Sonja Zinke; Sourcebooks Landmark
Looking for a sizzling thriller this winter? Anna Sophia McLoughlin has you covered.
But when her new beau Colin’s cousin Arianna — the heiress to the family’s immense fortune — turns up dead, all eyes turn to Maya. Not only does she learn she’s next in line to inherit, but she’s also the prime suspect.
As the entire Sterling family goes into lockdown at the family’s ancestral estate, Maya decides she has to figure out who really killed Arianna, and why a girl she never met tapped her to take her place.
Read on to get a taste of Maya’s mindset in an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE.
Sourcebooks Landmark
Now Maya will have to perform for them. The Sterling family, with their exquisite taste and worldly knowledge and sky-high expectations. All this time in the air has made her hands swell, and she’s conscious of her new wedding ring tightening around her fluid-filled finger.
The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!
Maybe this really is just a “terrible coincidence,” that a murder occurred in the same city, around the same time Maya slipped away, telling no one when she left. Or what happened when she returned.
No one noticed her last night as she stood on theAgyros’sdeck watching the speedboat full of SterlingCo executives and their wives travel out of sight, she’s sure of that. Once they were gone, Maya pulled her RAZR phone from the back pocket of her cutoffs and flipped it open to check the address one more time before she herself went ashore.
The message, from a blocked number:6pm, Iguana Bar, 21 Calle Obredor.
Sneaking around had made her anxious, but it thrilled her a little too. Miss Mayhem stepping out in the world, relishing the humid heat, the bustling, anonymous streets. Just to be out in the world alone, no one knowing where she’d gone. It reminded her of times with her dad, driving away from the pawn shop with fat wallets, high on the latest grift.
But she hasn’t gotten away with anything this time, Maya reminds herself as she adjusts Becca on her lap, as she sips her drink and watches Colin confer with Travis, wonders what they’re saying.
Still. Secrets beget lies and lies beget more lies — her little venture last night is forcing more dissembling now.
Even in the supreme comfort and carefully maintained climate of the private jet, Maya’s palms have begun to sweat.
She tries to think — did anyone see her, walking through Puerto Vallarta at dusk, asking for directions? She’d worn a large hat and plain denim cutoffs. Did the bartender take any special note of her? She doesn’t think so — Spanish was Maya’s mother’s first language, and Maya speaks it without an accent.
No. Nobody knows where she went.
On the far side of the cabin, Colin and Travis lean toward each other. Maya watches them, trying to read Colin’s body language. She should have played it cooler, learned everything Travis knew — heard everything he’s telling Colin now.
Colin glances her way. His expression is hard to read. Is he annoyed that she cut off Travis’s inquiry with her rude comment about the Sterling family or just tired and worried and not really thinking about her at all?
She kisses Becca’s head, strokes her back. She considers going over to him, asking how it’s going, if she can help him talk anything through. That’s how they are in New York — they work out their crises together — everything from a misremembered reservation time to a big inventory f—up at her company. But she’s rooted to her seat, afraid to close the distance between them. Last night stirred up old feelings. Fears and longings she believed long buried. She worries she might betray herself somehow, that her insides are too volatile. Not just because she feels guilty about lying, she realizes.
There was a death in the family. A murder. When there’s a murder, everyone needs an alibi, and Maya doesn’t have one.
source: people.com
