LITMIR.BIZ

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      MARNIE Carstairs pulled her car over on the shoulder of the road; the motor gave its usual asthmatic wheeze, then settled down to a low grumble. From her vantage point on the crest of the hill, she could see the town of Burnham spread out below. Her destination. The place that might answer—at least partially—some of the terrible questions she’d lived with for nearly thirteen years.

      No wonder her hands were ice-cold and her throat tight with anxiety.

      Burnham was a pretty town on this sunny Sunday in late April, situated as it was around the shores of an inlet of the Atlantic. Its houses and shops were painted bright colors, while its church spires pointed cheerfully to the high-piled clouds and the wheeling gulls. A few yachts admired their own reflections in the silky water, their hulls crisply painted white and blue. On the wooded hills that overlooked the town, Marnie could pick out the stone buildings of Burnham University. Did Calvin Huntingdon work there? Perhaps his wife did, too.

      It was their names that had brought Marnie here today. Calvin and Jennifer Huntingdon of Burnham, Nova Scotia. Two names, a place and a date: the date of birth of Marnie’s child all those years ago, the child who had been, against her knowledge and her every wish, adopted. The child she had not seen or heard of since then.

      If her mother hadn’t died at fifty-two, a death that no one had anticipated, least of all Charlotte Carstairs herself, Marnie would never have found that single piece of paper in a plain white envelope in her mother’s safe. She was sure of it. Her mother would have destroyed it.

      The Huntingdons’ names had been printed on the paper in Charlotte Carstairs’s angular script, along with the birth date and the name of this little town: a discovery that had rocked Marnie to her roots.

      The Huntingdons must have adopted her child. What other conclusion could she come to?

      Briefly, the town blurred in her vision. She stared down at the steering wheel, noticing that her fingernails had dug tiny crescents into the vinyl covering, and that her wrists were taut from the strain of her grip. She had very strong fingers and wrists; for the past five years she’d been learning how to rock climb. Making a deliberate effort to relax, she blew out her breath in a long sigh, checked in the rearview mirror and engaged the clutch. No point in sitting here. She’d come this far, she’d at least follow through on the rest of her plan.

      If you could call it a plan.

      As she pulled back on the highway, she noticed that the bank of clouds to the southeast had lowered over the hills, the edges of the clouds swabbed with a theatrical blend of purple and gray. Storm clouds. Then a gust riffled the water and the yachts swayed uneasily at their moorings.

      It wasn’t an omen. Of course it wasn’t.

      The Huntingdons’ address was engraved on Marnie’s mind; she’d found it, all too easily, in the phone book. Her plan, such as it was, was to drive past the house and check it out; at least that way she’d see where her child was living.

      And was she praying that a twelve-year-old girl would run out of the house just as she drove by?

      Basically, she didn’t have a plan. She’d come here because she couldn’t possibly have done otherwise. No force on earth could have kept her away. Even though she was afraid that her action would tear open old wounds better left alone.

      The Huntingdons would be wealthy; Charlotte Carstairs would have seen to that. No, Marnie had never worried about the material circumstances of the baby she had never seen. It was other concerns that had haunted her over the years. Was her daughter loved? Was she happy? Did she know she was adopted? Or did she believe that the two people bringing her up were her true parents?

      Calvin Huntingdon her real father, and Jennifer her only mother.

      Stop it, Marnie, she scolded herself. One step at a time. Check out the house first and then go from there. This is a small town; you can buy yourself a pizza at the local hangout and ask a few discreet questions about the Huntingdons. Stop for gas down the street and do the same thing there. No one can hide in a place the size of Burnham. You grew up in Conway Mills; you know all about small towns.

      As if on a signal, the sun disappeared behind the clouds, Burnham’s narrow main street darkening as if a blanket had been thrown over it. Or a shroud, she thought with a shiver of her nerves. If this were a movie, they’d be playing spooky music right now, the kind that warns you something really scary’s going to happen.

      She made it a policy to stay away from horror movies. The footsteps-coming-up-the-stairs-and-you-know-it’s-thebad-guy-with-an-ax kind of movie.

      On impulse, Marnie turned into a paved parking lot to her left, which surrounded a small strip mall and an ice-cream stand decorated with little flags that were now snapping in the wind. Spring had come early to Nova Scotia this year. The day was unseasonably warm, and Marnie adored ice cream; it was number two on her list of comfort foods, right up there with barbecued chips. A flea market was going on in the mall, so the parking lot was fairly crowded. She drew up several rows away from the ice-cream stand, grabbed her purse and hurried between the parked vehicles. In front of the stand, half a dozen girls in jeans and anoraks were arguing about their favorite flavors; Marnie’s heart gave a painful lurch, her eyes racing from one to the other of them. But they were all younger than twelve.

      She didn’t even know what her own child looked like.

      Marnie bit hard on her lip and forced herself to scan the list of flavors. Another gust rattled the striped awning, and the last of the six girls took her cone from the attendant and put down her money.

      “I’ll have a double, please,” Marnie said. “Cherry

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