Ill take everything you.., p.1
Pretty Pictures: An unputdownable contemporary suspense thriller, page 1
PRETTY PICTURES
NANCY SAVAGE
Copyright © 2026 Nancy Savage
The right of Nancy Savage to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2026 by Bloodhound Books.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
Print ISBN: 978-1917705400
CONTENTS
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1. Ruby
2. Mory
3. Ruby
4. Jessie
5. Ruby
6. Mory
7. Ruby
8. Mory
9. Ruby
10. Sandra
11. Ruby
12. Mory
13. Ruby
14. Mory
15. Ruby
16. Erica
17. Ruby
18. Ruby
19. Ruby
20. Ruby
21. Ruby
22. Ruby
23. Ruby
24. Mory
25. Ruby
26. Ruby
27. Ruby
28. Mory
29. Ruby
30. Ruby
31. Ruby
32. Mory
33. Ruby
34. Ruby
35. Ruby
36. Mory
37. Ruby
38. Ruby
39. Elle
40. Mory
41. Ruby
42. Ruby
43. Mory
44. Ruby
45. Mory
46. Ruby
47. Mory
48. Ruby
49. Mory
50. Ruby
51. Mory
52. Mory
53. Ruby
54. Ruby
Epilogue
Also by Nancy Savage
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Author’s note
Acknowledgments
A note from the publisher
To my six Rs.
1
RUBY
“Here are your keys, I wish the three of you the happiest of days in your new home!” Benton Shepherd’s impossibly white smile beams as he passes me a keychain, then turns to high five both of my kids at once.
He’s a self-assured kind of guy, just this side of arrogant. Everything you’d expect from a small-town realtor, plus he has the extra selling power of boyish good looks. My daughter seems to have noticed this too, judging by the dopey smile on her face as he talks. Unlucky for her, he’s about twice her age. Lucky for me, the legal age of consent in Wyoming is seventeen, one year older than she currently is.
Why must Mory always be attracted to older guys?
Don’t kid yourself, Ruby, you were too at sixteen.
“Mory, how about you go take your brother upstairs. You can pick your own bedrooms,” I suggest, trying to snap her out of it.
She does the patented teenage groan but picks up on the hint that I want her and Cameron gone, and turns to grab him by the collar before dragging him up the stairs behind her.
“Hey, be gentle with your brother!” I shout after her as he protests and wriggles under her hold.
Benton laughs and puffs out a deep breath. “Kids, right?”
“You got any?” I ask, always eager for tales of worse behaved children than my own.
“God no!” he declares, then seems to catch himself. “I mean, not yet anyway. They’re great though, those two of yours. I’m sure they’ll love living here in Lonerock. When do they start school?”
“In two weeks. Mory’s going to Burwell and Cameron’s starting third grade at Whitehill Elementary.”
“Hey, I went to Whitehill as a kid. I’ll bet you anything crabby old Mrs. Cranston is still teaching there.” He grimaces.
“Is it that bad?” I ask, noting he had nothing negative to say about the town of Lonerock when he was still in the process of trying to sell me this place.
“Oh, no no.” He flashes that salesman smile. “It’s a wonderful school. But you know small towns like this, we don’t have a very fast turnover of teachers. And I’m pretty sure Mrs. Cranston started teaching there back in the eighteen hundreds.” He laughs.
I’m sure this is a joke he and his buddies would tell on the playground back at school but it sounds juvenile coming from a man in his thirties. Nevertheless, I laugh as I’m expected to.
“Well, Benton, I think the kids and I are just about ready to settle in,” I hint, hoping he’ll leave before Mory comes back down to swoon over him again.
We finalized the contract at his office yesterday, so he’s already made his sale. Now I have the keys, I’m not really sure why he’d want to hang around here any longer. It’s an exciting day for me and I’m looking forward to some time alone with my kids to catch up with them and gauge their feelings about the move.
My leap into single motherhood has reached a huge milestone today because after three years of bouncing around short-term rentals, I’m now the proud owner of number 168 Forest Grove: a sage-green, three-bedroomed home with white shutters, a large backyard and a single car garage. At least, that’s how it was listed online. In reality, the only reason I was able to afford it was because it’s in dire need of modernization. It seems to be living firmly in the eighties with its patterned carpets and sun-bleached wallpaper, while the other houses on Forest Grove that surround it have long since been renovated and updated. This matters not a jot to me, though. I finally have a house I can call my own as well as stability for my children. I’m willing to put the hard work needed into this place to make it our home no matter how long it takes me.
Benton is yammering on about some biannual neighborhood watch meeting as he walks to the door and I stop him when I realize I haven’t asked him about a security system. “Is there a house alarm here that I need a code for?”
Benton shakes his head. “No, but you now live on one of the safest streets in the country. I actually live close by, on Abbey Street, and we have a text alert system that covers the whole area. I think there’s probably four hundred or so of us on it. I’ll add your number, but I’m telling you, the worst you’ll get around here is a kid playing knock and run.” He laughs.
This makes me feel a little better. The first place I moved into after my divorce was a shabby third-floor apartment that overlooked a park frequented by vandals and junkies, so a quiet neighborhood with people who look out for one another is exactly what I want.
Outside, I feel the late summer sun beat down on my face as I walk Benton to his red Ford Mustang parked at the curb. I shake his hand goodbye.
“Ruby Blake, it’s been a pleasure dealing with you. Feel free to call me if you need anything at all, okay?”
I squint a little as the sunlight catches his gleaming teeth. “Thanks so much, Benton.”
I wait for him to drive off then turn around and see a woman staring at me from next door. She’s sitting on her porch, safely out of the sunshine. I can’t place her age, but her face has deep set wrinkles and her gray hair hangs loose around her shoulders.
“Hi.” I wave. “We’re just moving in today.”
I’m sure I said this loud enough for her to hear, but the woman doesn’t reply. She scowls then looks down at the magazine in front of her, ignoring me.
Nice lady.
Back inside I find the kids upstairs, Mory talking on her phone while Cameron looks out the window to the backyard.
‘Dad,’ Mory mouths to me, pointing to the phone against her ear.
I’m surprised it took Aaron this long to call them. He dropped them off at the airport over five hours ago and he usually calls right after they land to make sure they’ve found me okay. He has Mory keep a tracker app on her phone so he can see exactly when they’ve arrived. He’s a good father to them. I’m lucky.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Mory is saying. “It’s better than the last place anyway. You want to speak to her? She’s right here.”
I wave both my arms mouthing ‘no’, but she shoves the phone in my face and I’m forced to take it.
“Hi, Aaron. How are you?” I say to my ex-husband, giving my daughter evil eyes as she laughs at my discomfort.
“Hey, Ruby. Mory tells me you just got the keys to your new place?”
“Yes. I wanted to wait until the kids got back so we could all move in at the same time. They said they had a great summer with you and Caitlyn by the way, thanks so much for having them there.”
“You don’t need to thank me for having them, Ruby, they’re my kids,” he says, a thinly veiled annoyance in his tone. “And there’s nothing we love more than having them here with us. We can’t wait for Christmas.”
That’s our custody agreement. Summers and Christmases with Aaron in Arizona, the rest of the year with me. It’s not ideal—missing out on two of the most important times of year with my children
Mory and Cameron begged me to find a place close to our last one so they wouldn’t have to change schools again and that’s exactly what I tried to do. But unfortunately I was priced out of the market and had to set my sights further afield. That’s when I found the listing for this house. When I drove out to view it, Benton quickly had me sold. He explained the owners had moved away a few years back and it had taken a while for them to put it on the market. And even though I knew it would mean not only uprooting the kids again but also a huge amount of work renovating the place, I didn’t have much choice. It’s in a great neighborhood and, most importantly, I could afford it. With only a few weeks left until the kids were coming home from Aaron’s, I jumped on it.
“You know, I think it’s really great that you’ve found somewhere to settle. Somewhere the kids can call home. I think all that moving about and changing schools was rough on them,” Aaron says now.
I don’t take this as a dig; he’s only voicing what I’ve been worried about for the past three years. We may be separated, but we both still want what’s best for the kids.
I soon pass the phone back to Mory, who promises to call and text her father often before she passes the phone over to Cameron, who excitedly runs out of the room to talk with his dad again after only being separated from him for a few hours. I know the kid loves me, but I called every day to check on them over the summer and all I got was a rushed hello from Cameron, too busy running off to the pool or some other activity in the sunshine. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt a little when he shows so much more enthusiasm about talking to his father.
Alone now, I grab Mory by the shoulders. “So, what do you think of the house?”
“It’s… okay.”
“Just okay? Come on! There’s a huge backyard and you’ve even got your own room, no more sharing with Cam. And you can decorate it any way you like. Paint it black, paint it pink, draw all over the walls with a Sharpie, cover every inch of them in posters, whatever you want!”
Mory’s face twists. “I’m good, Mom. The white is fine.”
Just when I’ve started to embrace the chaos and unpredictability of parenting a teenager, my daughter is suddenly the sensible one. At what point exactly did the roles reverse?
2
MORY
Mom’s trying way too hard. When she picked us up from the airport today, she was waiting with a huge welcome sign that she’d made herself with glitter pens and glue-on streamers. It was so lame it was almost adorable.
I think she’s overcompensating because we’ve been away all summer with Dad and Caitlyn, and now she’s worried we like it better there with them. I mean we do, obviously, but I’m not going to break her heart by telling her that.
At Dad’s house we help him and Caitlyn cook dinner around their large marble island every night while listening to music and joking about as a family. My dad says there’s a kind of alchemy that happens around the kitchen island that you can’t replicate anywhere else, and I think he’s right. It’s definitely not being replicated here as we eat our dinner now anyway, because what was sold to me and Cameron by our mom as a ‘pizza party’ tonight is actually just takeout on the dusty living-room carpet.
“Sorry about this, guys. The furniture and our boxes of things should be here tomorrow. The moving guy got the wrong day,” Mom explains.
“What are we going to sleep on?” Cam asks.
“I picked up three air mattresses at the store earlier, so it’ll be a bit like camping,” she says with an enthusiasm I don’t think she really feels.
Cameron groans at this revelation and I nudge him hard with my elbow. I can see Mom’s trying to make us feel better about moving here but at eight years old, Cameron is thinking only of himself as per usual.
“Ow! Mom, Mory just hit me with her elbow!”
“Mory, leave him alone! He’s half your age, for Christ’s sake!” Mom yells, then squeezes her eyes closed and lets out a long breath. “Sorry. Sorry, guys, I didn’t mean to shout.”
Cameron and I say nothing and the three of us continue eating our pizza quietly.
“So, how are you guys feeling about starting a new school?” Mom asks when it feels as though an eternity has passed.
Cameron shrugs, unfazed. “Fine.”
“How about you, Mory?” Mom turns to me.
Awful. Horrible. Like I’d rather die than be the new girl at yet another school.
“Yeah, fine,” I say.
“Good, good,” Mom says before we delve back into silence.
This will be my fourth school in as many years. I used to complain when we’d move house, I’d shout at Mom all the time and tell her I wanted to go live with Dad. I’d tell her I hated her, that I wasn’t going to go to school and she couldn’t make me. But inevitably I’d end up calming down and getting used to our new situation before we’d up and move again the following year and the cycle would repeat. I think back then, I didn’t really see what Mom was going through. All I saw was everything happening to me. Then one day I found her sitting in her car, crying, and when I asked her what was wrong, she told me she thought she was a shitty mom and that me and Cam deserved better than what she could give us. I think those words sparked something inside of me because since then, I’m always more careful about what I say to her. There’s something about seeing your mom cry, it’s really unsettling. I guess everyone realizes at some point that their mom’s human, just like everyone else.
So, while I’m glad she’s found us a permanent home and we won’t have to move again, I’m sure as hell not going to tell her the truth, which is that this house is an old, stuffy museum in a lame ass town and that I miss being at Dad’s house already.
When we’ve finished the pizza, Mom walks us around the house showing us everything she’s going to change. “The carpets are going to be coming up. The vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms too,” she explains as we walk into the kitchen. “And I think I’ll probably paint all the doors and put in new hardware.”
I nod along as though I care about any of this and listen as she goes into way too much detail about kitchen cabinets and shelving the pantry.
“How long’s it all going to take?” I ask when she’s done. “You know, until this house looks… normal?”
She considers this for a moment. “I think if I throw myself into it, I could have it done in about a year or so. I mean, it would be quicker if I could afford to hire people to do it for me but I think it’s better this way. More rewarding. And you guys can pitch in a little, too, if you like?”
“No thanks. I’d just get in your way,” I say.
“Can I pull up the carpets?” Cameron asks, ready to start now.
Mom laughs. “Sure! Not just yet though, I think we’ll probably do it one room at a time.”
“Is Benton going to help, too?” Cameron asks.
The amused expression on Mom’s face drops. “Benton Shepherd? The realtor?”
“Yeah, the guy who was here earlier,” Cameron says.
“Oh, no, sweetie. He was just the person in charge of selling the house. He won’t be coming back here now it’s all finalized,” Mom explains.
The hopeful look in Cameron’s eyes fades to one of disappointment. “Oh. Okay.”
I try to keep my expression neutral, but I feel the same way. That guy was super hot. He kind of looked like a movie star, all tanned and every hair on his head perfectly styled into place. I keep this to myself though, since my mom would just lecture me about finding a guy my own age instead of always crushing on someone in their twenties or thirties. I think she must be forgetting what sixteen-year-old boys are like. Why would I ever be interested in them? They’re as immature as Cameron, sometimes even worse. All the guys in my last school revolved their lives either around sports or video games. Like that was their whole personality.
“Sorry to disappoint you, buddy, but Benton isn’t going to be helping us out with the renovation. He only does sales,” Mom says.
“I liked him. Did you see his car? The red one? It looked like a race car, it was the coolest thing ever,” Cameron thrills.
I saw Cam staring at Benton’s car earlier, and I’ve got to admit I may have drooled over it a little, too. That thing must have cost him a ton of money.
