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Have them exchange glances as they noticed the vials on the nightstand?
Have them suggest you “talk” to someone?
Is that what you want to go through again?
No.
Heart thudding, she inched her way to the exterior doors where the curtains billowed slightly and the chill of December seeped inside. Through the sheers she saw a dark shadow. Small. Shivering.
London?
Precious, precious child!
Kat yanked open the door.
A blast of winter hit her hard.
A cacophony of street noise, traffic, music, voices rushed up nineteen floors.
The huddled little figure moved.
“Oh, honey—” Kat whispered, her throat suddenly tight.
The interior light snapped off.
The figure turned a face toward her, and even through the fog in her mind and the semidarkness of the city, she recognized the face—not of her missing daughter, but of a treacherous, wicked liar.
“You,” she spat, trying to turn away. Blindly, she flailed, trying to escape.
Too late.
Strong fingers grabbed her shoulders and a fierce, intent weight shoved her closer to the short brick wall surrounding the verandah. Kat screamed. Her knees hit the century-old brickwork; she tried to grab something, anything, to no avail. The force of her body slammed against her backside—the sheer determination of her attacker propelled her forward, closer to the edge and the crumbling…“No! Oh, God, no!” Kat cried, seeing a hand in her peripheral vision. Gloved fingers clutched a bit of brick. Kat cringed.
Bam!
Pain exploded behind her eyes. Blackness pulled her under. She started to sag, but was propped up, pushed forward, the railing hitting her in her middle and disintegrating with her weight.
And then suddenly she was falling, sailing through the cold night air…
PART ONE
1993
1
If only she could remember.
If only she knew the truth.
If only she were certain she wasn’t on a fool’s mission. She glanced up at the dark October sky and felt the gentle wash of Oregon mist against her face. Had she ever tilted her head back and let the moistness linger on her lips and cheeks? Had she stood on this very corner, across the street from the old Hotel Danvers, holding onto her mother’s hand, waiting for the light to change?
Traffic rushed by, cars and buses spraying water as tires splashed through puddles. Deep in the folds of her coat she shivered, but not from the cool autumn air, or the breath of a breeze rolling off the dank Willamette River only a few blocks to the east. No, she shivered at the thought of what she was planning to do—her destiny, or so she’d been told. She knew she was in for the battle of her life.
But she was committed. She couldn’t give up now. She’d traveled hundreds of miles, been through emotional hell and back, and spent days searching her soul during painstaking, laborious hours in libraries and newspaper offices throughout the Northwest, reading every chronicle, article, or editorial she could find on the Danvers family.
Now her plans were about to come to fruition. Or ruin. She stared up at the hotel, seven stories of Victorian architecture, which had once been one of the tallest buildings in the city and now was dwarfed by its concrete-and-steel counterparts, great skyscrapers that knifed upward, looming over the narrow city streets. “God help me,” she whispered. As beautiful as it was, the edifice of the Hotel Danvers seemed sinister somehow, as if it knew secrets—dark secrets—that could change the course of her life forever.
Which was just plain silly.
