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sounds caught up with Judith:
the crack, thunk, thunk, all overlaid with a high-pitched screaming
that she realized was coming from her own mouth. She must have
been in shock, because Henry had to yell at her several times,
"Judith! Judith!" before she stopped screaming.
    Henry's hand was tight on her arm, sending pain up her shoulder.
She rubbed the back of his hand, saying, "I'm all right. I'm all right."
Her glasses were askew, her vision off-kilter. She put her fingers to
the side of her head, feeling a sticky wetness. When she took away
her hand, she saw blood.
    "It must've been a deer or . . ." Henry put his hand to his mouth,
stopping his words. He looked calm but for the telltale up and down
of his chest as he tried to catch his breath. The airbag had deployed. A
fine, white powder covered his face.
    Her breath caught as she looked ahead. Blood had spattered the
windshield like a sudden, violent rain.
    Henry pushed open the door but did not get out. Judith took off
her glasses to wipe her eyes. The lenses were both broken, the bottom
part of her bifocal on the right side missing. She saw that the glasses
were shaking, and realized that the tremor came from her own
hands. Henry got out of the car, and she made herself put on her
glasses and follow him.
    The creature was on the road, legs moving. Judith's head ached
where it had smacked into the door. Blood was in her eyes. That was
the only explanation she had for the fact that the animal—surely a
deer—appeared to have the shapely white legs of a woman.
    "Oh, dear God," Henry whispered. "It's—Judith—it's—"
    Judith heard a car behind her. Wheels screeched against asphalt.
Doors opened and closed. Two men joined them on the road, one
running toward the animal.
    He screamed, "Call 9-1-1!" kneeling down beside the body.
Judith stepped closer, then closer yet. The legs moved again—the
perfect legs of a woman. She was completely nude. Bruises blackened
her inner thighs—dark bruises. Old bruises. Dried blood caked
around her legs. A burgundy film seemed to cover her torso, a rip at
her side showing white bone. Judith glanced at her face. The nose
was askance. The eyes were swollen, lips chapped and split. Blood
matted the woman's dark hair and pooled around her head as if in a
halo.
    Judith stepped closer, unable to stop herself—suddenly a voyeur,
after a lifetime of politely looking away. Glass crunched beneath her
feet, and the woman's eyes shot open in panic. She stared somewhere
past Judith, a dull lifelessness to her gaze. Just as suddenly, her eyelids
fluttered closed, but Judith could not suppress the shudder that went
through her body. It was as if someone had walked over her grave.
    "Dear Lord," Henry mumbled, almost in prayer. Judith turned to
find her husband gripping his hand to his chest. His knuckles were
white. He stared at the woman, looking as if he might be ill. "How
did this happen?" he whispered, horror twisting his face. "How in
God's name did this happen?"

D AY O NE

CHAPTER ONE
    S ARA LINTON LEANED BACK IN HER CHAIR, MUMBLING A SOFT "yes, Mama" into her cell phone. She wondered briefly if there
would ever come a point in time when this felt normal again, when a
phone call with her mother brought her happiness the way it used to
instead of feeling like it was dragging a piece of her heart out of her
chest.
    "Baby," Cathy soothed. "It's all right. You're taking care of yourself,
and that's all Daddy and I need to know."
    Sara felt tears sting her eyes. This would hardly be the first time
she had cried in the doctors' lounge at Grady Hospital, but she was
sick of crying—sick of feeling, really. Wasn't that the reason she had
left her family, left her life, in rural Georgia, and moved to Atlanta—
so that she would no longer have the constant reminder of what had
come before?
    "Promise me you'll try to go to church next week."
    Sara mumbled something that might sound like a promise. Her