AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Remmi didn’t listen to any more speculation. Heart pounding, fear driving her, she pushed her way through the crowd, past a businessman in a raincoat who, like so many others, was filming the macabre scene with his phone, while people around her murmured or gasped. All were transfixed by the horror unfolding right before their eyes. Traffic had been halted, headlights of the stalled cars glowing in the fog, horns honking, emergency workers barking orders. Somewhere a deep voice was humming an old song she’d heard in Sunday school class. What was it? Then the words came to her:
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Remmi’s eyes turned upward, the song fading, her gaze transfixed on the woman teetering high above, the fog wisping around the building. Don’t do it, Remmi silently begged as she forced her way through a knot of women with umbrellas. Throat tight, she glanced up at the ledge. Please, Mom, don’t jump!
To Remmi’s horrified dismay, as if the would-be leaper could actually hear her, the woman moved suddenly, a high heel slipping over the edge. The crowd gave up a collective gasp, then a scream, as she suddenly plummeted, arms pinwheeling, hair a shimmering, moving cloud in those horrifying seconds as she tumbled in free fall through the thick San Francisco evening.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine . . .
PART 1
CHAPTER 1
Las Vegas, Nevada
Twenty Years Earlier
“You can do this,” Didi told herself as she drove her vintage, specially equipped Cadillac through the city. Neon lights sparkled and shone as daylight slipped away and Las Vegas became a beacon in the twilight desert.
God, she loved this town, with its hot, dry air, bustle, and excitement, and, most importantly, the glamour and glitz of the tall buildings that spired upward into a vast, star-spangled sky. The city itself was almost surreal in its stark contrast to the quiet, serene, eerie desert at night.
Well, it wasn’t quite night yet, and she had no time to think about anything but her mission, one she’d been planning for the better part of a year. A tiny frisson of excitement sizzled through her blood, and the back of her mouth was suddenly dry with anxiety.
“You can pull this off,” she said, the words a familiar mantra intended to calm her jangled nerves, push back her fears. She stepped on the gas as she reached the outskirts of town. Her chest was tight, her fingers clammy over the steering wheel, a million doubts creeping through her mind.
She would have preferred to have the top down on the big car, to let the warm Nevada breeze stream across her face and through her hair, but she didn’t want to muss her makeup, nor her hair, and, really, with the twins, it was best to keep the convertible’s roof snapped into place and just leave the windows cracked enough to let in some air.
In the back, strapped into their car seats, were her two infants. Her heart twisted at the thought of her precious little ones. A boy and a girl, six weeks old and sleeping, cooing softly as she drove, not knowing their fates. “Oh, babies,” she whispered, guilt already gnawing through her soul. What she was planning was unthinkable. But she was desperate, and everything would work out for the best. No one would get hurt.
She hoped.
Despite herself, she crossed the fingers of her right hand as she gripped the wheel. Was she making a mistake? Probably. But, then, it certainly wasn’t her first—or fiftieth, for that matter.
Swallowing hard, she fought a spate of hot tears and steeled herself. She had to do this, had to; it was her one chance, their only chance for a better life. Sniffing, she blinked and wouldn’t let the tears fall and ruin her mascara. She needed to look good, perfect, to pull this off. Not like a sad sack of a clown with black streaks running down her cheeks.
Involuntarily, seated in the soft white leather, she straightened her shoulders. You can do this, Didi. You can. She pressed a high heel a little more firmly on the gas pedal, and the Caddy responded, leaping forward, tires eagerly spinning over the dry, dusty asphalt.
But what if something goes wrong?
“It won’t.”
It couldn’t.
Just to be on the safe side, she sent up a quick prayer, something she hadn’t done much of since she’d shaken the Missouri dust off her boots, bought a bus ticket, and headed west when she was still a teenager. She’d left her family, and God Himself, in the huge Greyhound’s exhaust.
Tonight, everything would turn around.
Over the roar of the car’s big engine, she heard a soft sigh, one of the babies probably dreaming.
Oh God.
Setting her jaw, she flipped her visor down to shield her eyes against the sun’s glare and reminded herself that she couldn’t back out now—her plan was set, the wheels in motion. As Las Vegas became a strip of glorious lights reflected in her car’s oversize rearview mirror, she pushed in the cigarette lighter, then let her fingers scrabble on the seat beside her for her purse. She shook a Virginia Slims from the glittery cigarette case she scrounged out of her clutch. A few hits of nicotine would calm her. She cracked open the side window and, after lighting up, held her cigarette near the window—no second-hand smoke for her babies! That was definitely a thing these days, and as long as she was a mother . . . oh, Jesus, how long would that be? . . . she would keep the babies safe.
Really? Who are you kidding?
Condemning eyes reflected back at her in the mirror as she headed steadily west, where the blazing sun was settling over the cliffs of Red Rock Canyon. While the nicotine did its job, she turned on the radio to an oldies station and heard the Beatles singing “Let It Be.”
