Tear Me Apart Read online

  The follow-up to her critically acclaimed Lie to Me, J.T. Ellison’s Tear Me Apart is the powerful story of a mother willing to do anything to protect her daughter even as their carefully constructed world unravels around them.

  One moment will change their lives forever...

  Competitive skier Mindy Wright is a superstar in the making until a spectacular downhill crash threatens not just her racing career but her life. During surgery, doctors discover she’s suffering from a severe form of leukemia, and a stem cell transplant is her only hope. But when her parents are tested, a frightening truth emerges. Mindy is not their daughter.

  Who knows the answers?

  The race to save Mindy’s life means unraveling years of lies. Was she accidentally switched at birth or is there something more sinister at play? The search for the truth will tear a family apart...and someone is going to deadly extremes to protect the family’s deepest secrets.

  With vivid movement through time, Tear Me Apart examines the impact layer after layer of lies and betrayal has on two families, the secrets they guard, and the desperate fight to hide the darkness within.

  Praise for J.T. Ellison’s LIE TO ME

  “Exceptional...Ellison’s best work to date.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Comparisons to Gone Girl due to the initial story structure are expected, but Ellison has crafted a much better story that will still echo long after the final page is turned.”

  —Associated Press

  “Immensely readable...lush.”

  —Booklist

  “Fans of Paula Hawkins, A.S.A. Harrison, Mary Kubica, and Karin Slaughter will want to add this to their reading list.”

  —Library Journal

  “The domestic noir subgenre focuses on the truly horrible things people sometimes do to those they love, and J.T. Ellison’s latest, Lie to Me, is one of the best...an absolute must-read.”

  —Mystery Scene magazine

  “Wonderful.... A one-more-chapter, don’t-eat-dinner, stay-up-late sensation.”

  —Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author J.T. ELLISON writes stand-alone domestic noir and psychological thriller series, the latter starring Nashville homicide Lt. Taylor Jackson and medical examiner Dr. Samantha Owens, and pens the international thriller series A Brit in the FBI with #1 New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter. Cohost of the EMMY® Award–winning literary television show A Word on Words, Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens.

  For more insight into her wicked imagination, follow J.T. online at Facebook.com/jtellison14, on Twitter, @thrillerchick, and on Instagram, @thrillerchick.

  www.JTEllison.com

  Praise for the novels of

  New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison

  “Well-developed, multidimensional characters and an exceptionally strong plot power bestseller Ellison’s eighth Taylor Jackson novel.... The characters’ humanity and the gut-wrenching problems they face in life-and-death situations put Ellison in the top rank of romantic suspense novelists.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Field of Graves

  “Followers of this series will relish the revelations of how Ellison’s protagonists first connected. New readers of this page-turning, suspenseful thriller will want to catch up on the author’s other books.”

  —Library Journal on Field of Graves

  “As always when it comes to author J.T. Ellison, this book is a creation of fear, suspense, with even a little humor thrown in.... Ellison shows a skill and talent that is more than exceptional at laying out a fresh path leading to a murderer that readers will not believe!”

  —Suspense Magazine on Field of Graves

  “Everyone should already be reading Ellison, but those unfamiliar with her work could start here.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Field of Graves

  “A genuine page-turner... Ellison clearly belongs in the top echelon of thriller writers. Don’t leave this one behind.”

  —Booklist, starred review, on What Lies Behind

  “Thriller fanatics craving an action-packed novel of intrigue will be abundantly rewarded!”

  —Library Journal on What Lies Behind

  “Fans of forensic mysteries, such as those by Patricia Cornwell, should immediately add this series to their A-lists.”

  —Booklist, starred review, on When Shadows Fall

  “A gripping page-turner...essential for suspense junkies.”

  —Library Journal on When Shadows Fall

  Also by New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison

  LIE TO ME

  FIELD OF GRAVES

  WHAT LIES BEHIND

  WHEN SHADOWS FALL

  EDGE OF BLACK

  A DEEPER DARKNESS

  WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE

  SO CLOSE THE HAND OF DEATH

  THE IMMORTALS

  THE COLD ROOM

  JUDAS KISS

  14

  ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS

  Look for J.T. Ellison’s next novel, available soon from MIRA Books.

  J.T Ellison

  Tear Me Apart

  To Margaret Marbury and Nicole Brebner,

  for helping me find the darkness within.

  And, as always, to Randy, who keeps the darkness at bay.

  Contents

  Quote

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part Two

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Part Three

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

&nbs
p; Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

  Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.”

  —OSCAR WILDE

  PROLOGUE

  UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

  NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

  1993

  VIVIAN

  I remember the day she arrived so clearly. What quirk of fate led her to me? I wondered about this for years. If only I had stepped right instead of left at the corner, or taken the stairs instead of the elevator at the hospital, perhaps ordered chicken instead of steak for my last meal with my father before his death, the principles of chaos—the butterfly effect—would have altered the course of my life enough that she wouldn’t have appeared. But I did step right, and I took the elevator, and I had the steak, and she did appear, and I will never recover from her.

  * * *

  It’s my eighth Turkey Tetrazzini Tuesday. I push the food around on my tray, not hungry. The meds they give me make me in turns nauseous and lacking in appetite and dinner is at five, anyway, only a few hours away. If I feel better then, I’ll eat.

  Everyone else is happily communing with the glob of gray matter on their plates. They don’t know any better. Half are drooling in their trays, the other half are tracing the voyage of little green men through the gravy or wadding the tinfoil wrapping from their rolls into bouquets they hang on their bedsteads to keep away the government spies. Suffice it to say we don’t have anything common. I have no exciting diagnosis. I haven’t committed a crime. I’m just depressed. Like, suicidal ideation with three attempts under my belt depressed. Yes, it’s the bad kind.

  I wander back to my room, glancing in the open doors of the ward. Occasionally, the occupants leave out fun things to play with. Magazines. String. Cards. I’m not picky, anything to break the tedium. I’m out of luck today. The rooms are spotless. Beds are made, towels hang straight and even, the whole ward smells of Pine-Sol. The janitors have been through. They will have pocketed anything of worth.

  I bail on the reconnaissance mission and swing by my small hole for my cigarettes. Four times a day, I am allowed to stand in a tiny six-by-six hutch off the back steps and smoke. I can see the sky and the huge brass padlock that, if opened, would give me my freedom, allow me to step into the parking lot and disappear into the world, but nothing else. Sometimes, I wonder if cigarette privileges are worth it. It must be how cows feel, penned in day after day, never able to cross to the other field.

  My room, 8A, is white. White as week-old snow, the kind of white that isn’t crisp and clean, but dirtied, institutional. You won’t see the exact shade anywhere else. White walls, white bedding, white linoleum. White gowns. White long-sleeved jackets with shiny silver buckles if we’re naughty.

  Normally, we’re all double-bunked, but I haven’t shared in a month, not since the last roommate was sent home. As much as I hate her for getting out, I’ve found I enjoy the silence of having my own space. Being alone always frightened me before. I despised the dark and its creeping pulchritude. Now, I crave its simplicity. Its emptiness and solitude. Caring about fear is too hard anymore.

  I stop in the doorway. There is someone in my room.

  Her hair is dark and cascading, freshly washed; she reeks of the squeaky-clean scent of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. The hospital passes it out to all new inductees in their plastic “welcome” bucket.

  She sits on the bed, head cocked to the side, her back to the door, staring out the four-by-two wire mesh screen window, which looks at the parking lot—bleak gray asphalt and a never-ending parade of cars. It’s a strange torture, this taste of freedom they give us. We are fish in the aquarium; we can see the rest of the world passing by, disinterested people living uninteresting lives.

  This intrusion into my private space infuriates me, and I slam back out to the nurses’ station. There is a nurse named Eleanor Snow who runs the ward, but we all call her Ratchet because she is a bitch. No one said we had to be original.

  Ratchet is calmly doing an intake form. Probably for my new roommate. Her serenity infuriates me further. I don’t get serenity. My mind never quiets and allows me to sit, smiling, as I fill in forms.

  I snarl at her, “Who is in my room?”

  “Your new roommate. I suggest you go introduce yourself. And keep your hands to yourself. You don’t want me to cut your nails again.”

  I shudder. I don’t, and she knows it.

  “You didn’t ask my permission to move someone in.”

  “We don’t have to. Now scat. I have work to do. And eat your dinner, or I’ll talk with Dr. Freeman about your lack of proper nutrition.”

  “Be sure to tell him the meds he gives me make me puke.”

  I storm off. It’s the only power I have, not eating. They force the drugs in me; tell me when to sleep, shower, and shit; make me sit in a circle with the other drooling idiots to share my story—You’ll feel so much better after you’ve talked it out, dear. No. No!

  To hell with the cigarette break. I head back to 8A. The girl is still sitting in the same spot, her head cocked the same way. She has long hands, set to the sides of her hips. They prop her up as if they are grounding her to the world.

  I make noise, and she doesn’t turn. I step in front of the window, looming over her so she’ll look at me. I snap my fingers under her nose, and she barely flinches.

  Oh.

  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to diagnose her silence and lack of movement. She’s riding with King Thor. Thorazine for the uninitiated. A strong antipsychotic agent overused in mental facilities to keep rowdy, disturbed, or otherwise uncooperative patients calm.

  I like riding with the King even less than having Ratchet snip my nails, so I cut the stranger some slack. I rifle through her things. Her few street clothes are wadded in the bottom of the laundry bag, and she wears the same baggy sweats and sweatshirt I currently model because my civvies are in the laundry. The rest of the bag has small toiletries, a hospital-issued toothbrush and toothpaste, a comb. She isn’t a voluntary.

  Voluntary commitment, when the patient agrees to come in for a certain amount of time to get their head shrunk. Technically, I am a voluntary, which is why I have a few more privileges than most. I’ve also been here for a little over two months, and I am ready as fuck to get out of here. What they don’t like to tell you is when you go in voluntarily, you don’t get the choice to voluntarily leave. No, that’s up to them, to Dr. Freakazoid and Ratchet and the “treatment team.”

  Bastards.

  I quickly search the rest of the room and see she only has the clothes on her back and in her bag. Interesting. A non-voluntary could be a nice diversion. When she comes back from her ride, I might find she’s a mumbling, drooling idiot, or a tinfoil baby, or a suicide, or even a criminal. We’re all mixed in, the permanent residents and the temporary, the clinically insane and the criminally. The latter makes for fascinating conversation. The thick white bandage on her arm tells me the rest of the story. Someone was a bad girl. I like her already.

  I pick up her comb. Mine is missing several teeth. I need
a brush—my hair is too thick for this tiny piece of plastic crap—but a fresh comb is better than what I have. I switch them out, then get to work on my hair.

  Without moving, in a voice low and melodious and laden with the sharpness of a thousand razors, she says, “Touch my things again, and I’ll kill you.”

  “Right.”

  I continue with the comb. She turns, and when I look up, I am startled. The hatred in her eyes is so intense it’s like a demon from hell is suddenly perched on the bed. Her hair floats around her head like a dark storm cloud, and I can practically smell the thunder coming off her. I take a step back and toss the comb on her bed.

  At this movement, she smiles and turns back toward the window.

  PART ONE

  1

  VAIL, COLORADO

  FIS ALPINE WORLD CUP

  JANUARY 4, 2018

  “Now coming to the gates, last year’s junior Alpine Downhill champion, Mindy Wright.”

  Mindy hears her name called, and her heart pounds in her throat. She knows what they are saying in the booth. They are discussing her leap into the majors. A year ago she was the Junior World Champion in three disciplines and the overall. She is special. Unique. Now, barely one year into her adult career, she is killing it. They are comparing her to her heroes, Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, speculating that with this final run, she can overtake their records and become the new youngest Alpine Downhill champion. They are talking about her parents, their sacrifices, and Mindy’s grueling training, the intense life she’s led, uncomplaining, with a smile on her face all the time. Sunny. They call her the girl with the sunny disposition.

  This sunny girl is going to become the world’s fastest female downhill skier in less than two minutes, and then what will they call her?

  Mindy can feel the energy in the air; the tension is palpable. She has a good chance, she knows it. Her practice run was at a record-breaking pace. She is going to blow this run away. The mountain is hers for the taking.

  Everyone wants her to win this race and take the trophy. Trophy be damned; if she hits her points, she will automatically qualify for the US Olympic team. No pressure or anything.