Read an Exclusive Excerpt from YOU’LL BE SORRY by Lisa Gardner
Shereford, NH 1998
The locals called him Dog. Nobody knew where the pale-labish-looking canine had come from. Maybe abandoned by a tourist, or at one time lost on a surrounding hiking trail. Attempts to get close enough to check for tags failed. So did the lure of warm shelter and cozy domestic life.
Dog did Dog. Over time, the six hundred residents of the tiny mountain town of Shereford agreed. Shopkeepers left out bowls of water. Restaurant owners offered up nightly scraps. While among neighbors, it became something of an honor to wake up in the morning and discover Dog had chosen their front porch for the night.
Of course, there were those that chased him away, worried he’d attack their children—or worse, breed with their own precious four-legged darlings.
Dog did no such thing. Dog did Dog. And as months passed, his staunch independence and regal bearing made him something of a local star. Tourists started asking about him, hopeful for a sighting or even better, a photo. Sometimes Dog was accommodating. Sometimes Dog was not. No amount of offered treats or pretty words made a difference.
Then, the Dixons returned for the season.
One of the founding families with roots that traced back to the 1700s, the current generation was Dave Dixon, his wife Janet and their four boisterous children. Most of the year they resided in New York, but spent each summer on the old family farm, which included dozens of acres of prime mountain real estate and one massive timber-framed lodge with breathtaking views. Half the community eyed the young family indulgently, while the other half muttered “entitled” as the four high-spirited kids ransacked the bins of penny candy at the general store, chased each other around tables at the local diner, and by and large ran amok through the town commons.
Which is where twelve-year-old Henry, ten-year-old Violet, eight-year-old Josie and six-year-old William met Dog.
Henry as the oldest, ordered his siblings to stay back. No collar meant stray. Stray meant rabies. Violet, on the other hand, was already making cooing noises while Josie wanted to know what rabies was. William settled the matter by darting forward and throwing his arms around Dog’s neck.
Which is how Dog became a Dixon.
Dave Dixon had magical memories of his childhood summers on the family property, exploring trails, climbing boulders and chasing foxes with his numerous cousins by day; catching fireflies, roasting marshmallows and swimming in moonlit ponds come night.
Fortunately, his four kids took after him, happily tumbling out the front door each morning, returning only when it was time to eat. Which made Dave fall in love with his hometown all over again. Where else in the world could you do such a thing, he’d extoll to his wife Janet. Especially these days, when stranger danger was everywhere. But in this quaint little village tucked away at the northern tip of the Presidential Range, with its white steepled church and four-room schoolhouse, where neighbors knew each other by name and nobody bothered to lock their front doors, this, the tiny town of Shereford, was the perfect place to be a kid.
Not too bad a place to be a parent, either, Janet always thought, as she tucked herself into her favorite lounge chair on the front porch, another battered paperback in hand. With four kids generally off in search of witches and one husband down at the fishing pond, Janet got to spend most afternoons doing exactly what she loved best—reading the latest thriller/romance/mystery/historical novel. She checked them out from the local library by the dozens.
To complete the merry family: Dog. Dog running with kids, sleeping with kids, eating with kids. Even tolerating baths by kids (their mom’s condition for Dog to enter the house). Dog and children, children and Dog, romping through the great outdoors as the hot steamy days of July gave way to cooler nights in August. As meadows burst with waves of wildflowers while the first sumac bushes turned blood red with the promise of fall.
Third week of August, Janet closed her final book, and turned her attention to the arduous process of packing up the house. Dave tended to some final maintenance in anticipation of the coming winter, while the children busied themselves with cramming in every last minute of fun before the dreaded return to school.
Even Dog understood the scent of change in the air as he faithfully alternated between Henry and William’s and Violet and Josie’s bedrooms each night, because the Dog who’d belonged to no one now belonged to everyone which was actually kinda nice.
Till the last weekend in August, when the sky grew thick with roiling clouds and the air crackled with impending lightning. When Henry laughed at the hair standing up on his arms, while William whimpered at the uncomfortable feel. When Dave built up the fireplace while Violet and Josie helped Janet round up the candles for the power outage that was sure to follow.
Trees whipping. Wind howling.
The mountains hunkering down as if the entire forest was holding its breath for the violence to come.
Then, a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a resounding boom of thunder and a giant cracking noise directly outside.
The power flickered, went out.
And the entire Dixon family was never seen again.
Betty Jenkins, Shereford’s post mistress, first noticed Dog as she was locking up at five. The familiar canine was loping through the village center, stopping at each parked car and business door, whining softly. Vehicle by vehicle, establishment by establishment, almost like he was looking for someone.
When she turned toward him, he made an immediate beeline in her direction. Now his whine was more pronounced and his distress more apparent. So was the dark red blood drying on his pale fur.
Betty opened the tiny post office back up and invited Dog inside. For once, he followed. Then she called Chief Grady.
Shereford had a three-person police force. One full-time chief, one full time officer, one part-time uniform. Just because the town was small didn’t mean things didn’t happen. Motor vehicle accidents for one; moose versus car rarely turned out well for either party. Not to mention petty thefts, domestic assaults and a fairly constant number of drunken disorderlies.
But policing was more than law and order, Chief Grady liked to remind people. He and his officers weren’t sitting behind a desk waiting for crimes to happen. They were out and about, interacting with the locals, taking the time to learn about their lives. It wasn’t just managing a community, it was being part of it.
Which is why Chief Grady immediately understood Betty’s worry. He’d barely pulled up before the post office when Dog was outside, staring expectantly. Chief opened the passenger side door. Dog hopped straight in.
They headed to the Dixon property together.
First thing Chief noticed while making the long, winding drive up to Widow’s Ledge was the amount of debris everywhere. Power company had worked through the night to get electricity restored, but the storm’s damage had been significant. Felled trees, washed out roads, downed branches. Nearing the end of the Dixon’s snaking driveway, he spotted a massive oak with its trunk splintered and bark scorched. Lightning strike for sure.
Something about the raw violence made it all the more foreboding when he turned off his engine, climbed out of his vehicle—wincing slightly as the motion tugged at the fresh row of stitches in his shoulder—and heard…nothing.
No chirping birds. No buzzing insects. No rustling leaves. Just silence.
Mother nature was never this quiet.
Slowly, he rounded to the passenger side, opening the door for Dog. Chief Grady already had his hand on the butt of his service weapon. It’d been a long time since he’d felt the need to do that. Probably not since his time with the Manchester PD, when crack ruled the streets and you never knew what was going to happen when you made a traffic stop, served a warrant or canvassed a city block.
But now…
Nearly six p.m. on a Thursday night, when the sun was just starting to wane and cast the mountains into shadow…
Dog bounded straight up the steps to the wrap-around porch. He whined in earnest, interspersed with low huffs, as if he was trying to gain attention but worried about the consequences.
Chief Grady took a few more minutes. Gazed at the property around him. A ramshackle gray barn-turned-garage, one of the last original structures from the family farm, was tucked back a hundred feet from the house. Doors appeared shut, making it difficult to tell if there were vehicles or people inside. But no flickers of movement. No faint sound of an intruder shuffling about.
He perused the surrounding woods with equal scrutiny. The Dixons had left the property mostly natural, eschewing lawn and paved parking for a crushed blue-stone circular drive, accented by a few ornamental shrubs in the middle, while a generous border of native wildflowers framed the house.
Kind of plants and flowers that should be attracting birds and bees and all sorts of random, noisy critters.
Except again, not a single chirp, buzz or squawk.
Grady had never experienced anything quite like it. And it was fucking freaking him out.
He turned sideways, instinctively making himself a smaller target as he boarded the steps to the main house. Following in Dog’s wake, he approached the front door.
It yawned slightly open. Say wide enough for a canine to fit through.
He noticed a smear of blood low on the frame, about dog height.
He hesitated. Stopped once more to listen. For the sounds of ordinary family life, maybe the clamor of two adults and four kids getting ready to sit down for dinner. Or, given the chills racing up his spin, perhaps a soft moan or muffled crying.
But still, nothing.
He unsnapped his holster, drew his weapon.
Chief Grady had been a cop all his life, from big city to small town. He knew instinct mattered as much as anything when it came to returning home alive. Given he’d left urban policing for the sake of his wife and five-year old daughter, no way he was going to ignore the warnings screaming through his head right now.
Staying to the hinged side of the door. Pushing it slowly open with the barrel of his service pistol. Peering into the dusk-washed interior, muscles tense, gaze intent.
Dog had disappeared. Just a clack of nails on hardwood as the canine swept his way through the house. That soft anxious whine. The occasional low huff.
Chief Grady opened the door all the way, fully exposing the vast living area, with its high-vaulted ceiling and impressive timber beams. The room was dominated by a stone fireplace, framed on both sides by walls of glass that were angled forward like the prow of a ship, as if the home itself was ready to sail off the cliff into the great unknown.
Even this time of evening, the first blush of pink staining the horizon, the windows let in enough light to illuminate the interior. Grady could discern an obviously well-loved leather sectional dotted with embroidered pillows, a rectangular coffee table half-covered by a recently started jigsaw puzzle, as well as a clutch of strategically placed candles next to the table lamps.
A normal family room scene, sans the family.
Dog’s steps, now clacking from the second-floor, where a long hallway led to the bedrooms.
Grady carefully swept his way through the main living area, sticking to the perimeter to minimize contamination. He noted many things at once: the smoky scent of a recent fire in the fireplace. Drinking glasses dotting various surfaces—four smaller cups, probably belonging to the kids, two wine glasses, probably belonging to the adults. A cluttered dining room table, one end covered in an assortment of metal building pieces he recognized from his own days with Erector sets. The other end bearing a cheese and cracker platter, partially consumed. As in started. But not finished. Because…
Grady shivered, mentally chided himself not to be an idiot, shivered again.
It wasn’t just the silence that was getting to him now. The house felt wrong. Too empty. There were signs of family everywhere and yet no family. Like the house was no longer a home, but theater staging from particularly ominous play.
He already knew he wouldn’t like how this one ended.
Exploring the kitchen with its butler’s pantry and walk in dry goods room. Carefully working his way down to the basement, quickly inventorying the unfinished space. One last section of the house to sweep, up, up, up to the second-floor bedrooms. He eased down the long, increasingly shadowed hallway. Six bedrooms in total. Two of those were outfitted with bunk beds. One for the girls, one for the boys with a Jack and Jill bath in between. The entire adjoined space was a study in chaos, with clothing, shoes, towels, and toys strewn in every direction. Kids at work, no doubt about it.
The corner master suite was tidier, clothes hung, bed made, but still, toothbrushes plunked next to the double sinks, hair brush positioned to one side, a small collection of moisturizers lined up before the mirror. If anyone had packed up personal possessions for a road trip, Grady wasn’t seeing it.
Easing back out of the room. Feeling his heart pound harder though he couldn’t have said why.
The two rooms at the other end of hall were shuttered, shades tightly drawn. Guest rooms, Grady deduced. Same with the final bathroom. Final check, same empty result. Which left him with…
Nothing.
Grady retreated down the stairs. Time to make a call. County sheriff? State police? Hell, local medium? He honestly had no idea what resources one needed for a scene such as this.
Dog had headed back outside. No longer whining. No longer whoofing. It made Grady feel worse, like he failed a concerned family member. There was nothing about this that was good.
Dammit.
The sun was almost all the way down now, casting the entire interior into shadow. Grady returned the entryway, holstered his weapon, snapped on the overhead lights. Least power seemed to be back.
Which was when he spotted the first stain, what he’d missed from the beginning given the dark hue of the hardwood floor. It looked almost like a splotch of mud, except there was another and then another and then another.
By the time Grady hunkered down and truly understood what he was seeing, he was doubly grateful he’d kept to the side during his search.
Because now, clearly illuminated by the overhead lights, he could see zigzagging patterns, as if someone had dashed pell-mell through the house.
Leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints.
Grady glanced around the empty great room one last time. The half-eaten snacks. Recently poured drinks. Barely touched puzzle.
As if a family of six had been sitting right here, eating right here, laughing right here.
Then, in the next instant…
Grady got on his radio and reported in to dispatch.
While on the front porch, Dog began a mournful howl.
“Chilling, gripping.” —Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of None of This Is True
For Raquel and Theo Collins, it appeared to be love at first sight. Raquel, a renowned interior designer, and Theo, a brash financial wizard met and married in a matter of months, only to confront a terrible tragedy. Now, unbearably aware of the distance between them, they’ve come to a remote town in New Hampshire to begin anew.
Perched on a ledge with stunning views, the Dixon’s family lodge was once a crown jewel of the mountains. Until late one August night, when both parents and their four children vanished, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints, and a mystery that has endured for thirty years. Now, its latest occupants, the Collinses, are arriving, and the former grand lodge is once more stirring to life.
For Amanda Grady, following in her father’s footsteps as the recently appointed Shereford police chief, it’s good to see a fresh start for the derelict Dixon place. However, not everyone is happy about a new family in the old home and its hidden past may have returned with a vengeance.
When a stray dog leads to the discovery of a skeleton on the property, Raquel and Theo face a daunting choice of what to believe, who to trust, and how to survive. Because in the tiny village of Shereford the time has come. The local residents, the new neighbors, and the fledgling police chief must work together to unravel the terrifying events that happened one night thirty years ago, or …
You’ll be sorry.