Chapter 1

The air in the room was stale, thick with the smell of antiseptic and despair. It was a smell I had grown used to, a smell that clung to my clothes, my hair, my skin. It was the smell of my life now. A small, white room with a barred window was my entire world.

They told me I was sick.

They said grief had broken my mind.

My loving mother-in-law, Martha, would visit, her face a mask of concern. She would hold my hand, her touch cold, and tell the doctors how I had been hallucinating, how I' d become a danger to myself and my son, Billy.

"She doesn' t understand that David is gone," she would whisper, just loud enough for me to hear. "She keeps saying the most terrible things."

The most terrible thing was the truth.

It started three days after my husband, David, a decorated police officer, was supposedly killed in the line of duty. At his memorial service, I stood beside the open casket, expected to weep for the man I loved. But the man in the casket was not my husband. He was Mark, David' s identical twin brother.

I knew it instantly. A small, faded scar above his left eyebrow, from a childhood fall, was missing. Mark never had that scar. David did.

That night, I found David. He wasn' t in some secret hideout. He was in our summer cabin, the one we were supposed to take Billy to for his birthday. He was with her. Emily Peterson, his childhood sweetheart.

He didn' t even look surprised to see me. He just looked annoyed.

"Sarah, you need to leave," he said, stepping in front of Emily.

"What is this, David? Who is in that casket?" I asked, my voice shaking.

He confessed it all with a coldness that froze my blood. He and Mark had responded to the same call. There was a shootout. Mark was killed. David saw his chance. A new life with Emily, free from me and Billy. All he had to do was switch wallets, switch identities. He was a hero, presumed dead. He was free.

"We can' t be together, Sarah. I never loved you. It was always Emily," he said, as if explaining a simple math problem.

I tried to tell people. I screamed it at his mother, at his police captain. They looked at me with pity. David, the grieving brother, and his mother, the grieving parent, had already laid the groundwork. They told everyone I was unstable, that the shock was too much for me. They had a doctor, a friend of the family, sign the papers. They locked me away.

They put me in this white room, and David married Emily.

My son, Billy, was left in their care. He was only four. I heard from a sympathetic nurse that he cried for me every night. He didn' t understand where his mommy went. He didn' t understand why his daddy was pretending to be his uncle.

One night, Billy' s crying got on Emily' s nerves. She complained to David that she couldn' t sleep. She needed her rest.

So David, the man who once promised to protect his family, went into his son' s room. He didn' t hold him. He didn' t comfort him. He gave him something to make him sleep. A little too much.

My Billy never woke up.

They called it a tragic accident. A grieving father, distracted and exhausted, gave his son the wrong dose of cough medicine. Everyone felt so sorry for him. He had lost his brother, and now his son.

The news broke me. The last piece of my world crumbled into dust. Billy was my reason for fighting, my reason for trying to get out of this white room. Without him, the room was no longer a prison. It was a tomb.

There was no more hope. There was only the stale air, the white walls, and the crushing, silent weight of what I had lost. David had taken everything from me. My husband, my son, my freedom, my sanity.

I found a way. In a place designed to keep you from hurting yourself, desperation is a powerful key. I tied a sheet, torn into strips, to the metal frame of the bed. I made a noose.

As I stood on the rickety chair, the coarse fabric against my neck, I didn't think about David or Emily anymore. I thought about Billy. His small hand in mine, his bright laugh. I thought about the life he should have had. The life David stole.

My only regret was that David would never face justice. He would live his happy life with Emily, built on the graves of his brother and his son. He had won.

I kicked the chair away.

Darkness took me.

Then, a blinding light.