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Of course it's real!

Matthew rolled his eyes. The thread devolved into profanity and name-calling. Hilarious, Matthew thought. All these bored armchair warriors threatening to kick each other's asses.

He had to agree with the naysayers. Everyone knew there was nothing real about reality television. He took a closer look at the man holding the gun against his head and his eyes widened. Then he recognized him. What were the chances that he knew two people on the show?

Isn't that... Matthew began typing but stopped when the man on-screen lowered the gun from his head and extended his arm. Matthew saw himself staring down the barrel of the gun through his laptop screen. The man was aiming the gun directly at him.

Three explosions in quick succession filled the air and the livestream went black and silent. It was loaded. The gun was really loaded. Matthew covered his mouth with his hand, his heart knocking against his chest.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Finally, comments began to appear.

What happened?

Did someone get shot?

The livestream flickered and lit up. It showed the veranda, but this time, from a different angle. All that could be seen was an upended chair lying on the stone floor. There was still no sound, no lady in the halter top, none of the other contestants could be seen.

What is that? someone typed.

Oh, Jesus.

Matthew stared, mouth agape, as a slow stream of red liquid crept across the white stone collecting in a crimson puddle.

I think it's blood.

Matthew agreed. It did look like blood. Once again, the livestream went dead.

The man had shot someone. But whom? And why? Matthew felt sick. He wanted to close his laptop but couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen, half hoping the livestream would return, half hoping it wouldn't. What the hell kind of game was One Lucky Winner and why was it worth killing for?

CHAPTER ONE 

THE BEST FRIEND

Maire Hennessy squinted against the bright October sun as she drove down the quiet Iowa county road. The fields were filled with the stubbled remains of the fall harvest and stripped bare by heavy-billed grackles and beady-eyed blackbirds eating their fill before the cold weather set in. It made her a little sad. Winter would be coming soon, unrelenting and unforgiving.

That morning, she had packed up her girls and Kryngle, their four-year-old Shetland sheepdog, to drop them off at her former mother-in-law's home. Maire, who hadn't traveled more than a hundred miles away from Calico since she'd abruptly dropped out of college over twenty years earlier, was embarking on an adventure that could change the course of their lives forever. Ten-year-old Dani kicked the back of Maire's seat in time to the throbbing beat coming from her older sister Keely's earbuds. Keely, a twelve-year-old carbon copy of Maire, had the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up over her head, her red curls springing out around her sullen face, as she silently pretended to read her book.

Maire tapped her fingers nervously against the steering wheel. "You're going to be just fine," she said, turning onto the highway that would take her children to her ex-mother-in-law's home. Shar was a decent enough person. Except for the fact that she smoked like a chimney and gave birth to a shit of a son, Maire knew she would take good care of the girls while she was away.

"I don't want to go," Dani murmured. "I like my own bed. Grandma's house feels weird."

Both Dani and Keely dreaded the two weeks that they were going to stay with their grandmother, a bland, unexcitable woman with steel-gray hair and stooped shoulders. There would be no movie nights, no special outings, no grand adventures, but they would be well-cared for, safe. And that's all that Maire wanted.