YOU BETTER RUN (Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Book 11) Read online

  Contents

  What’s coming next from Willow Rose?

  Prologue

  Prologue

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part II

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part III

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Part IV

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Part V

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Books by the Author

  Copyright

  What’s coming next from Willow Rose?

  Get on the list to find out about coming titles, free books, bargains, giveaways, and more.

  WILLOW ROSE VIP NEWSLETTER.

  My daddy’s gotta gun – you better run

  Hayloft, Mother Mother

  There’s a dead girl in the pool

  I’m the dead girl in the pool

  girl in red

  Prologue

  Cocoa Beach, Florida

  8 a.m., Saturday morning

  It was a clear and humid morning in March, the day that Meg Kellam’s world collapsed. From the minute she opened her eyes and blinked a few times to get the webs of the night out of them, she felt the deep dread rising inside her.

  Empty bottles filled the coffee table before her, and soon she realized she was on the couch.

  “I’m so thirsty,” she mumbled and sat up, supporting her face with her hands, rubbing her forehead, and running a hand through her hair. The hand touched something sticky, and she pulled it out to look at it.

  “Gum? How did I get gum in my hair? I must have laid on it while sleeping.”

  Meg pulled at it, and it got stuck between her fingers. She found an only slightly used napkin and wiped her fingers. Some of the gum came off, but her fingers still felt sticky, and she knew a big part of it was still in her hair.

  She heard moaning from behind her and saw her best friend, Abbi, poke her head up from one of the other couches in her five-thousand-square-foot childhood home. The light coming in from the big glass sliding doors leading to the pool area blinded her slightly, and she held a hand up to cover her eyes.

  “Heeeeyyy,” Abbi said, her voice raspy. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like someone threw up in my mouth,” Meg said and stuck out her tongue.

  Abbi groaned, exhausted. She looked at the small glasses lined up on Meg’s mom’s coffee table.

  “Oh, God, we took shots before passing out, didn’t we? Your mom would kill you if she saw that we weren’t using coasters on her beloved coffee table,” Abbi said, laughing. “Now, it’s all covered in empty beer bottles and half-eaten chip bags.”

  Meg stared at the mess. Some of the chips had spilled onto the table and the carpet below; others had been soaked in spilled beer and were stuck to the glass top.

  Meg opened her eyes widely.

  “Mom,” she said.

  “What’s that?” Abbi said, laughing. She sat up. Her hair was tousled. Abbi had the most beautiful long hair. Meg couldn’t get hers as long since hers was fine and thin, another annoying trait she had probably inherited from her mother. At least she believed so.

  “What time is it?” Meg asked anxiously. She threw a glance around the house. People were sleeping everywhere, even on the stairs… and so many empty bottles and something blue had spilled on the white carpet by the dining room table.

  “It’s only eight,” Abbi said. “It’s really early. We only slept like three hours. At least I think so, heh. I don’t really remember passing out.”

  “My mom will be home in two hours,” Meg said, shaking her head. “I knew I should never have let you talk me into having a party. There is no way we can clean up the house that fast.”

  “Hey, first of all, you wanted this party, not me. And of course, we can,” Abbi said. “If we get everyone up and ask them to help. Don’t worry. I’ll make it happen.”

  Meg smiled, even though she still felt uneasy. Abbi got up from the couch and went to the kitchen. She came back with a box of trash bags, then clapped her hands.

  “All right, everyone. Party is over. It’s time to clean up. Wake up. Now!”

  Meg was impressed with Abbi’s persistence, and little by little, she succeeded in waking each and every person. Minutes later, they were all helping out, removing bottles and empty cans, wiping down counters and tables, and vacuuming the carpet. Soon, Meg started to breathe less raggedly and calmed down, thinking she was actually going to pull this off. They were going to make it.

  “See?” Abbi said and came up to her. “We’re almost done. Your mom will never know you had a party while she was out of town. I promise.”

  Meg nodded, actually believing her. Until something outside the big sliding-glass windows caught her eye, and her heart stopped beating.

  “There’s a girl in the pool. There’s a girl in the pool!”

  Meg stared through the window, pointing and clasping her mouth.

  “What?” Abbi said and dropped the garbage bag in her hand. The contents clattered as it landed on the tiles. Abbi came up next to Meg, who could barely breathe. The words coming out of her mouth were spoken between ragged breaths.

  “There’s… a… girl….”

  “What are you talking about? Meg, you look all pale; what is…?”

  Abbi turned her head and looked out the window. She spotted the bobbing colorful lump at the bottom of the clear pool outside, then let out a slight gasp.

  “Are you sure? It kind of looks more like… It could just be some clothes? Maybe someone threw clothes in the pool? Or maybe it’s a doll?”

  Meg shook her head. “No. I think it’
s….”

  Abbi put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s go have a look. I’m sure you’re wrong.”

  Abbi grabbed the sliding doors and pulled them open. She walked out, Meg coming up right behind her. Inside the house, all activity had ceased, as all eyes were on the two girls, who were walking out into the screened-in pool area. The bright sunlight glistened on the water, and the humid Florida air hit their faces and wrapped them like a blanket. Meg felt sick to her stomach as they approached the pool.

  As they came closer, Abbi hesitated and stopped. Then she swallowed and looked up at Meg, who was taller than her.

  “Wait. I think you might be… right. The hair… It can’t be….”

  Meg let out a resounding whimper as the realization sank into both of them.

  “What do we do?” she squealed, bending forward and throwing out her arms. “What are we going to DO?”

  “Okay, let me just think for a second,” Abbi said. Her eyes fell on two guys that had stepped out on the back porch and were staring at the girl in the water.

  “You two, come here and help me,” she said. “We need to get her out of the water right now.”

  The two boys rushed to Abbi and took off their T-shirts, then jumped in. The tallest guy dove down and grabbed the girl’s clothes, then pulled her toward the surface, where Abbi and the other guy held onto her, then pulled her up onto the deck. As they did, she rolled onto her back, and the hair slid from her face, so they could see who she was.

  Bobby, the guy on the right, immediately recoiled when seeing her face. “What the…?”

  The other guy, Trevor, screamed and let go of her shoulders. He pulled away, crabbing on his hands and feet to get away from her body.

  “Wh…what?”

  Abbi let out a shriek. They all three looked up at Meg, their eyes questioning.

  “It’s…” Abbi said, stuttering and barely able to find the words. “It’s….”

  “It’s you,” Trevor took over.

  They stared at Meg like they expected her to have all the answers. Instead, she shook her head in disbelief, staring intensely at the girl’s face.

  “It’s… me?”

  Part I

  FIVE HOURS LATER, COCOA BEACH, FLORIDA

  Chapter 1

  “Wait. Can you explain this again?”

  I looked at my sixteen-year-old daughter, sitting in front of me at the dining room table at our house. She had asked to talk, and I made hot chocolate for both of us, put whipped cream on top, then added a marshmallow to each cup. Olivia had rolled her eyes at me as I served it to her and told me I was making too big a deal out of it. I had told her that it was so rare these days that my daughters wanted to chat with me, so I felt it was appropriate and pulled out the bag of Oreos to go with it. Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to indulge a little since I had been dieting for two weeks and doing really well.

  I felt we deserved it.

  Olivia exhaled, annoyed. “What part didn’t you understand?”

  “Eh, all of it?”

  “Mom!”

  “Okay, so mostly the part where you say you don’t have… a gender?”

  “I do have a gender. I am just not a boy or a girl,” she corrected me. “I identify as non-binary. Why is this so difficult?”

  I threw out my arms. “I just don’t understand it. Please, bear with me. Your mom is old.”

  “Like that’s an excuse,” she mumbled and sipped her hot cocoa.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “It’s just the same lame excuse that everyone from your generation uses when our generation brings up these things. ‘We’re from a different time.’ That kind of stuff. But it’s just a bad excuse for not wanting to learn.”

  I leaned back in my chair, slightly offended. “Okay? So now I can’t ask you to explain it to me? I can’t tell you that I don’t understand how you can have no gender just because that’s a bad excuse? I’m a little confused here, sweetie.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I just knew you would make this about you.”

  “Then don’t explain it to me. Just let me tell you what I got out of this conversation so far,” I said, leaning forward, tapping my fingers on the sides of my cup. “You’re telling me that you’re not a boy nor a girl; you’re… no… bi….”

  I made a strained face, and Olivia sighed deeply. “Non-binary, Mom. I’ve told you this a thousand times. It’s called non-binary.”

  “Yes. Okay. So, that’s what you are. And that means you have no gender; I got that right, didn’t I?”

  Olivia nodded. “Yes.”

  “And you want us to call you what?”

  “My pronouns are they/them.”

  I wrinkled my forehead and tried my best not to seem insensitive. But the truth was that it was really hard for me to understand this. I wanted to since it seemed so important to my daughter, or rather… my…?

  “So, what do I say when I introduce you to people? If I can’t say, daughter or son? This is my…?”

  “Child?”

  I looked at her, barely blinking. “O-okay. And your name?”

  “I want you to call me Ollie or just O. That’s what my friends do.”

  That broke my heart. I had come up with the name Olivia when I was pregnant and had spent weeks convincing Chad that it was the right name. He had finally agreed, and I was so happy. To be honest, it was the name I was most fond of out of all my children’s names. I simply loved that name. And now, I just had to let that go? Just call her something else. Or rather call them something else?

  Oh, dear Lord, this is going to be hard. I am going to mess this up big time.

  Ollie placed a hand on top of mine, then smiled. “You’ll get it, Mom.”

  “I just thought that… well, when I saw you in that suit for your prom, I was so sure that you were just gay, or rather lesbian. I had never… I’m a little surprised; that’s all.”

  “I know that I am mostly attracted to boys, but I have had a few girlfriends.”

  My eyes grew wide. “You have? How have I not known this?”

  She shrugged and sipped her cocoa.

  “I guess I just assumed the girls who came here were just your friends. I guess I haven’t really paid enough attention, huh?”

  She looked away, and that small gesture filled me with guilt. I hadn’t been at home enough. I knew it, and now it was coming back to bite me. My kids needed my attention.

  “Well, guess what?” I said, “I will pay better attention from now on and will make sure to get all those pronouns correct the best I can, okay?”

  They looked up, and our eyes met. I saw relief in them, and I realized this conversation with me had taken a lot of courage on their part.

  “Ollie,” I said, tasting the name. “I could get used to that. It’s kind of cute.”

  That made them smile, and I smiled back just as my phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it and stared at the display, then realized it was Chief Annie from Cocoa Beach Police Department. I was about to take it when I realized Ollie’s eyes were on me. Then I shook my head and put it back in my pocket.

  “She’ll just have to wait,” I said. “I’m with my daug… my child now, paying attention to what they are saying.”

  “What if it’s important?”

  I leaned forward and grabbed my child’s hand in mine, then caressed the top of it. “You’re more important. Now, tell me more about how you found this out about yourself….”

  As I was speaking, my cell stopped vibrating, but then my landline began to ring. I closed my eyes, annoyed.

  “Someone really wants to get ahold of you,” Ollie said.

  “Just let it ring,” I said, shaking my head. “So, how did you find out?”

  “Well, I was on TikTok, and this person had made a video about being non-binary, and then I just saw that I recognized myself in the things that were being said, and then I….”

  She p
aused when a police patrol car drove up our street and parked in our driveway. Someone stepped out and walked up to the house.

  It was Matt—my ex.

  “I guess it is serious,” I said with a shrug.

  Ollie stood to their feet. “I knew this would happen.”

  Matt knocked on the door. Ollie gave me a sad look, then walked toward the stairs. “Do what you gotta do.”

  “Olivia, please, what do you want me to…?”

  She lifted her hand. “It’s Ollie! Don’t deadname me, please. And it’s okay, Mom. Really.”

  But I knew it wasn’t. She wanted my full attention. I cursed them all as I walked to the door and pulled it open.

  “What do you want?”

  Chapter 2