From the USA Today bestselling author of Kill All Your Darlings comes a chilling novel of guilt, regret, and a past that refuses to die....   Three months ago, Jenna Barton was supposed to meet her lifelong best friend Celia. But when Jenna arrived late, she found that Celia had disappeared—and she hasn’t been seen since.    The only piece of evidence is a lone diamond earring found where Celia and Jenna were planning to meet, leading the national media to dub Celia “The Diamond Mom.” And even though Jenna has obsessively surfed message boards devoted to missing persons cases, she is no closer to finding any answers—or easing her guilt.   But when her son’s new girlfriend disappears too, a stricken Jenna begins to unwind the tangled truth behind Celia’s tragedy. And as long-buried secrets finally come to light, she discovers how completely lives can be shattered by a few simple lies. Praise for Since She Went Away   “[A] twisty, realistic thriller. . . . [Bell] is a skilled storyteller.”— Houston Chronicle   “[A] tantalizing thriller. . . . Bell keeps readers on edge throughout.”— Publishers Weekly   “David Bell is a definite natural storyteller and a first-class writer. . . . A great thriller . . . that you most definitely will devour.”— Suspense Magazine “A gripping and suspense-filled novel with plenty of eye-popping surprises.”—The Huffington Post    Praise for David Bell and his novels   “A terrifically tense thriller…will keep you guessing until the very end.”—Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Survive the Night   “David Bell is a top-notch storyteller....I flew through this twisty, riveting psychological thriller at breakneck speed, hooked from the first page right up through the book's breathless conclusion.”—Cristina Alger, New York Times bestselling author of Girls Like Us   “Grabs you by the throat and never lets go…will keep you reading late into the night with a twist you’ll never see coming.”—Liv Constantine, bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish   “A whirlwind story about secrets, regrets, and sacrifice…a deliciously infectious thriller.”—Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author of The Better Sister   “[A] suspenseful page-turning thriller.”—Hello Giggles David Bell  is a bestselling and award-winning author whose work has been translated into six languages. He’s currently an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He received an MA in creative writing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a PhD in American literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. His novels include Bring Her Home ,  Since She Went Away ,  Somebody I Used to Know ,  The Forgotten Girl ,  Never Come Back ,  The Hiding Place , and  Cemetery Girl . ***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** Copyright ©2016 David Bell Chapter One Five police cars. Three news vans. And one coroner’s wagon. Jenna Barton saw them as she made the turn onto the last county lane. The vehicles were fanned out around the old weathered barn, one wall collapsing in and the others hanging on for dear life. The fields around her on either side, stretching away for miles to the edges of the county, were empty and barren, still marked by patches of snow from an uncharacteristically heavy storm for that part of Kentucky. The soil was dark and lumpy, the remnants of cornstalks sticking out like spikes. As she came closer, the dirt and gravel on the narrow road pinging against the underside of her car, she saw the people as well. County sheriffs in their pale green uniforms and Smokey Bear hats. News reporters in their nice clothes and perfect hair were being followed by cameramen in flannel shirts and heavy boots. And a scattering of onlookers, the curious good old boys who heard the call on their scanners or read about it on Twitter, standing around in their feed caps, hands thrust deep into pockets against the cold, hoping for a glimpse of something horrific. Something gory or gross, some story they could tell later that night in the Downtowner while they sipped beers or threw darts. Yeah, they’d say, their bravado mostly covering their unease, I saw them bring the body out. Wasn’t hardly anything left. . . . Jenna parked next to a sheriff’s cruiser, but she didn’t get out. She sat in the car, hands clenching the wheel, and took a few deep breaths. She told herself this was probably nothing, another false alarm, one of many she had experienced over the past three months. Every time an unidentified woman’s body was found in central Kentucky, along an interstate or in a culvert, an abandoned house or the woods, someone called her. Usually the media but sometimes the police, and Jenna would have to wait it out, wondering whether this would be the time they’d tell her they’d found Celia. As she sat in the car, her eyes closed, the heater making the cabin of her Civic feel even closer an