LITMIR.BIZ

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book unique. Thanks, Nan and John.

      Of course, there are a raft of other people who contributed. My agent, Robin Rue, is at the top of the list as she is forever encouraging as well as fun as all get out, and also the staff at Kensington for their patience, creativity and support.

      On the home front, I have my ace helpers, Matthew Crose, Michael Crose, and Niki Wilkins, as well as Marilyn Katcher and Kathy Okano, Roz Noonan, and Alexis Harrington, who all played a part in getting this book on the shelves (or in keeping me sane!).

      Prologue

      Bayside Hospital

       San Francisco, California

      Room 316

      Friday, February 13

      NOW

      They think I’m going to die.

      I hear it in their whispered words.

      They think I can’t hear them, but I can, and I’m listening to every single syllable they utter.

      “No!” I want to scream. “I’m alive. I’m not giving up. I will fight back.”

      But I can’t speak.

      Can’t utter one damned word.

      My voice is stilled, just as my eyes won’t open. Try as I might, I can’t lift the lids.

      All I know is that I’m lying in a hospital bed, and I know that I’m barely alive. I hear the whispers, the comments, the soft-soled shoes on the floor. Everyone thinks I’m in a coma, unable to hear them, to respond, but I know what’s going on. I just can’t move, can’t communicate. Somehow, I have to let them know. My condition is bad, they claim. I understand the terms ruptured spleen, broken pelvis, concussion, brain trauma, but, damn it, I can hear them! I feel the stretch of skin at the back of my hand where the IV pulls; smell the scents of perfume, medicine, and resignation. The stethoscope is ice cold, the blood pressure cuff too tight, and I try like hell to show some sign that I’m aware, that I can feel. I try to move, just lift a finger or let out a long moan, but I can’t.

      It scares me to death.

      I’m hooked up to machines that monitor my heartbeat and breathing and God only knows what else. Not that it does any good. All the high-tech machines that are tracking body functions aren’t providing the hospital staff with any hope or clue that I know what’s going on.

      I’m trapped in my body, and it’s a living hell.

      Once again I strain…concentrating to raise the index finger of my right hand, to point at whoever next enters the room. Up, I think, raise the tip up off the bedsheets. The effort is painful…so hard.

      Isn’t anyone watching the damned monitor? I must be registering an elevated pulse, an accelerated heart rate, some damn thing!

      But no.

      All that effort. Wasted.

      Worse yet, I’ve heard the gossip; some of the nurses think I would be better off dead…but they don’t know the truth.

      I hear footsteps. Heavier than the usual. And the vague scent of lingering cigar smoke. The doctor! He’s been in before.

      “Let’s take a look, shall we?” he says to whomever it is who’s accompanied him, probably the nurse with the cold hands and cheery, irritating voice.

      “She’s still not responsive.” Sure enough, the chipper one. “I haven’t seen any positive change in her vitals. In fact…well, see for yourself.”

      What does she mean? And why does her voice sound so resigned? Where’s the fake, peppy inspiration in her tone?

      “Hmmm,” the doctor says in his baritone voice. Then his hands are on me. Gently touching and poking, lifting my eyelid and shining a harsh beam directly into my lens. It’s blinding, and surely my body will show some response. A blink or flinch or…

      “Looks like you’re right,” he says, turning off the light and backing away from the bed. “She’s declining rapidly.”

      No! That’s wrong! I’m here. I’m alive. I’m going to get better!

      I can’t believe what I’m hearing, and should be hyperventilating, should be going into cardiac arrest at the very words. Can’t you see that I’m stressing? Don’t the damned monitors show that I’m alive and aware and that I want to live? Oh God, how I want to live!

      “The family’s been asking,” the nurse prods. “About how long she has.”

      My family? They’ve already put me in the grave? That can’t be right! I don’t believe it. I’m still alive, for God’s sake. How did I come to this? But I know. All too vividly I can remember every moment of my life and the events leading up to this very second.

      “Doctor?” the nurse whispers.

      “Tell them twenty-four hours,” he says solemnly. “Maybe less.”

      Chapter 1

      Four Weeks Earlier

      Click!

      The soft noise was enough to wake Eugenia Cahill. From her favorite chair in the sitting room on the second floor of her manor, she blinked her eyes open. Surprised that she’d dozed off, she called out for her granddaughter. “Cissy?” Adjusting her glasses, she glanced at the antique clock mounted over the mantle as gas flames quietly hissed against the blackened ceramic logs. “Cissy, is that you?”

      Of course it was. Cissy had called earlier and told her that she’d be by for her usual weekly visit. She was to bring the baby with her…but the call had been hours ago. Cissy had promised to be by at seven, and now…well, the grandfather clock in the foyer was just pealing off the hour of eight in soft, assuring tones. “Coco,” Eugenia said, eyeing the basket where her little white scruff of a dog was snoozing, not so much as lifting her head. The poor thing was getting old too, already losing teeth and suffering from arthritis. “Old age is a bitch,” Eugenia said and smiled at her own little joke.

      Why hadn’t Cissy climbed the stairs to this, the living area, where Eugenia spent most of her days? “I’m up here,” she said loudly, and when there was no response, she felt the first tiny niggle of fear, which she quickly dismissed. An old woman’s worries, nothing more. Yet she heard no footsteps rushing up the stairs, no rumble of the old elevator as it ground its way upward from the garage. Pushing herself from her Queen Anne recliner, she grabbed her cane and felt a little dizzy. That was unlike her. Then she walked stiffly to the window, where, through the watery glass, she could view the street and the city below. Even with a bank of fog slowly drifting across the city, the vista was breathtaking from most of the windows of this old home—a house that had been built on the highest slopes of Mt. Sutro in San Francisco at the turn of the century, well, the turn of the last century. The old brick, mortar, and shake Craftsman-style manor rose four full stories above a garage tucked into the hillside and backed up to the grounds of the medical school. From this room on the second story, Eugenia was able to see the bay on a clear day and had spent more than her share of hours watching sailboats cut across the green-gray waters.

      But sometimes this old house in Parnassus Heights seemed so empty. An ancient fortress with its electronic gates and overgrown gardens of rhododendrons and ferns. The estate backed up to the vast grounds of the university’s medical center yet still sometimes felt isolated from the rest of the world.

      Oh, it wasn’t as if she were truly alone. She had servants, of course, but the family had, it seemed, abandoned her.

      For God’s sake, Eugenia, buck up. You are not some sorry old woman. You choose to live here, as a Cahill, as you always have.

      Had she imagined the click of a lock downstairs? Dreamed it, perhaps? These days, though she was loath to admit it, her dreams often permeated her waking consciousness, and she had a deep, unmentioned fear that she might be in the early stages of dementia. Dear Lord, she hoped

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