By the time they adjourned at 7:15 p.m., the brisk upstate New York air felt like a slap. Sam hurried to the parking lot, her heels clicking a sharp rhythm against the travertine. California, here I come, she thought, fumbling for her keys. The Christmas break in Parkerville couldn’t come soon enough.

She climbed into her hybrid, the seat biting cold through her slacks. She ignored her mother’s missed call and the one from her dentist. She scrolled to an unknown number and hit Play.

The voice was high-pitched and flat. A dead-calm monotone that made the hair on Sam’s arms stand up.

“Samantha. I hope you’re enjoying New York. Because Parkerville is going to be bone-cold and unforgiving.” ”

A strange, garbled snicker, then,

“Everyone will know what you all did, all about James. I have proof of the attacks. I know you were a partner in crime. You covered it up. ”

The voice continued with barely any change in tone or volume. It was the flat quality of the voice, more than the cold that made Sam shiver, seat warmer barely making a difference.

“Read the Register on the 17th anniversary, bitch. Your life is over. Just like my life changed, so will yours.”

The car’s heater was humming, but Sam felt a flash of ice-water in her veins.

Click.
A sharp, involuntary hiccup escaped Sam’s throat. Her stomach cramped. James? No one called him James. To the world, he was Jim, the rugged outdoorsman. To her, he was just Jimmy.

The woman had said “attacks” She must have meant the knife attack on Jimmy. Seventeen years ago,  an “unsub” had turned Jimmy’s face into a bloody nightmare.

Sam stared at her phone. The scars on Jim’s face were pink-and-white lines of history, but the caller wasn’t talking about physical scars. She was talking about a cover-up.

She thought of another tragedy that happened about the same time — and the death she’d never quite understood. She thought of the car fire. The accident the entire town had mourned, nearly two decades ago.

Her fingers trembled as she pulled up her messages. Her last text to Jim was thirty-two days ago. “Christmas, heck ya. You going to pull up your socks and get out of slightly-more-polite-usa?” His reply: “Yeah, no, yeah will miss christmas, home by new year.”

He was coming home. They were both going back to the source.

Sam took a deep breath, fighting another hiccup. She put the car in gear, but her eyes stayed fixed on the rear view mirror, half-expecting to see a pair of eyes watching her from the darkness of the backseat.

A “disclosure” was coming. And if the caller was right, the “truth” was going to kill them both before the New Year.