The First Cut Read online

  THE FIRST CUT © 2018 Ellery A. Kane. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage/database system and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without prior permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

  ISBN: 978-0-578-40133-1

  Cover Design:

  Giovanni Auriemma

  Developmental Edit/Line Edit and Manuscript Evaluation:

  Ann Castro, AnnCastro Studio

  Proof via Editorial Lens:

  Emily Dings

  Interior Formatting:

  Rock Solid Book Design

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, events, and situations in this book are purely fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The First Cut contains adult themes and is recommended for a mature audience.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  THE MONTEREY COUNTY COURIER

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE VALENTINE'S DAY TEN YEARS EARLIER

  THE MONTEREY COUNTY COURIER

  SIX

  SEVEN VALENTINE'S DAY NINE YEARS EARLIER

  THE MONTEREY COUNTY COURIER

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN VALENTINE'S DAY EIGHT YEARS EARLIER

  THE DOWNTOWN STAR

  ELEVEN VALENTINE'S DAY SEVEN YEARS EARLIER

  TWELVE THE MONTEREY COUNTY COURIER

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN VALENTINE'S DAY SIX YEARS EARLIER

  THE DOWNTOWN STAR

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN VALENTINE'S DAY FIVE YEARS EARLIER

  EIGHTEEN VALENTINE'S DAY FOUR YEARS EARLIER

  THE DOWNTOWN STAR

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY VALENTINE'S DAY THREE YEARS EARLIER

  THE MONTEREY COUNTY COURIER

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO VALENTINE'S DAY TWO YEARS EARLIER

  THE MONTEREY COUNTY COURIER

  THE DOWNTOWN STAR

  TWENTY-THREE VALENTINE'S DAY ONE YEAR EARLIER

  TWENTY-FOUR VALENTINE'S DAY THIS YEAR

  TWENTY-FIVE THE MONTEREY COUNTY COURIER

  TWENTY-SIX LA TIMES

  EPILOGUE

  REVIEW

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ALSO BY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  For Gar

  My partner in crime

  I don’t feel guilty for anything. I feel sorry for people who feel guilt.

  —Ted Bundy

  Prologue

  Tuesday

  February 14, 2018

  Maddie

  Maddie lies in bed, tapping her fingers on her tummy, just the way she’d practiced on Miss Ellie’s piano.

  The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.

  Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

  She doesn’t like spiders, but that song is stuck in her head. An earworm, Mommy had called it, wriggling her finger behind Maddie’s ear and making her giggle. Mommy is good at being a silly goose and making her feel better.

  But sometimes Mommy is grumpy. Daddy too. Like tonight. And it makes her tummy hurt. So she pulls the covers up over her head and practices every song in the I Can Play Piano book Daddy bought her.

  Snug under her blanket fort, Maddie can still hear them shouting in their outside voices. Louder than the rain beating its fists against her window. Daddy’s yelling reminds her of thunder, even though she’s never heard it in real life. And tonight, it’s worse than ever. So loud she drags her blanket and Mister Bear into the closet where it’s dark and cold and probably full of spiders. But at least she can’t hear Daddy.

  She wonders what she’s done now. What she’s done wrong.

  Once, she’d heard Daddy say Mommy turned into a different person after Maddie was born. That Mommy didn’t love him anymore. But Maddie knows that’s not true. Mommy is the same Mommy as she ever was. And she loves Daddy a bajillion because she’d told Maddie so.

  Just today, Maddie had asked, “Mommy, who is your Valentine?”

  And Mommy said, “You.”

  “But what about Daddy?”

  “Of course, Daddy. Daddy too. I love you both.”

  “A bajillion?”

  Mommy giggled at that. “Yes, a bajillion.”

  Before Mommy got home from the doctor, Daddy had taken Maddie and Mister Bear on a special trip, and he’d let her eat all the Valentine’s candy from school. Even the lollipops and those little hearts with words on them that tasted chalky and too sweet. Maybe that’s why her tummy hurts. Maybe that’s why they’re fighting. Because Mommy found out about the candy or she’s sad they went someplace special without her.

  A door slams somewhere, and Maddie clings tight to Mister Bear, afraid the whole house is falling down. Or maybe it’s an earthquake. “Earthquake, earth shake,” she whispers, feeling clever.

  “Madison? Where are you? I told you to get dressed.”

  She peeks out from the closet, and Mommy is there, standing by the dollhouse. And her tummy really hurts now, because Mommy looks scared and sad and furious all at the same time. Probably because Maddie didn’t use her listening ears the first time.

  “I don’t want to leave Daddy.”

  “C’mon. It will be fun.” But Mommy doesn’t sound like she’s having fun. She’s not even very good at pretending. “We’ll spend the night.”

  “Like a sleepover?”

  Mommy nods. And then Daddy’s in the doorway, yelling again. “The hell you are. You’re not taking her anywhere. Do not get dressed, Madison.”

  Maddie starts to cry—she can’t help it. She doesn’t want to go with Mommy, not if Daddy can’t come too. She holds her hands over her ears and puts her head down into Mister Bear’s soft fur. She cries and cries and cries. Until she stops. And Mommy and Daddy are gone.

  Then, Mister Bear has an idea, and Maddie thinks it’s a good one. She pats him on the head as she searches for her princess backpack in the cave at the back of the closet, next to her rain boots. In the front pocket, she finds the two chocolate hearts she’d hidden there. The ones with the pretty seashells on the wrappers. She’d been saving them for tomorrow. But Mommy says chocolate makes everything better. Maybe it will fix Mommy and Daddy too. The way Mommy’s kisses fix her ouchies. All better.

  With the hearts buried in her fist like Jack’s magic beans, she makes her way down the hall toward the bedroom, toward the shouting. Except now, it’s quiet. Somebody’s crying.

  Mommy is crying. “Don’t. Don’t, Ian.”

  “Why not? You don’t care if I die. You don’t want me. You don’t even love me anymore.”

  It’s Daddy, but he sounds like the kind of monster Caleb told her about on the merry-go-round right before he jumped off and skinned his knees. The kind of monster that hides under the bed, just watching you. Watching and watching and waiting. That’s the worst part, the waiting. The never knowing what’s going to happen next.

  “Stop it, Ian!” Mommy doesn’t sound right either.

  Maddie hurries down the stairs. Away. She won’t be able to hear them in the kitchen, she’s certain of that. She’d gone there the last time they had a fight. And Mommy found her asleep on t
he floor the next morning.

  The light from the back porch makes a rectangle on the kitchen floor, and she feels smart knowing that. A rectangle has four sides. Just like a square. The window by the door is a rectangle too. The rain is coming down hard on it. Washing that old spider away.

  And only then, she realizes—her hands are empty. She’d been so scared, she dropped the chocolates. She lost her magic beans. And now she can’t fix anything. She’s just a stupid little girl. A fraidy cat, like Caleb said.

  Mommy screams upstairs, and Maddie thinks of the bookcase in the foyer. The one with the shelves where Daddy stacks the books he and Mommy wrote together. That bookcase has a secret. It’s not just a bookcase. It’s for hiding too. Mommy showed her once.

  But when she hears the front door creak open, she doesn’t dare look into the foyer. It’s the monster, she thinks. Creeping around on long monster legs.

  Maddie starts to hum again, hiccupping through tears. She won’t let that monster know she’s afraid. She’ll be a big girl. A good girl. So she sings out loud the whole “Itsy Bitsy Spider” song so many times she loses count. Until the last time. She doesn’t finish. The sun never comes out and dries up the rain, and the spider stays all wet.

  Because Daddy’s friend is at the window, waving. Soaked with no umbrella. Just like that spider.

  Somehow, Maddie feels certain everything will be better now, so she wipes her sad face on her hand. She walks to the door.

  She opens it.

  The Monterey County Courier

  “Suspicious Deaths of ‘Love Doctors’ Stun Small, Affluent Pebble Beach Community”

  by Jackson Lamont

  The Carmel Police Department confirmed the deaths of Dr. Ian Culpepper (48) and his wife, Dr. Kate Culpepper (30), after their bodies were discovered in the early morning hours of February 15 in their upscale home on Cortez Road. Police called the scene suspicious but have not disclosed the manner of the doctors’ deaths, pending autopsy and further investigation. Their four-year-old daughter was discovered unharmed and has been placed in the care of Child Protective Services.

  Otherwise known as the “Love Doctors,” the Culpeppers rose to fame in 2014 when their reality television show, Love Doctored, made its cable debut on the BXA network. The show, which featured couples in crisis, drew ire from critics who claimed the pair exploited their guests’ problems for ratings. The show was abruptly canceled in early 2016 after the death of a guest; the couple relocated to a multimillion dollar estate a few miles from the historic Pebble Beach Golf Course. The Culpeppers, fixtures on the Carmel social scene, also made the New York Times best-seller list with their self-help books, Prescription for Love and Love CPR.

  “We are shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of Love Doctors Ian and Kate Culpepper,” Marty Emerson, BXA president of programming, said in statement released on behalf of the network. “They were passionate about life, love, and most of all, each other. Through their unique combination of empathy and wisdom, countless couples rediscovered love. The Culpeppers will be sorely missed.”

  Chapter

  One

  Wednesday

  February 15, 2018

  I believe in karma. Because Ian’s dead. Kate, too. But mostly because the news is delivered to me by the half-naked man in my bed.

  “Are you okay?” Luke’s voice is measured. Ninety-nine percent hotshot cop. Which he is. One percent boyfriend. Which he wants to be but isn’t. Not officially anyway.

  The faint furrow between his brows deepens. How cute. His first wrinkle. “Talk to me. Please.”

  “Is Madison alright?” I ask, my own voice high and breathy as a child’s. Ian’s daughter is quite possibly the only good thing he ever did. And I swear I’m not a heartless bitch. Though Ian had branded me one more than once. Back in the days of old when I’d called him a poor excuse for a husband and an even poorer excuse for a man.

  “She’s fine. At least that’s what Coop said. He was first on the scene.” Luke gestures to his cell on the nightstand. The one that had buzzed us awake five minutes ago and exploded the world as I’d known it. “I’ll know more when I get there.”

  Guilt, that slippery eel, writhes in my stomach, reminding me I’ve done something wrong. But I lop off its head. To hell with guilt. Whatever happened, Ian brought it on himself. He’d all but asked for it coming back here to my hometown. Invading my turf. With her. Besides, guilt is a useless emotion.

  Ian had said it himself years ago, after I’d told him I didn’t want any special treatment in his class. “The back-row girls will talk,” I’d said. And he’d pushed me up against his desk and kissed me like a pathetic cliché. Dr. Culpepper always had his favorites. Easy come, easy go.

  “Ava? Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Luke strips off the covers, hurries into his jeans, and tucks his badge into his back pocket. I can’t look away from the lean muscle of him. Ian never had abs like that. Though to be fair, he’d been pushing forty when I met him.

  “Ava?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Because I don’t have to leave if—”

  “You do. And I am. I promise.”

  When Luke leans down to kiss me, his lips impossibly warm, I run my hand across his taut stomach and stifle a grin. Then, a grimace. Karma may be as slow moving as a freight train, but boy does she pack a wallop.

  Chapter

  Two

  I scurry to the window and peek through the blinds, watching until Luke’s truck disappears in the early morning fog. I usually feel relieved, content in my solitude. Today, though, I wish I’d asked him to stay.

  But Dr. Ava Lawson doesn’t need anybody. And certainly not a gallant young man—sometimes, the eight years between us feels more like twenty—who says things like Let me take care of you and You’re so beautiful in the morning, when you know good and well your mousy brown hair looks more like a rat’s nest and the dark circles under your eyes could pass for bruises. Luke is the type who writes more than just his name at the bottom of a Valentine. And who needs that?

  Me, apparently. Because without him, I’m left alone to fend off the eel of guilt I’d beheaded—which turns out to be more like a Hydra, the mythical nine-headed monster with poisonous breath.

  I open the heart-shaped box of chocolate Luke gave me last night and scarf down two—okay, five—pieces, hoping in vain for the creamy caramel. When your ex-husband turns up dead, along with his mistress—okay, wife—you’re allowed to bend the breakfast rules a little.

  Still chomping on a mouthful, I clear last night’s wine glasses and dump the cheap red in the sink. It washes over the steel, splashes up, and spots my T-shirt. Red as blood. Ian’s blood. It might as well be. I stare at it like Lady Macbeth, knowing it’s the sort of stain that won’t wash out. It’s ruined. Just like my marriage to Ian. Just like me.

  The old-school phone on the wall starts its keening. That shrill, wailing ring. And the glass falls from my hand. Its fragile skull cracks against the counter. Shatters onto the floor.

  I feel caught. No one ever calls the house.

  I shouldn’t answer, but I can’t stop myself. What if it’s Cleo?

  “Hello?” I sound the way I used to. Pre-Ian. Curious and hopeful. And I stupidly wonder if his death broke some kind of curse, lifting the shroud of bitterness from my heart like a bride’s veil.

  “Hello?” I say again, into the void.

  “Ava Lawson.”

  It’s not a question. And it’s not Cleo. Of course not. She wouldn’t have this number. It’s a man. A stranger. Worse, a stranger with the chilly calm of a reporter. I should hang up.

  “Yes?” As if I’m not sure who I am. And after last night, how could I be?

  “Your ex-husband is dead.”

  How could a reporter have found me so fast? Not that I’ve been hiding, but . . .
/>
  “What?”

  “You already knew that, didn’t you?”

  I slam the phone into the cradle and stoop to gather the broken glass, breathing hard.

  I don’t realize I’ve been cut until I see the rivulet of blood trailing from my finger down my wrist. A drop falls to the floor, fat and perfect against the linoleum.

  I strip off my T-shirt—it’s done for anyway—and swathe my hand in it, holding both under the hot water until the bleeding stops. The cut is minor. Not what I expected. Just a thin slit in the flushed skin along the side of my index finger. It’s a wonder that much blood can come from a wound so small.

  ****

  The fog is still thick when I walk the five blocks through downtown Carmel to my office. It’s wet and white and cold—magical, even. The closest thing to snow we’ll ever get here. And I feel safe in it, hidden somehow. Or maybe it’s the rest of the world that’s hidden. Whited-out. As hazy as a half-forgotten dream.

  But Ian’s dead. There’s no forgetting that. My heart thrums to the rhythm of it. It’s in the sound of my heels clicking the stones on Ocean Avenue. It’s in the scream of a seagull diving toward the beach. And the break-neck crash of foamy waves on the rocks. His death music is in my head, a knell.

  I know what I need to do. Exactly what Ian would do. What he always did. What I’d done before too, if I’m being honest.

  Pretend I’d done nothing wrong.

  Besides, most of Monterey County—most of the world—has no clue I used to be Ava Culpepper. I hadn’t even told Luke. He’d done the digging, figured it out on his own a few months after we’d started . . . well, whatever it is we were doing. I suppose that’s what I get for inviting a cop into my bed.