Excerpt from What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Back then Liv had what her mom called "stubborn baby fat" and a round face made rounder by blunt bangs and a bob. In the years after, she'd sprouted up and slimmed down, and then she just kept vanishing by degrees, melting away until you could count the vertebrae through her shirt. She made sure there wasn't enough of herself left to get recognized.

I didn't have the option. The scar on my cheek, the nerve damage that kept the corner of my mouth tucked in a constant frown—those weren't things I could hide. Changing my name had cut down on the number of people who found me, but I'd never get rid of the scars, and I refused to try to hide them. I kept my hair cut short and sharp, and I always photographed myself straight on. I described my style as unflinching. My most recent therapist had been known to suggest I was using honesty as armor.

As if on cue, the phone started buzzing again. This time I answered, bracing myself to talk Liv down from whatever crisis the day had brought. "Hey, Liv. What's up?" I asked brightly, because pretending it could be anything else was part of what we did.

She was silent for a moment. I waited for her. It would come in little hiccup phrases at first, and then a flood. And at the end of it I would tell her that it was going to be okay, ask if she was taking her meds, and promise I didn't mind at all that she'd called. And I didn't. I was far more worried about the day she stopped calling.

"I'm trying to reach Naomi Cunningham," a male voice said on the other end of the line, and I blinked in surprise.

"That's me. Sorry, I thought you were someone else. Obviously," I said, letting out a breath and sweeping windblown strands of hair back from my eyes. "Who's calling?"

"My name is Gerald Watts, at the Office of Victim Services. I'm calling about Alan Michael Stahl."

My mind went blank. Why would they be calling me now? It had been over twenty years, but— "Has he been released?" I asked. I remembered the word parole in the sentence. Possibility of parole after twenty years. But twenty years was eternity to a child. Panic bloomed through me like black mold. "Wait. You're supposed to call us, aren't you? We're supposed to be allowed to testify, or—"

"Ma'am, Stahl has not been released," Gerald Watts said quickly and calmly. "I've got better news than that. He's dead."

"I—" I stopped. Dead. He was dead, and that was it. It was over. "How?"

"Cancer. Beyond that, I'm not able to share private medical information."

"Do the others know? Liv—I mean Olivia Barnes, and—"

"Olivia Barnes and Cassidy Green have been notified as well. We had a little more trouble getting hold of you. You changed your name." He said it like it was just a reason, not a judgment, but I stammered.

"You can still figure out who I am, it's not like I hide it, but it cuts down on the random calls and stuff," I said. I'd had strangers sending things to my house for years. Or just showing up themselves, ringing the doorbell, asking to meet the miracle girl and gape at my face.

"I don't blame you," he said. "Him dying, it'll get reported here and there. You might want to take some time off, if you can. Go someplace you won't get hassled. Shouldn't take long for the interest to die down."

"I'll be fine. It never takes long for some new tragedy to come along and distract everyone," I said.

He grunted in acknowledgment. "Ms. Cunningham, if you need to speak to a counselor, we have resources available to you."

"Why would I need to talk to a counselor?" I asked with a high, tortured laugh. "I should be happy, right?" The man who'd attacked me was dead. A little less evil in the world.

"This kind of thing can bring up a lot of complicated feelings and difficult memories," Gerald Watts said gently. He had a grandfatherly voice, I thought.

"I'll be fine," I told him, though I sounded faint, almost robotic. "Thank you for telling me."

Excerpted from What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall. Copyright © 2023 by Kate Alice Marshall. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.