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  AGENT: Did you get the sense that Ms. Hart might pose any kind of threat to him?

  FOSTER: Not really. We interviewed her as the victim in our case. We never considered her as a potential perpetrator. I don’t know, Don. It seems pretty tenuous.

  AGENT: We have physical evidence at her place of residence.

  FOSTER: What kind of evidence are we talking about?

  AGENT: Track patterns in the snow, fingerprints on both their cell phones, a butcher knife that may have been the murder weapon, and multiple bloodstains in her bedroom.

  FOSTER: His blood?

  AGENT: The final DNA report is still pending, but the initial blood type analysis looks like a match for Thorn.

  FOSTER: And the body?

  AGENT: No body just yet. From the tracks outside the house, it looks like the suspect managed to drag the body into the victim’s vehicle. It’ll probably turn up somewhere once the snow melts.

  FOSTER: Can’t rule it a homicide without a body.

  AGENT: We’re still treating it as a missing persons case for now. We were called in by state police in New Mexico after Thorn failed to appear for a show in Santa Fe.

  FOSTER: Can’t even say for sure there was foul play involved, if you ask me.

  AGENT: You think Thorn could’ve staged it?

  FOSTER: Depends. What does Tessa Hart have to say about it?

  AGENT: Nothing. She’s long gone. We believe Ms. Hart made it across the Mexican border. The victim’s car turned up this morning at a chop shop outside Del Rio. Our analysts are checking it over now.

  FOSTER: Damn. That car must’ve been worth a few hundred grand.

  AGENT: Yep, we’re guessing it may be a while before she surfaces, with the amount of cash she would have obtained for it.

  FOSTER: Well, that doesn’t look good for her. She told us she didn’t leave the house. Agoraphobic.

  AGENT: We have reason to question the credibility of certain statements she made to you.

  FOSTER: You never can tell, can you? I’ve been on the job twenty-five years now, and I wouldn’t have pegged her for a killer. You’d think Thorn would’ve seen it coming, the way he obsessed about that Cromwell case.

  AGENT: Love is blind, right?

  FOSTER: You can say that again.

  AGENT: Just one more thing, Charles. Could you take a look at this and tell me if it means anything to you?

  FOSTER: What am I looking at here?

  AGENT: The final tweets sent from Mr. Thorn’s Twitter account. He tweeted just before midnight on December 31, and I quote: “I love you, snowflake. This is real.” And then he tweeted this one on the morning of January 1—

  FOSTER: That’s impossible. We froze that account, pending our investigation.

  AGENT: No, I’m not referring to the @EricThornSucks account. This was tweeted from @EricThorn.

  FOSTER: My mistake. I just assumed because of the reference.

  AGENT: What do you mean by that?

  FOSTER: It’s a reference to a direct message that Eric Thorn sent to Tessa Hart from the @EricThornSucks account. Hang on while I look it up… [pause] I’m guessing you’re going to want to enter the whole thread into evidence, Don. This tweet right here’s your smoking gun.

  AGENT: Let the record show that we’re discussing a tweet sent out on January 1 at 7:26 a.m. from the account with username @EricThorn. The tweet states, and I quote: “Sleep with a leech, and it just might bleed you dry.”

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank each and every Wattpad user who read the first draft of this story online. Your feedback inspired me to keep writing when I felt like giving up. This book would not exist without your constant encouragement.

  To Lydia Shamah, my agent, who had the vision to see this story’s potential, thank you for your insight and wise counsel. Thanks also to my wonderful editor, Kate Prosswimmer, and to the entire team at Sourcebooks, including Elizabeth Boyer, Alex Yeadon, Katy Lynch, and Annette Pollert-Morgan. I am forever grateful for your leap of faith and your tireless efforts on my behalf.

  To Caitlin O’Hanlon, I-Yana Tucker, Aron Levitz, and all the incredible people at Wattpad HQ who work so hard to nurture budding authors, thank you for all that you do. I’m proud to call myself a member of the extraordinary community you have built.

  Finally, a word of gratitude to my family, whose love and support never waver: Helene, Alex, Ted, Debbie, Allan, Gail, Jeanne, my children, and above all, David. Thank you for your patience, for the hours of effort you’ve put in, and for following me on this journey into the unknown. You know that I will always follow you back.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A. V. Geiger is an epidemiologist who spends far too much spare time on social media. By day, she studies women’s psychiatric and reproductive health. By night, she can be found fangirling, following people back, and photoshopping the heads of band members onto the bodies of unicorns. Her writing career began with celebrity fan fiction, and her work draws extensively on her own experiences with online fan culture. Her original teen fiction has received millions of hits on the story-sharing website Wattpad, ranking as high as #1 in the mystery-thriller genre. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and twin boys. Visit avgeiger.com.

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