Synopsis

The daughter of an infamous murderer gets caught up in a copycat’s sick game in this thriller about legacy, self-determination, and corrosive secrecy from the bestselling author of Not What She Seems.

Forensic science teacher Sanaa Karrem buried her past as deep as she could. When her serial killer father, known as “the Ferryman,” disappeared eighteen years ago, she tried to disappear with him. She changed her name, built a new life. And for a while, it all felt like a distant nightmare.

But when bodies turn up with pennies on their eyes, Sanaa recognizes her father’s signature. The nightmare becomes real again. Soon, Sanaa starts receiving threatening messages and increasingly disturbing “gifts.” The killer is toying with her, and she can’t tell anyone—not even her own fiancé, Detective Marcus Morelli, lead investigator on the case.

As the body count rises, Sanaa leans on her expertise as a former medical examiner to close in on the killer. What she finds is a horrific manifestation of her father’s legacy, hitting shockingly close to home. But what disturbs her most is how much that legacy still lingers within her…

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Excerpt

Prologue

November 30

Sanaa sat in the tiny, cold room under the lights, one of which was nearing its end. A paper cup half filled with dark liquid and the red-and-white can of Coke sitting next to it were the only items that accompanied her in this room. Before her was a one-way mirror, and her reflection stared back at her. She looked sleepless.

Tucked into the corner of the ceiling was a black camera. The red light flashing, indicating it was recording.

Her hands still trembled, and she fought hard to make them stop. To push down any feelings so no one could read her. This time, her nails were no longer dirty. Her shirt wasn’t stained with blood. Her nose, still swollen from the elbow it had taken, stung. It was hard to breathe through, even cleaned of all the crusted blood and snot. She wanted to blow it, but that would probably hurt more than she was willing to endure. Her eyes were dry and itchy. Her head throbbed, less from the blows it had taken and more from the truths that had cracked open. She was tired. She hadn’t slept and didn’t know when she would again.

She could hear faint movement from the other side of the closed door. Saw shadows flit past the door as people walked by. There was a wave of muted noise. People. Many of them. The media. Reporters staked out outside, waiting for a piece of her. The sound of them rose from the parking lot to the small window, which cast a dim light from the dark-gray clouds gathering.

A deep rumble sounded, long and rolling. When she was really young, like five or six, she’d been afraid of coming storms. Her father would hold her and tell her how she could count between thunder and lightning to know how far the storm was from her, and then she wouldn’t be as scared anymore because she knew where the storm was.

“Better to face your fears,” her father had whispered in her ear as she clutched her covers tightly to herself. “Get yourself ready and face them head-on.”

The memory was bittersweet. She could almost see her father’s spirit flickering in the corner of the room, watching them with cold observation, as if this were one of the observational studies where he studied people like specimens in an attempt to draw his conclusions.

It was the click that snapped her back to attention. It sounded like a sledgehammer. Her heartbeat quickened. The door opened, and the detective—one of the ones she didn’t know, maybe because of conflict of interest—entered the room with a manila folder, a pen, and something that could pass for a smile.

He put his things on the table across from her and looked at her with a mix of suspicion, pity, and curiosity. Yes, there would be a lot of those feelings from now on.

He said, “Six people have died. One is critically wounded. Whether the count will bump up to seven or not is up to fate.”

She didn’t react.

“Dr. Voss—”

“I heard you. And it’s Karrem. Ms.” She sounded alien, her voice coming out too loud in this cramped, cold room.

He cleared his throat. “Ms. Karrem,” he corrected as he sat in front of her, trying to look casual so he wouldn’t come across as intimidating. He actually sounded regretful and looked pained. “You’re not on the hook here. Just want you to know that.”

Aren’t I? she almost said.

She gave him a wry smile. She knew better.

“This is simply an interview we’re having. A conversation.”

She nodded slowly. Dr. Voss. She hadn’t heard that name in . . . since that night. And now she couldn’t escape it.

Because, as evidenced by the detective’s slip of the tongue, the world outside knew who she was now. It would no longer see her as Sanaa, the high school forensic science teacher, eagerly showing her students how to read crime scenes. No longer Sanaa, head of the science department, who had a lovely old lady as a neighbor, joked with the local kids, and tried diligently to live a quiet life as she anticipated marrying her fiancé. She had tried so hard to separate herself from her youth and the skeletons that filled the closets. The world would know her now as the Ferryman’s daughter.

Now, she was the evidence and a piece of the puzzle. She was all of it.

The proof that the mythological Ferryman had been real.

The confirmation that his legacy lived on.

The sin of the father that she would have to atone for.

The world would ask itself, just as this detective was while trying hard to look impartial, Is she a victim or the heir?

Had she inherited his darkness?

Did she have a monster within?

It was the question of the decade.

Sanaa sighed and closed her eyes. A light pattering on the roof soothed her. The rain was here. Fitting. Maybe to wash away all the sins she’d committed. The vault of what had been haunting her for years now cracked open, revealing her darkest secret for all to see.

A nightmare of soil beneath her fingernails.

A nightmare of a hand reaching out desperately for help.

A nightmare of gleaming pennies like eyes, piercing the night with their copper glow.

The detective was an older guy. She wished she remembered his name, but her mind was a jumbled mess she couldn’t untangle. He cleared his throat. Though she was who she was, he’d been kind and careful with her. But he shifted uncomfortably, glancing at the folder between them with Voss on its label.

“We just want to understand, you see,” he said quietly.

She did see. She’d been a fool to think she could live her life out from under the umbrella of her father’s other life. That was what it was, his other life. Until she’d become a part of it.

She sighed again, reopening her eyes and settling her gaze on the waiting detective. Understanding was what had started all this. Her palms were pressed flat on the table, and when she pulled them away to put them in her lap, they left two handprints behind. There would be more questions than she had the answers to.

“They didn’t say it would storm today,” she observed. She spoke softly—to herself or to him. Didn’t matter. “But the worst of it isn’t here yet.”

Because now the past would blow in with gale-force winds, leveling all she’d known. Thunder boomed many miles away. The worst part of the storm wasn’t here yet, but it was coming. And deep within its whirling high winds, stinging sheets of rain, and lightning strikes of the gods, the past awoke. Outside, thunder rumbled again.

She breathed.

One Mississippi . . .

Two—

Chapter 1

October 2, Eight Weeks Prior

Night was an orchestra of sound from nocturnal creatures and the gentle lapping of the lake nestled in the midst of them. The moon’s light spilled down, anointing the dark water, spotlighting a shape that did not belong. The dead woman lay on the water’s edge, serene, almost like she was sleeping. The killer crouched just beyond the bulk of light, blending with the shadows, gloved hands steady. As still as granite.

The leaves stirred when the slight wind hit them, breaking the silence with rustling that sounded like an echo chamber. The smell of damp soil carried, a copper tang, an old memory of ritual and purpose.

Precision mattered. Timing mattered. What would happen after she was found mattered.

Everything had to be exactly like it had been back then. This was the coming-out party, the mark on society decades in the making.

Two pennies gleamed against the dead woman’s closed eyelids, catching the light, payment for her journey across the River Styx. A gloved finger brushed her hair from her still face—not a tender touch, but methodical. Because a slight gust of wind had blown a strand astray, and that could not happen. Everything had to be just right. Then the killer stood to their full height, studying the offering like the artwork that she was.

It had been so long. Would they understand that this wasn’t just a kill and there was meaning behind this death, this method, this placement? That the end for this woman wasn’t supposed to be the end, but a journey and rebirth? There would be reclamation. No, that wasn’t right. Not a reclamation. Not yet. This one in particular was both a gift to a legend and a wake-up call.

The bigger question was, would she remember her calling and be true to it? No longer hidden. No longer protected.

“Travel well.” The whisper dissolved in the air as companion to this woman on her journey to the land of the dead.

The killer melted back into the trees, becoming a part of the forest once again, leaving their offering at the river’s edge with gentle waves lapping in a calm serenity.

In the distance, a dog’s bark echoed in the treetops. A broken branch tumbled to the ground.

Tomorrow, or the next day, someone would find her just off the trail. They would tell themselves the glint that caught their eye was from dew reflecting the first rays of morning or last streams of moonlight, not from shiny copper coins staring back.

A memory, a shovel biting earth. Held breath. Peering through the dark wet leaves into hell. Feeling horror. Disbelief. Betrayal. Agony.

The memory receded. And then the anger resurged, pumping hot blood.

Tomorrow everything would begin anew.

About the Author

Yasmin Angoe is the Anthony Award-nominated author of the critically acclaimed Nena Knight Series, including Her Name is Knight, They Come at Knight, and It Ends with Knight. Yasmin’s Knight Series have been featured in The New York Times, Oprah Daily, The Guardian, PopSugar, and the Woman’s World book club, and the series is currently in development for TV by Ink Factory & Fifth Season. Not What She Seems, Angoe’s first work of domestic psychological suspense, was a #1 Amazon Chart bestseller and was featured in Publishers Weekly, The Root, Kirkus Reviews, and Writers Digest.

Yasmin is the recipient of the 2020 Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Emerging Writers of Color, has been nominated for the Anthony Awards, the Goodreads Choice Awards, and is a finalist for the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice Award. She serves on the Board of Sisters in Crime and is a member of several prestigious organizations such as the Author’s Guild and Crime Writers of Color.

Hailing from Northern Virginia, Yasmin Angoe is a first-generation Ghanaian American an educator, teaching middle and high school English, and served as an instructional coach for virtual teachers. She’s now fulfilling her lifelong dream, writing fulltime and freelancing as a development editor for other writers. Wanting to pay it forward, she enjoys traveling to conferences to teach elements of the writing craft, editing, and sharing her experiences and process to help make the pathways for aspiring writers, especially writers from marginalized communities, more attainable. Yasmin currently lives in South Carolina with her family.

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