Author: Seraphina Nova Glass
ISBN: 9781525836749
Publication Date: July 28, 2020
Publisher: Graydon House Books
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You’re not alone. Someone’s waiting. Someone’s
watching…Someone's listening.
Dr. Faith Finley has everything she’s ever wanted: she’s a renowned
psychologist, a radio personality—host of the wildly popular “Someone’s
Listening with Dr. Faith Finley”—and a soon-to-be bestselling author. She’s young,
beautiful, and married to the perfect man, Liam.
Of course Liam was at Faith’s book launch with her. But
after her car crashes on the way home and she’s pulled from the wreckage,
nobody can confirm that Liam was with her at the party. The police claim she
was alone in car, and they don’t believe her when she says otherwise. Perhaps
that’s understandable, given the horrible thing Faith was accused of doing a
few weeks ago.
And then the notes start arriving—the ones literally ripped
from the pages of Faith’s own self-help book on leaving an abusive
relationship. Ones like “Secure your new home. Consider new window and door
locks, an alarm system, and steel doors…”
Where is Liam? Is his disappearance connected to the scandal
that ruined Faith’s life? Who is sending the notes? Faith’s very life will
depend on finding the answers.
Enjoy this sneak peek:
PROLOGUE
WHEN I WAKE UP, IT’S BLACK AND STILL; I FEEL A light, icy
snow that floats rather than falls, and I can’t open my eyes. I don’t know
where I am, but it’s so quiet, the silence rings in my ears. My fingertips try
to grip the ground, but I feel only a sheet of ice beneath me, splintered with
bits of embedded gravel. The air is sharp, and I try to call for him, but I
can’t speak. How long have I been here? I drift back out of consciousness. The
next time I wake, I hear the crunching of ice under the boots of EMTs who rush
around my body. I know where I am. I’m lying in the middle of County Road 6.
There has been a crash. There’s a swirling red light, a strobe light in the
vast blackness: they tell me not to move.
“Where’s my husband?” I whimper. They tell me to try not
to talk either. “Liam!” I try to yell for him, but it barely escapes my lips;
they’re numb, near frozen, and it comes out in a hoarse whisper. How has this
happened?
I think of the party and how I hate driving at night, and
how I was careful not to drink too much. I nursed a glass or two, stayed in
control. Liam had a lot more. It wasn’t like him to get loaded, and I knew it
was his way of getting back at me. He was irritated with me, with the position
I’d put him in, even though he had never said it in so many words. I wanted to
please him because this whole horrible situation was my fault, and I was sorry.
When I wake up again I’m in a hospital room, connected to
tubes and machines. The IV needle is stuck into a bruised, purple vein in the
back of my hand that aches. In the dim light, I sip juice from a tiny plastic
cup, and the soft beep of the EKG tries to lull me back to sleep, but I fight
it. I want answers. I need to appear stabilized and alert. Another dose of painkiller
is released into my IV; the momentary euphoria forces me to heave a sigh. I
need to keep my eyes open. I can hear the cops arrive and talk to someone at a
desk outside my door. They’ll tell me what happened.
There’s a nurse who calls me “sweetie” and changes the
subject when I ask about the accident. She gives the cops a sideways look when
they come in to talk to me, and tells them they only have a few minutes and
that I need to rest.
Detective John Sterling greets me with a soft “Hello,
ma’am.” I almost forget about my shattered femur and groan after I move too
quickly. Another officer lingers by the door, a tall, stern-looking woman with
her light hair pulled into a tight bun at the base of her skull. She tells me
I’m lucky to be alive, and if it had dropped below freezing, I wouldn’t have
lasted those couple hours before a passing car stopped and called 911. I ask
where Liam is, but she just looks to Sterling. Something is terribly wrong.
“Why won’t anyone tell me what happened to him?” I plead.
I watch Detective Sterling as he picks his way through a response.
“The nurse tells me that you believe he was in the car
with you at the time of the accident,” he says. I can hear the condescension in
his voice. He’s speaking to me like I’m a child.
“They said ‘I believe’ he was? That’s not a— That’s a
fact. We came from a party—a book signing party. Anyone, anyone can tell you
that he was with me. Please. Is he hurt?” I look down at my body for the first
time and see the jagged stitches holding together the bruised flesh of my right
arm. They look exaggerated, like the kind you might draw on with makeup and
glue for a Halloween costume. I close my eyes, holding back nausea. I try to
walk through the series of events—trying to piece together what happened and when.
Liam had been quiet in the car. I knew he’d believed me
after the accusations started. I knew he trusted me, but maybe I’d
underestimated the seeds of doubt that had been planted in his mind. I tried to
lighten the mood when we got in the car by making some joke about the
fourteen-dollar domestic beers; he’d given a weak chuckle and rested his head
on the passenger window.
The detective looks at me with something resembling
sympathy but closer to pity.
“Do you recall how much you had to drink last night?” he
asks accusingly.
“What? You think…? No. I drove because he… No! Where is
he?” I ask, not recognizing my own voice. It’s haggard and raw.
“Do you recall taking anything to help you relax?
Anything that might impair your driving?”
“No,” I snap, nearly in tears again.
“So, you didn’t take any benzodiazepine maybe?
Yesterday…at some point?”
“No— I— Please.” I choke back tears. “I don’t…” He looks
at me pointedly, then scribbles something on his stupid notepad. I didn’t know
what to say. Liam must be dead, and they think I’m too fragile to take the
news. Why would they ask me this?
“Ma’am,” he says, standing. He softens his tone. This is
it. He’s going to tell me something I’ll never recover from.
“You were the only one in the car when medics got there,”
he says, studying me for my response, waiting to detect a lie that he can use
against me later. His patronizing look infuriates me.
“What?” The blood thumps in my ears. They think I’m
crazy; that soft tone isn’t a sympathetic one reserved for delivery of the news
that a loved one has died—it’s the careful language chosen when speaking to
someone unstable. They think I’m some addict or a drunk. Maybe they think the
impact had made me lose the details, but he was there. I swear to God. His cry
came too late and there was a crash. It was deafening, and I saw him reach for
me, his face distorted in terror. He tried to shield me. He was there. He was
next to me, screaming my name when we saw the truck headlights appear only feet
in front of us—too late.
Excerpted from Someone’s Listening by Seraphina Nova Glass,
Copyright © 2020 by Seraphina Nova Glass.
Published by Graydon House Books
Author Bio:
Seraphina Nova Glass is a professor and Playwright-in-Residence at the University of Texas-Arlington, where she teaches Film Studies and Playwriting. She holds an MFA in playwriting from Smith College, and has optioned multiple screenplays to Hallmark and Lifetime. Someone's Listening is her first novel.
Social Links:
Twitter: @SeraphinaNova
Instagram: @SeraphinaNovaGlass
Facebook: @SeraphinaNovaGlass
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