Going Dark

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS So many thanks to my amazing editor, Laura Schreiber, and my dear friend and publisher, Emily Meehan, who believed in this book from the beginning. Thank you to Richard Abate for always cooking up the most fun books together. Thank you to Hannah Carrande at 3Arts for keeping my lights on. Thank you to Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and everyone at Gotham. Thank you to my friends and family, most esss-pecially my two, Mike and Mattie. ABOUT THE AUTHOR MELISSA DE LA CRUZ is the #1 New York Times, #1 Publishers Weekly, and #1 IndieBound bestselling author of The Isle of the Lost and Return to the Isle of the Lost, as well as many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for readers of all ages. Her books have also topped the USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists and have been published in more than twenty countries. Today she lives in Los Angeles with her family. CHAPTER ONE JOSH The plane bucked with unexpected turbulence on its final descent, sending Josh’s stomach into his chest and causing him to grip the armrests so tightly his knuckles turned white. He’d finally dozed off while watching the in-flight movie when he’d been jolted awake by the sudden drop. Instinctively, he reached out to the seat next to him, only to find it empty. Of course, he’d forgotten. Amelia hadn’t boarded with him. Gray clouds whizzed past Josh’s window, so thick he couldn’t even see the wing tip’s blinking light. The ground below was still shrouded in darkness, and he couldn’t see the city lights either. It was sometime past ten, and the sun had set, but his circadian rhythm was off. He’d been in Europe with his girlfriend Amelia for the past two weeks, and his body tried to tell him that it was sometime in the early morning so he couldn’t sleep. Besides, he’d never been an easy flier. The turbulence didn’t help. The midflight meal of an open-faced sandwich and tiramisu was starting to rebel in his stomach. He squeezed the armrests as the plane dipped again, making the cut on his palm sting. The pain helped distract from the nausea roiling in his gut every time the plane shimmied and shook. The cut on his hand was fresh and surprisingly deep. He’d had to change the gauze during the flight but it had already soaked through. He regretted not going to the hospital to get stitches, but it was too late now. Whenever the cut stung, it reminded him of Amelia. Every time he rested his phone in his palm to check for a text or picked up his bag to scroll through photos on his DSLR to look at her face, he recalled that the trip was over and she wasn’t there. Movement across the aisle caught his eye. The pretty woman in 13F crossed herself with one hand while clutching her armrest with the other. She noticed him looking and smiled, the kind of smile that was nervous and a little embarrassed. Josh smiled back at the woman because it was the polite thing to do. She couldn’t have been much older than he was at nineteen, and guys who looked like him were used to pretty women smiling his way. Still, he wasn’t interested in taking advantage of the fact that his girlfriend had abandoned him in Rome. He couldn’t believe Amelia had actually not shown, especially when she’d been the one who bought the tickets, booked their hotels, arranged their itinerary. Tickets to Europe weren’t cheap, especially since they were both college students. Thoughts swirled in Josh’s gut, as sickening as turbulence. Were they really done? Was that it? Months of dating, over like that? He didn’t even know what he’d done wrong. It had been the perfect vacation, a literal dream come true with his dream girl. And now, all he had was an empty seat next to him. It had been a miserable ten hours without Amelia. At the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome, he’d gotten in line to check in, head on a swivel, expecting to see her rushing up behind him. While he stood in line, he held his phone tightly, waiting for something, anything—even a breakup voice mail. But nothing came. When it was his turn at the check-in counter, the attendant took his boarding pass. He glanced around the concourse, hoping to see Amelia’s blond ponytail swinging behind her. She was obviously still mad at him, but she had time to board. He hadn’t worried, even then. The attendant loaded his luggage onto the conveyor belt and it disappeared through the leather flaps into the bowels of the airport. To think, Amelia had packed his suitcase for him while he checked them out of the hotel. She’d tucked all of his souvenirs and clothes away, expertly folding everything with the skill of a veteran traveler so it all fit like Tetris pieces. Josh sat in a row of chairs near the Four Winds counter, keeping an eye on the queue for Amelia. He waited. And waited. And waited. He passed the time by buying a small, personal-sized bottle of red wine from a vending machine, a novelty for an American visiting Rome for the first time. He downed the whole bottle before he realized it was gone. The wine was supposed to calm his nerves, but it only made his stomach full of acid and turned his tongue purple. The clock inched closer to departure time. Josh couldn’t wait for Amelia any longer. He went through security with no problem and bought an overpriced cappuccino at an espresso cart. He wanted to get one last taste of an authentic Italian coffee before returning to the real world. Amelia had been the one to introduce him to espresso. “Ess-presso, Josh. If you say ex-presso, I think an Italian person is legally allowed to kill you,” Amelia had said on their flight over, her eyes alight