fiancé, Ryan Blackwood, and his mother, Eleanor. She was laughing, her head tilted just so.

My gaze flickered from the phone screen to the clay head.

The same cheekbones. The same brow. The same chin.

My breath hitched. My heart hammered against my ribs. It was her. It was Eleanor Blackwood, Ryan's mother, who had vanished without a trace two years ago. The police had given up. Ryan had given up. But here she was, on my work table.

I had to tell him. I reached for my lab phone, my hand shaking so badly I could barely dial. How do you tell the man you love that you've just found his missing mother's skull?

Before my finger could press the last digit, the lab door creaked open. That was wrong. I always locked it.

A large shadow fell across the floor. I looked up, startled. Two men stood in the doorway, their faces obscured by ski masks. A primal fear, cold and sharp, shot through me.

"Ava Miller?" the taller one grunted.

I couldn't speak. I could only nod, my eyes wide with terror.

He moved fast. One moment I was standing by my work table, the next, a foul-smelling cloth was clamped over my mouth and nose. I struggled, kicking out, my hand knocking the clay head to the floor. It shattered, the face of Eleanor Blackwood breaking into pieces.

The world swirled in a sickening chemical haze, and then it went black.

Pain was the first thing that brought me back. A raw, searing pain across my face. I tried to scream, but only a choked, gurgling sound came out. My throat felt like it was full of broken glass.

I was in a small, filthy room, the air thick with the smell of sweat, beer, and something metallic that I knew was blood. Loud, pulsing music pounded through the walls, mixed with the roar of a crowd.

Someone grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. A cracked shard of a mirror was shoved in front of me. I didn't recognize the person staring back. Her face was a swollen, bruised mess. One eye was nearly sealed shut. Blood caked her split lips and matted her hair.

"Pretty, aren't you?" a voice rasped in my ear. It was one of the men from the lab. "A little stress relief for the boys tonight."

They laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. They injected something into my arm. My muscles went slack, my mind foggy, but the pain remained, a constant, sharp anchor in the chaos.

They dragged me out of the room and pushed me onto a brightly lit stage. The roar of the crowd intensified. I was in a ring, like for a boxing match, but there were no gloves, only jeering faces and outstretched hands holding cash.

My one good eye struggled to focus through the haze of drugs and swelling. I saw bodies pressed together, men shouting, their faces twisted with a kind of manic excitement.

And then I saw him.

He was standing near the front, a drink in his hand. Ryan. My Ryan. My heart, already broken, seemed to stop beating altogether. Relief warred with confusion. He was here. He would save me.

But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the woman beside him. Chloe Davis. Her hands were wrapped around his neck, her body pressed against his.

As I watched, paralyzed, Chloe whispered something in his ear. Ryan laughed, a deep, throaty sound I knew so well, and then he leaned in and kissed her. It wasn't a friendly peck. It was a deep, passionate kiss, full of a hunger I hadn't seen from him in months.

The crowd around them hooted and cheered.

"Get a room, Blackwood!" one of his friends yelled.

Ryan pulled back, grinning, and raised his glass to the crowd. He was drunk, happy, and celebrating. His eyes swept over the stage, over me, and he didn't even flinch. There was no recognition. No shock. Just a casual, dismissive glance. To him, I was just part of the evening's entertainment. A thing.

Someone in the crowd yelled, "Hey, I heard this one's a real artist! She likes to play with dead bodies!"

Another voice, one of Ryan's friends, piped up, "Yeah, a forensic artist! Think she can reconstruct her own face after tonight?"

The group roared with laughter. The words hit me harder than any physical blow. They were talking about my work, my passion, twisting it into something grotesque and filthy. My life's purpose, turned into a punchline.

On the stage, I was a broken object. In the crowd, the man who had promised to love me forever kissed his mistress, a triumphant smile on her face. Chloe' s eyes met mine for a fleeting second through the throng. There was no pity in them. Only cold, hard victory.