Once Forsaken (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 7)

PROLOGUE

Tiffany was all dressed when her mother called out from downstairs.

“Tiffany! Are you ready for church?”

“Almost, Mom,” Tiffany yelled back. “Just a few minutes.”

“Well, hurry up. We’ve got to leave here in five minutes.”

“OK.”

The truth was, Tiffany had finished dressing several minutes ago, right after eating a delicious waffle breakfast downstairs with Mom and Dad. She just wasn’t ready to go anywhere yet. She was really enjoying a bunch of funny animal videos on her cell phone.

So far she’d watched a skateboarding Pekingese, a bulldog climbing a ladder, a cat trying to play a guitar, a big dog that chased its tail whenever someone sang “Pop Goes the Weasel,” and a herd of hundreds of stampeding bunnies.

Right now she was watching one that really made her laugh. A squirrel kept trying to get into a squirrel-proof birdfeeder. No matter how he approached the feeder, it would spin around and send him flying. But the squirrel was determined and wouldn’t give up.

The video kept her giggling until her mother called out again.

“Tiffany! Is your sister coming with us?”

“I don’t think so, Mom.”

“Well, go ask her, please.”

Tiffany sighed. She more than half wanted to yell back …

“Go ask her yourself.”

Instead, she called back, “OK.”

Tiffany’s nineteen-year-old sister, Lois, hadn’t come down to breakfast. Tiffany was pretty sure she had no intention of going to church. She’d told Tiffany yesterday that she didn’t want to go.

Lois had been doing less and less with the family ever since she’d started college in the fall. She came home most weekends and on holidays and breaks, but either kept to herself or went out with friends, and almost always slept late in the mornings.

Tiffany couldn’t blame her.

Life in the Pennington household was enough to bore a teenager to death. And church bored Tiffany more than almost anything.

With a sigh, she stopped the video and stepped out into the hallway. Lois’s bedroom was upstairs from hers—a luxurious room that took up most of the attic. She even had her own private bathroom up there and a huge closet. Tiffany was still stuck in the smaller second-floor bedroom that had been hers for as long as she could remember.

It didn’t seem fair. She’d hoped that she would inherit her sister’s bedroom when she went to college. Why did Lois need all that space now that she was only home on weekends? Couldn’t they trade bedrooms at long last?

She complained about it often and loudly, but nobody seemed to care.

She stood at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the attic and called out.

“Hey, Lois! Are you coming with us?”

She got no reply. She rolled her eyes. This often happened whenever she had to fetch Lois for one thing or another.

She climbed up the stairs and knocked on the door to her sister’s room.

“Hey, Lois,” she yelled again. “We’re going to church. Are you coming?”

Again, she got no reply.

Tiffany shuffled her feet impatiently, then knocked again.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

There was still no reply.

Tiffany groaned aloud. Lois might be fast asleep or listening to music on headphones. More likely, though, she was just ignoring her.

“OK,” she yelled. “I’ll tell Mom you’re not coming.”

As Tiffany made her way back down the stairs, she worried a little. Lois had been a bit down during her most recent visits—not exactly depressed, but not as cheerful as usual. She’d told Tiffany that college was harder than she’d expected, and the pressure was getting to her.

At the bottom of the stairs, Dad was standing in the foyer checking his watch impatiently. He looked ready to go, warmly clad in an overcoat, a fur cap, a scarf, and gloves. Mom was putting on her own coat.

“So is Lois coming?” Dad asked.

“She says no,” Tiffany said, lying a little. Dad might get mad if Tiffany said that Lois wouldn’t even answer her knock on the door.

“Well, I’m not surprised,” Mom said, putting on her gloves. “I heard her car pull in late last night. I’m not sure what time it was.”

Tiffany felt another pang of envy at the mention of her sister’s car. Lois had so much freedom now that she was in college! Best of all, nobody cared very much what time she came home at night. Tiffany hadn’t even heard her come in at all last night.

I guess I was fast asleep,

she thought.

As Tiffany started putting on her own coat, Dad grumbled, “The two of you are taking forever. We’re going to be late for the service.”

“We’ll be there in plenty of time,” Mom said calmly.

“I’ll go out and get the car started,” Dad said.

He opened the front door and stomped outside. Tiffany and her mother quickly got bundled up and followed him.

The cold air hit Tiffany hard. There was still snow on the ground from a few days ago. She wished she were still in her warm bed. It was a lousy day to have to go anywhere.

Suddenly, she heard her mom gasp.

“Lester, what is it?” Mom called out to Dad.

Tiffany saw Dad standing in front of the open garage door. He was staring into the garage, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. He looked stunned and horrified.

“What’s going on?” Mom called out again.

Dad turned to see her. He seemed to be having trouble saying anything.

Finally, he blurted, “Call nine-one-one.”

“Why?” Mom replied.

Dad didn’t explain. He headed into the garage. Mom darted forward, and when she reached the open door, she let out a scream that paralyzed Tiffany with fear.

Mom rushed inside the garage.

For a long moment, Tiffany stood frozen in her tracks.

“What is it?” Tiffany called out.

She heard Mom’s sobbing voice call out from the garage, “Go back inside, Tiffany.”

“Why?” Tiffany yelled back.

Mom came running out of the garage. She grabbed Tiffany’s arm and tried to turn her around to go back to the house.

“Don’t look,” she said. “Go back inside.”

Tiffany wrestled loose from Mom and rushed into the garage.

It took her a moment to take everything in. All three cars were parked there. In the back corner to the left, Dad was wrestling clumsily with a ladder.

Something was hanging there by a rope tied to a roof beam.

It was a person.

It was her sister.