I pause beside a vase filled with black feathers of every kind. I sift through them carefully, taking my time before selecting the perfect one—a small, delicate ostrich feather, dark yet fragile.
Opening my jacket, I slide the feather into the inside pocket, feeling Remo’s satisfied gaze on my back.
After fifteen years of waiting, fate has finally put Pfeiffer McAllister back within my reach.
And we all know what happens to those who wait.
CHAPTER ONE
Pfeiffer
I stand on the sidewalk,shivering, as I peer up at the narrow brick building I grew up in.
Nothing has changed on the outside. Mrs. Garcia on the first floor still keeps a Virgin Mary in her window, and the landlord has yet to fix the bent metal railing where a drunk driver wrapped his vehicle around it about twenty years ago.
But on the inside, everything is different.
Boston spoiled me. My life in Jamaica Plain was quiet, clean and ordered. I knew which bus would be on time and which store sold the least offensive tomatoes in winter. I knew when my upstairs neighbor would practice piano and when Henry across the hall would take his toy poodle out in its red sweater.
It wasn’t exciting or glamorous, but it was predictable. It was safe.
But during my last visit home, my father forgot which day it was. Then he put the dinner plates in the refrigerator. Then he called me by my mother’s name. Twice.
That Sunday, I returned to Boston an anxious mess. On theMonday I gave notice at the hospital and on my apartment. Now, two weeks later, I’m back in Queens—my childhood home. To live.
I let myself into our second floor apartment with my old key and stand for a moment in the dim entryway, my bags at my feet.
“Dad?” I call out. “I’m home.”
Nerves almost immediately start to crawl across my skin. What might he have forgotten now? The time? The plan for me to come home?Me?
I walk tentatively through the apartment, then with a huge sense of relief, find Dad sitting at the kitchen table in his undershirt, staring at a slice of toast as if he’s never seen one before.
“Hey Dad.”
He looks up, and for one horrible second his face is blank.
Then it clears and he gives me a big smile. “Pfeiffer.”
My lungs release a thankful sigh. “Hi.”
He glances at the clock on the stove. “I thought you weren’t coming till later.”
Throwing my keys on the counter, I rapidly take in the pile of dishes on the side and the overflowing trash cans. “I said I’d be here just after lunch.”
“Oh.” His cheeks flush. “It must be later than I thought.”
I cross the kitchen and kiss the top of his head. His hair, once bronze and thick, has gone mostly silver and lays flat on one side where he must have slept on it.
He’s only seventy-two. Some men at seventy-two still travel, still remarry, still play golf and flirt with waitresses. My father, however, still works at the same hardware store he has all my life, doesn’t like to leave New York and apparently enjoys sitting at the kitchen table squinting at bread.
I switch on the coffee machine. “Have you eaten anything besides that?”
He looks down at the plate of toast seeming surprised it’s there. “I made eggs.”
“Did you?” I don’t see a trace of egg on his untouched toast.
He nods.
