# Read the first page of The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda Read the opening of The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda free, no signup. A journalist's roommate vanishes after a look-alike is attacked nearby. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/the-perfect-stranger-megan-miranda - Genre: Thrillers - Year: 2017 - ISBN: 9781501108013 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781501107993&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781501108013 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781501108013 ## The opening The cat under the front porch was at it again. Scratching at the slab of wood that echoed through the hardwood floors of my bedroom. Sharpening its claws, marking its territory—relentless in the dead of night. I sat on the edge of the bed, stomped my feet on the wood, thought, Please let me sleep, which had become my repeated plea to all things living and nonliving out here, whatever piece of nature was at work each particular night. The scratching stopped, and I eased back under the sheets. Other sounds, more familiar now: the creak of the old mattress, crickets, a howl as the wind funneled through the valley. All of it orienting me to my new life—the bed I slept in, the valley I lived in, a whisper in the night: You are here. I had been raised and built for city life, had grown accustomed to the sound of people on the street below, the car horns, the train running on the track until midnight. Had come to expect footsteps overhead, doors slamming shut, water in the pipes running through my walls. I could sleep through all of it. The silence in this house, at times, was unsettling. But it was better than the animals. Emmy, I could get used to. She slipped right in, the sputtering engine of her car in the driveway a comfort, her footsteps in the hallway lulling me to sleep. But the cat, the crickets, the owls, and the coyote—these took time. Four months, and it was finally shifting, like the season. WE HAD ARRIVED IN the summer—Emmy first; me, a few weeks later. We slept with our doors closed and the air turned on high, directly across the hall from each other. Back in July, when I first heard the cry in the middle of the night, I bolted upright in bed and thought, Emmy. It was a muffled, low moan, like something was dying, and my mind was already filling in the blanks: Emmy struggling, grasping at her throat, or keeled over on the dusty floor. I’d raced across the hall and had my hand on her doorknob (locked) when she’d torn it open, staring back at me with wide eyes. She looked for a moment like she had when we’d first met, both of us barely out of school. But that was just the dark playing tricks on me. “Did you hear that?” she’d whispered. “I thought it was you.” Her fingers circled my wrist, and the moonlight from the uncovered windows illuminated the whites of her eyes. “What was it?” I asked. Emmy had lived in the wild, had spent years in the Peace Corps, had grown accustomed to the unfamiliar. Another cry, and Emmy jumped—the sound had been directly below us. “I don’t know.” She was roughly my size but skinnier. Eight years earlier, it had been the other way around, but she’d lost the curves and give in the years since she’d been gone. I felt I needed to be the one to protect her now. To shield her from the danger, because there was nothing to Emmy these days but sharp angles and pale skin. But she moved first, noiselessly walking down the hall, her heels barely making contact with the floor. I followed, keeping my steps light, my breathing shallow. I put my hand on the phone, which was corded and hooked to the kitchen wall, just in case. But Emmy had other plans. She grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen drawer, slid the front doors slowly open, and stepped out onto the wooden porch. The moonlight softened her, the breeze moving her dark hair. She arced the light across the tree line and started down the steps. “Emmy, wait,” I’d said, but she’d eased herself onto her stomach in the dirt, ignoring me. She shone the light under the porch, and something cried again. I gripped the wooden railing as Emmy rolled onto her back, faintly shaking with laughter before it made its way from her gut, tearing through the night sky. ## Books with a similar feel - [The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-good-daughter-karin-slaughter.md) - [Served Him Right by Lisa Unger](https://uncovered.ink/read/served-him-right-lisa-unger.md) - [The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-sinner-tess-gerritsen.md) - [The Invitation by Lucy Foley](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-invitation-lucy-foley.md) - [The Insider Threat by Brad Taylor](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-insider-threat-brad-taylor.md) - [The God of the Woods by Liz Moore](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-god-of-the-woods-liz-moore.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.