I’m a homicide detective with the Boston Police Department, and I don’t want to sound like a walking cliché, but I spend most nights at my local pub and wake up most mornings with sour breath and a hangover. That’s probably the reason why I’m past forty and haven’t been promoted in years.

Still, I’m good at my job. Some would even say that I’m really good at it.

My partner’s name is Zane Perez. I don’t know much about him and what he tells me, I try to ignore. You could call him a whippersnapper or a hotdog. I call him annoying, even if he is handsome. And even if he keeps most of my secrets. I can trust him not to mention the empties that littered my living room when he picked me up this morning at my home in Jamaica Plain.

Now, he says, “Envision success,” as he pulls the unmarked sedan into the Faulkner Hospital and slides into a spot on the first floor. “See, success! No stairs.”

I get out of the car and stride toward the hospital entrance. Zane scrambles to follow, onto the elevator and up to the sixth floor, where I flash my badge to the nurse on duty. “We’re here for Tracy Bain. She’s a patient.”

This nurse takes her time. Nurses are too smart to be intimidated by cops. This one finishes working through a file, talks to a colleague, and then leads us to a room on the ward. “You have five minutes. Not one second more.”

She’ll probably wait here with a stopwatch.

“You’re the boss,” I say.

Tracy Bain lies on the hospital bed with a saline drip attached to her left arm. She must be in her mid-forties, a year or two older than I am, with a mop of salt-and-pepper hair and a no-nonsense face. She’s also high on painkillers the doctor prescribed. And maybe something else. I flash my badge. “This is my partner, Detective Perez.”

“You’re like a TV show,” Tracy Bain says. “Tough lady, pretty man.”

“I wish I was a pretty lady.”

“You’re not bad either.”

The homicide unit works murders. We also respond to fatal traffic accidents, which is what brought us here this morning. Tracy Bain slammed head-on into a car going the opposite direction on the Jamaicaway. I wonder how much she understands or even remembers about the incident, whether she knows someone in the other car died, or that her entire life has changed in a split second. “We have a few questions,” I say.

“Only if I get three Jell-Os,” Tracy says.

“It’ll be easier if you tell me what happened. Did you have something in your system? Drugs? Alcohol?”

“I don’t drink in the morning. And I don’t do drugs. Ever.”

I’ve heard these same lines too many times before.

“It was a fender bender,” Tracy says, but the bravado has already begun to seep from her words.

“Ma’am,” Zane says.

Something in his tone seems to travel though to Tracy’s drugged out mind. Her hands fly to her face and the tears begin. Zane waits patiently to continue the questioning, but I’ve seen what I need to. Out in the hallway, I ask the nurse when the tox screen will be back, and she knows what this means. “I’ll check,” she says.

“What now?” Zane asks a moment later.

“We’ll arrest her when the evidence clears,” I say. “Vehicular homicide. Bad day for Ms. Bain.”

“Envision success!”

Sure.

Or be a good detective and follow the secrets. Because everyone has them. Even Zane, I suspect.

I know I do.

The Secrets We Share
Genre: Suspense
Release: March 2022
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Two sisters, one long-ago murder, and a web of terrifying secrets collide in a gripping standalone thriller from acclaimed author Edwin Hill . . .

At first glance, Natalie Cavanaugh and Glenn Abbott hardly look like sisters. Even off-duty, Natalie dresses like a Boston cop, preferring practical clothes and unfussy, pinned-up hair. Her younger sister, Glenn, seems tailor-made for the spotlight, from her signature red mane to her camera-ready smile. Glenn has spent years cultivating her brand through her baking blog, and with the publication of her new book, that hard work seems about to pay off. But her fans have no idea about the nightmare in Glenn and Natalie’s past.

Twenty years ago, their father’s body was discovered in the woods behind their house. A trauma like that doesn’t fit with Glenn’s public image. Yet, maybe someone reading her blog does know something. There have been anonymous online messages, vague yet ominous, hinting that she’s being watched. And with unsettling coincidences hitting ever closer to home, both Glenn and Natalie soon have more pressing matters to worry about, especially when a dead body is found in an abandoned building . . .

Natalie is starting to wonder how much Glenn really knows about the people closest to her. But are there also secrets Natalie has yet to uncover about those she herself trusts? For two decades, she’s believed their father was murdered by their neighbor, with whom he was having an affair. But if those events are connected to what’s happening now, maybe there’s much more that Natalie doesn’t know. About their father. About their neighbors. About her friends. Maybe even about herself.

But there are no secrets between sisters . . . are there?

About the author
Edwin Hill’s critically acclaimed crime novels include the standalone thriller, The Secrets We Share, and three novels featuring Hester Thursby: Little Comfort, The Missing Ones, and Watch Her. He has been nominated for Edgar and Agatha Awards, featured in Us Magazine, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal, and was recognized as one of “Six Crime Writers to Watch” in Mystery Scene magazine. He lives in Roslindale, Massachusetts with his partner Michael and his favorite reviewer, their lab Edith Ann, who likes his first drafts enough to eat them. Visit him on the web at edwin-hill.com.

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