411 on Books, Authors & Publishing

CHAPTER ONE

Sandra Leigh hadn’t felt the phantom pain for several years—the perception of discomfort in a limb that was no longer there. But after receiving a phone call from her sister two weeks ago, the ghostly ache of her severed left ring finger had returned.

Hey, Sissy. William and I are renting a house with Emalyn for the weekend. We’d love for you to join us, Carrie had said in her normal chipper tone.

Was the pain telling her something? Perhaps a warning that she wasn’t ready for a weekend excursion with her family just yet. Should she have declined the invitation and stayed hidden in the mountains of West Virginia, at the Compound, where she was safe from… well, everything since the attack?

Now, sitting in the rear seat of her brother-in-law’s Toyota Sequoia, heading to the rental home Carrie had booked for their weekend gathering, these questions floated through her mind as she tried soothing the tingling sensation away from what remained of her finger.

Her brother-in-law, William, was driving, and Carrie, her elder sister of ten years, sat in the passenger seat. Beside Sandra, her fifteen-year-old niece, Emalyn, scrolled through her phone.

What were you thinking, Sandra? You’re not ready for this.

The suture scar across the tip of her nub wiggled like a worm on a hook as if confirming her thoughts.

“I’m so glad you decided to come, Sissy,” Carrie said, turning in the passenger seat, her Carolina-blue eyes twinkling with excitement, looking forward to their weekend.

This was the first time they had done anything together as a family since he attacked her while on the way to Carrie’s house.

West Chester University, where she was studying music education, focusing on piano, had ordered all students and staff to return home in March 2020, fearing the threat of spreading COVID-19.

Nearly an hour into her two-hour drive, the driver’s-side rear tire of her Toyota Corolla blew, leaving Sandra stranded in the middle of nowhere. Not knowing how to change a tire, she contacted AAA on her cell phone, feeling lucky to have gotten a signal at least. The operator told her they were sending someone out to make the repairs.

Five minutes later, the swirling yellow lights of an approaching tow truck cut the night. Relieved, knowing the tire would be fixed and she’d soon be on her way, Sandra had gotten out to greet the repairman.

But when the tow truck door opened with a rusty reeeek, and his snake-skin boots hit the frozen ground, Sandra felt a shift in the air that raised the gooseflesh from her toes to her scalp and caused a fear-hardening of her nipples.

Something wasn’t right.

“You the one who called about the flat tire?”

“Me too,” Sandra replied unenthusiastically, trying to suppress the horrible memory of that night unfolding in her mind.

Carrie smiled reassuringly as if she understood Sandra’s hesitation to participate in the family trip.

You don’t.

The sunlight breaking through the dense forest canopy caught Carrie’s gold wedding band and cast a circulating light that made Sandra squint. The tingling sensation intensified as if a thousand tiny needles were simultaneously jabbing the tip of a finger that was no longer there—a memento of their night together.

Mixed feelings of irritation, envy, and sadness tightened her chest. She’d never be able to wear a wedding ring—not like an ordinary wife with all ten fingers, not like Carrie could.

Averting her gaze to the Mudmaster GG1000-1A5 watch strapped to her left wrist, Sandra saw it was almost noon. They had been in the car for about two hours. The watch’s compass told her they were heading northwest to Little Hope, Pennsylvania.

The ride had been uneventful and quiet, which Sandra was thankful for. She didn’t want to discuss what had happened, and she especially didn’t want to discuss her life over the last five years living and working at the Compound.

But you’re going to have to. You know that.

She did. The subject would come up this weekend. How could it not? It was the elephant in the room.

“Mom.” Emalyn spoke for the first time in over an hour. Sitting forward, she pushed her round glasses up the bridge of her nose and fidgeted in her seat. “How much longer until we get there?”

“Five more minutes, hon,” Carrie replied in a teasing, breathy mom tone.

She winked at Sandra playfully.

Emalyn rolled her dark eyes and sat back in the seat with a sigh, blowing a tuft of her curly brown hair out of her face. She scrolled through her phone several times before tiring of whatever had held her undivided attention for most of the ride and shifting her bored gaze to the passing forest.

Emalyn appeared very attached to her phone. Sandra wondered why Carrie, an elementary school teacher, wasn’t putting a stop to it. She had to know phone addiction was a real thing, something Sandra had learned from experience once she gave up using one herself.

In Sandra’s five-year absence, Emalyn had turned from a chubby-cheek ten-year-old child who loved drawing and coloring, chicken nuggets with ketchup, and Percy Jackson into a budding young woman she didn’t recognize and no longer knew. Her niece had spoken little during the drive, and the space between them had filled with an uncomfortable heaviness, like sitting next to a stranger on a tour bus.

Hell, you are practically strangers at this point.

This bothered Sandra. She had been close with her niece, nearly inseparable, before leaving everything—family, friends, school, her life, what was left post-attack—behind to join the Compound.

According to Carrie, Emalyn’s recollection of the loving, caring, always-there Aunt Sonnie—a nickname given to her when Emalyn was learning to say Aunt Sandy—was vague. To expect Emalyn to welcome Sandra back into her life as if nothing had changed between them was unrealistic.

And everything had changed. Sandra knew that happy, fun-loving, liberal college girl who was so optimistic about her future, looking forward to maybe playing piano for a symphony (if she was lucky) or teaching in a classroom like Carrie (if she wasn’t), had died that cold March night along the side of the road.

Can’t play or teach piano with only nine fingers.

She took a deep breath that rattled in her throat and looked out the window, hoping to quell the thoughts from her mind along with the irritating phantom pains. A metal For Sale sign at the mouth of a stone driveway caught her attention. A magnetic SOLD! was stuck across the front.

The colonial house sat partially hidden in dense woods about fifty feet from the main highway. The home wasn’t quite dilapidated, but it needed serious rehab. She wondered how much the buyer had paid for it, knowing the work needed to make it livable.

Twenty-five yards further up the road, she saw another For Sale sign with another magnetic SOLD! across the front. This home was a double-wide trailer about to fold in on itself. Then, across the road, she saw yet another For Sale sign by a dirt driveway. This property was also marked SOLD!, though the house, a rancher, appeared in better shape than the previous two.

Why were so many properties sold on this stretch of the highway? Had the pandemic hit the area hard? It was possible. Many people had lost their homes while the world was shut down.

“You said this place was outside of a town called Little Hope, but you never said how you found it,” Sandra said, looking away from the rancher as they passed.

“Online,” Carrie replied, sweeping a long strand of auburn hair behind her ear. “A website called R&R.”

“R&R?”

“Rest and Relax,” Carrie said. “It’s like Airbnb, but the site focuses on families looking for houses big enough to vacation together.”

Hearing that Carrie had used a website to rent the house gave Sandra the heebie-jeebies. Corporations couldn’t be trusted to keep personal information from falling into the wrong hands.

“William chose the house. I can’t wait for you to see it, Sissy.”

Carrie’s blue eyes flicked to her husband with tender admiration. Even after fifteen years of marriage, her sister still swooned over William. Carrie’s wedding ring caught the sunlight again, pulling Sandra’s eyes back to it. The tip of her ghost finger twitched. She rubbed the nub, reminding her of its absence… of everything he had taken from her.

“I thought if there were any chance of getting you to come along this weekend, it would have to be somewhere remote, private,” William said, shifting his dark brown eyes onto Sandra in the rearview mirror. At forty-seven, he was strikingly handsome, with short gray hair and a stubble of matching beard growth that she wasn’t used to seeing him with.

“We’ll be alone up there, surrounded by woods with hiking trails.” He glanced at her in the mirror again and smiled.

Was he looking for her approval? A pat on the back for thinking of her and her growing distrust of civilization since the attack? Not knowing how to respond, Sandra just nodded.

A ding on William’s cell phone caused him to shift his gaze to the center console, where his mobile rested in the cup holder. The GPS map was open on the screen, leading the way to their rental home.

“Can you check that?” William asked.

“I am happy you decided to join us, Sissy,” Carrie said again, picking William’s phone up.

How Carrie kept saying Sissy rubbed Sandra the wrong way. There wasn’t necessarily a fakeness in her cadence—it was what Carrie had always called her, but now it felt forced, like her sister was tiptoeing around something.

Is she wondering if I’m… mentally stable?

By the fall of 2020, while the rest of the world was worrying if they were next on the virus’s hitlist, Sandra had grown increasingly paranoid, convinced he was coming for her.

He was still out there, free to roam the desolate highways looking for other stranded females. His essence had invaded her like a malignant organism—a constant presence in her mind, leaving her to wonder why she’d been chosen to be his victim as if she were picked from some fucked-up lottery drawn by the devil.

She had quit college in the spring and had gone completely dark by that summer, deleting her social media accounts, closing her emails, and dropping her phone carrier so he couldn’t track her down using the phone’s GPS.

She didn’t know if he had the skills to hack into her digital life, but she couldn’t take that chance, and she didn’t trust Facebook, Google, or Verizon to keep her personal information safe from a savvy and determined psychopath looking to hunt her down. She even considered changing her name for an extra measure of protection.

This consuming obsession, which had caused her to lock herself away in the guest room of her sister’s house with the shades drawn, had finally led Sandra to seek professional help to deal with the emotional fallout of the attack. She couldn’t deal with the mental torment and the fear of him for the rest of her life.

Using Carrie’s laptop (so she didn’t leave a digital footprint of her own), she started an online search for therapy centers. That’s when Sandra had stumbled across what she knew immediately was her salvation.

The Compound—an unconventional rehabilitation center in the hills of West Virginia operated by ex-Navy SEAL Joel Conrad.

When she told her family of her plans to join the Compound, they objected to what they considered her rash decision. Janis, her mother, was certain the Compound was some militia group looking to overthrow the government to keep then-President Trump in power, which Sandra found asinine but something her faux-liberal-minded, CNN-watching mother would say and believe.

Carrie and William begged her not to leave, offering to let her live with them and pay for therapy for as long as needed. But she couldn’t stay. If she did, she risked herself, and more importantly, her family’s lives, positive that when he found her, he’d kill all of them.

Carrie dropped the phone into the cup holder, snapping Sandra back to reality. She shifted in her seat uncomfortably and felt the Smith &Wesson Model 442 revolver tucked into the rear of her pants press against her spine.

She’d never be helpless to defend herself again.

“Everything okay?” William asked with a concerned glance.

“It was Devin.” Carrie shook her head, frustrated. “He said they got hung up but are on their way.”

William had a twenty-three-year-old son from a previous marriage. From her chat with Carrie about the trip, Sandra knew that Devin and his girlfriend were also joining them for the weekend.

She didn’t know the girlfriend’s name and didn’t care enough to ask. She wasn’t planning on spending time with them anyway. She had other priorities this weekend, like rekindling her relationship with her sister. And especially with Emalyn.

It was why Sandra had decided to come along, despite her fears, the anxiety running the gamut, and the persistent phantom pains. The attack hadn’t just affected her life but the lives of those around her, too.

Well, except for maybe her mother, who didn’t seem too bothered by the whole ordeal. Then again, she never made that much of a fuss over anything that happened in her second daughter’s life, including when it was almost taken.

“It’s already noon. That means they won’t get here until…” Carrie trailed off.

William shook his head but didn’t say anything—the silence of a disappointed father. Carrie took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

Sandra looked out the window and saw another SOLD property, though there was no house in sight, and again found it weird that so much land had been sold off.

“Mom, I have to pee.”

“Five more—”

“Mom, I really have to go,” Emalyn whined.

“Well, you’re in luck, kiddo,” William said. “We just arrived in Little Hope.”

A one-way stone bridge was quickly approaching. Beyond it, Sandra saw a town tucked into the forest hills. A small sign on the bridge’s right side read:

WELCOME TO LITTLE HOPE.

As they crossed the bridge, Sandra glanced into the creek gully. Four scruffy-looking boys stood on the bank, watching the Sequoia enter the town with stares so unwelcoming that her nub began to thump as if it were a warning.

***

Excerpt from They Came At Night by Westley Smith. Copyright 2025 by Westley Smith. Reproduced with permission from Westley Smith. All rights reserved.

OVERTURE

“Like so many things that matter, it began with an accident.”
David Ignatius, 12/28/98

NOVEMBER, 1943. THE NIGHT TRAIN TO PARIS

Light and dark.

The bleak November landscape rushed past the train’s window. Black tree branches against the dark night sky, then a sudden flash of light. Then blackness again.

The blackout had claimed the streetlamps and cottage windows. Clair Rousseau stared out the rain-streaked glass, waiting for the next glimpse of light. A lone lantern. Car headlights tilted down, a sliver of gold beyond a cracked curtain. Sheet lightning over distant hills, a glimmer of light on water. But all she saw was the blurred, pale oval of her reflection staring back at her. Dark hair scraped back, framing huge eyes beneath winged brows, sharp cheekbones, the too-wide mouth.

No hint of the emotions flowing through her, except for the deep purple shadows beneath her eyes.

The dim, four-person compartment was cold, and she pulled her coat more tightly around her body. The seat beside her was still empty, thank God. Across from her, two German officers. One asleep, snoring loudly, his hands slack between thick gray-green uniformed knees. The other awake, a Gauloises cigarette clamped between thin lips, a jagged line of white scars marring his left cheek. The narrow fox-like face stared at her through thick round glasses and wreathes of curling blue smoke. His jacket was heavy with insignia, oak leaves, medals. Military Intelligence, she thought with a sudden chill. A high rank, SD or Abwehr. What was he thinking?

The watchful, unblinking eyes made her afraid. Like a snake’s eyes, waiting to strike. She looked away, forcing herself not to reach for her satchel, touch her identity papers for reassurance.

The carriage’s glassed door slid back and forth with an unnerving rattle as the train rocked around a bend. From the hallway came the sharp scent of burning coal, wafting back from the old steam engine several cars ahead. A cloud of steam billowed past the window like sudden fog.

She could feel the vibration beneath her, hear the rumble of the train’s wheels speeding along the tracks. The lonely call of a train whistle, echoing in the night. A quick flare of light, illuminating the rain like silver threads streaming down the window.

Light and dark. Light and dark.

Movement at the edge of her vision. A tall figure appeared in the hallway, beyond the door. Her chest tightened. Would she ever feel safe again?

A sharp crack of thunder, a sudden bright flash lighting her face.

“Mademoiselle Clair?”

Startled, her head came up. The stranger had stopped, was staring into the compartment. Across from her, the watchful German stiffened and slid pale eyes toward the voice.

Be careful.

There was something familiar about the gaunt face, the faint, questioning smile just visible above a thick woolen scarf. She stood quickly, stepping between the German and the carriage door to block the officer’s view.

“Oui,” she said softly, peering into the dim hallway. The man nodded and moved closer. Something about those gentle eyes, the arch of silver brows. Memory surged. Father Jean-Luc.

She flashed him a warning glance for silence and stepped into the train’s narrow corridor, closing the door firmly behind her. “Mon Père, is it really you?”

“Oui, ma petite, c’est moi.” The priest pulled the scarf down to offer a glimpse of his white Roman collar, then lost his smile as he gazed over her shoulder and saw the Germans. “But we cannot talk here. Come with me.”

He slipped a hand beneath her elbow and guided her to the end of the dark passageway, where an open exit door led across shifting metal plates to the train’s next car. She felt the sudden bite of night wind on her face, cold and wet with mist. Here the clatter of the train wheels was loud enough to hide their conversation.

They sheltered just inside the doorway, in the shadows, away from the rain. Outside, the countryside of France rushed by, then disappeared in a billow of black smoke. In the dim corridor, the planes of the priest’s face were lit by a tiny, flickering overhead bulb.

Light and dark. Light and dark.

The priest looked down at her, shook his head. “Little Clair Rousseau,” he murmured. “Now such a beautiful young woman. It’s been – what? – four years since we met? You were just thirteen, I think. Playing the piano in your parents’ apartment. Bach, yes? It was so beautiful, so stirring. I hope you are still playing?”

She shook her head. “You need hope to create music, Père.” She looked back toward her carriage compartment. The hallway was empty. “But I remember that day. The war was coming. You asked us to help you remove the stained-glass windows from Sainte-Chapelle. To save them from the bombing.”

“You were fearless, Clair. I remember watching you, swaying at the top of that impossibly high ladder. The morning light was coming through the stained glass, spilling over you like shimmering jewels. I’ll never forget it. I told myself, Clair means light, she is perfectly named.”

He leaned down. “And I can still see your sister, Elle – too young to help us, bien sûr – dancing around the altar.”

Her expression softened. “Elle loved to dance. It was the last happy day I can remember.” She lifted her eyes to his, took a breath. “Paris was another lifetime, Père.”

“You cannot lose hope,” he told her. “The glass pieces are in a safe place. Beauty and goodness cannot be destroyed. You will see the stained-glass windows back in Sainte-Chapelle when the war is over. I know it.”

She shook her head. “I wish I had your faith.”

“God has his plans. There is a reason we’ve met by chance on the night train to Paris.” Concern flashed in his eyes. “But you’ve been in Brittany? Dangerous times for a young woman to be traveling alone, Clair.”

She looked out at the black trees rushing past the doorway, and felt the blackness deep in her heart. “I am alone now, Père.”

“Mon Dieu. What happened?”

“My father knew that war was inevitable. Not long after we saved the glass my parents moved us from Paris to the coast near Saint-Malo to be safe. Such irony. They had no idea how dangerous Brittany would become. And then…”

She could not stop the sudden rush of tears that filled her eyes. “The Gestapo shot my father last year, in a retaliation roundup for an act of sabotage by the Resistance. He was with the Liberty Network, they had bombed a train track. He stepped forward, admitted it, hoping to save the others. But still they took thirty innocent people from our village, murdered them in the square.”

“Oh no, Clair.” The priest made a quick sign of the cross. “I am so sorry. And your mother, your sister?”

“I don’t know, Père. I was studying in Paris, I begged them to come stay with me. But Maman refused. When I returned last month to see them, the house was empty. They were just… gone. The neighbors said the Germans took them, in the night. The mayor was told they were being relocated to Poland.”

The priest paled. “Désolé. I will pray for their souls.”

Anger erupted, spilled out. “Prayers did not help my family! I have no time for prayer now. Or sorrow. Even avenging my father will have to wait. I need all my energy now to find my mother and my sister.”

He bent toward her. “I am afraid you are still too fearless for your own good. Tell me what you’re doing, little one.”

She turned once more to scan the dark hallway, then leaned closer. “I excelled in languages in my lycée studies these last years,” she whispered. “I am fluent in several languages, including German and English. I hope to find a new job, in the Hotel Majestic in Paris, where the German High Command is quartered. Then I will join the Resistance, find a way to get news of Maman and Elle. I must find them!”

He gazed down at her for a long moment, then put a hand on her shoulder.

“Perhaps I know of another way,” he murmured.

The sound of a door opening. Wavering shadows spilled into the train’s corridor. Then the red glow of a cigarette, a spiral of smoke. She froze as the German officer turned toward them.

“Find me at Èglise Saint-Gervais, in the Marais,” the priest whispered quickly. “I am with the Resistance there. You could work with me, we need someone like you to –”

A sudden terrifying screech of metal wheels. Clair felt herself thrown to the floor as the train braked, slammed to a shuddering stop. Stunned, Clair reached out, felt the still body of the priest beside her. “Mon Père…”

Shouts in German in the darkness, the clatter of heavy boots. When she raised her head she saw flashing blue lights against the night sky.

Light and dark. Light and dark.

PART 1

“An echo of the past…”
Victor Hugo

CHAPTER 1

THE PRESENT
PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, MARTHA’S VINEYARD

Light and dark.

The stage was shadowed, lit only by a handful of overhead lights. One of the lights began to flicker, a bright flash illuminating Maggie O’Shea’s face for a brief moment, then casting her into darkness.

Maggie sat at the Bechstein grand piano, marveling at the power, the responsive touch, the unique tone of the beautiful instrument. Prokofiev deserves no less, she thought.

The score propped above the keyboard was marked by penciled notations, heavy lines, arrows and slashes. Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 was the ultimate challenge for a pianist, but Maggie had chosen it because it was so emotional, so personal. So incredibly beautiful.

It has the most to say, she thought.

And, oh, she had so much she wanted to say. Always, since she’d been a young child whose bare feet did not yet reach the pedals, she had spoken through her music. Told the piano her secrets long before she told anyone else.

Her earliest memory was of being curled beneath the grand piano, listening to her mother play, surrounded – cradled – by music. Then later, sitting on the piano bench by her mother’s side. The smoothness of the keys beneath tiny fingers, the sound that seemed to magically flow from her shoulders to her fingertips. Seeing the colors, making the piano sing. Making the rest of the world disappear.

But this piece – face it, every piece lately – was giving her trouble. Something, some emotion, was just out of reach. Her mentor, the legendary pianist Gigi Donati, would say she was taking the easy way out by mastering technique but not the emotion. She could hear Gigi’s smoky, exasperated voice in the shadows. No, no, no! You are not growing, Maggie, your music is lifeless. Imagine you are kissing your lover goodbye for the last time. What do you feel? Now, again!

Maggie sighed. She had been playing the first movement for an hour, with nary a lover in sight. Without Espressivo, as Gigi would demand. She would say, You don’t know the music yet. Take the time. Grow with the music. Illuminate its secrets. Make it yours.

The light high above the stage flickered again, slipping her out of the light into darkness.

Light and dark, thought Maggie. The story of my music. The story of my life.

She closed her eyes, took a deep, shaky breath, and began to play the next phrase of music.

Look into the heart of the music, whispered Gigi from behind her. Find its light. Find its soul.

A few more chords, and suddenly Maggie’s fingers stiffened, locked, slipped off the keys. Shaking her head, she gathered the sheet music and dropped it to the bench.

I just can’t, Gigi. I know what’s wrong, why I can’t play. I just don’t know how to fix it.

But deep down, she did know. What she needed was to feel. But once again, part of her was frozen.

You will not give up, she told herself. You have so much joy waiting for you. Raising her left hand to stretch tensed tendons, the engagement ring on her finger flashed emerald in the theater lights.

The flash of emerald green in a shadowed cabin. The memory washed over her and once again she was back in the moment. She saw Michael’s face, as craggy and strong as the mountains he loved, his granite eyes locked on hers.

What are you doing, Michael?

It’s called offering you a ring, Maggie. The color of your eyes, the color of the mountains. It’s been hidden in my sock drawer for months.

I know it’s a ring. I mean… What are you doing?

Jumping off a cliff, it seems. Don’t make me get down on one knee, darlin’. I’ll never get back up.

Silver eyes blazing like a torch. Marry me, Maggie.

I… You… Oh, Love.

I’ll take that as a yes, ma’am.

She smiled. Colonel Michael Jefferson Beckett. A man who had fallen in love with her when he didn’t want to, a man she hadn’t wanted to love back.

And yet.

It just was. Like music. And right this minute he was back in those beloved mountains of his, at his cabin in Virginia’s Blue Ridge. Working on a secret project, he’d told her, with Dov, the Russian teenager in his care.

She pictured the battered, rugged face she knew so well. The quirk of his mouth, the spiky silver brows, eyes like river stones locked on her. His stillness, as if he was carved from the mountains he loved. The way he listened…

Michael, standing behind her, wrapping her naked body in a woven blanket.

Michael, beneath her in the shadowed bedroom, whispering her name against her lips while her hair fell like dark rain around his face.

She breathed out in a long sigh. It had been an emotional several months but now, finally, she was letting go of the past. Moving on. Ready to marry again. To spend the rest of her life with the Colonel, Dov and their rescue Golden, Shiloh. She had never expected this gift, this second chance at love.

She shook her head, barely recognizing the woman she’d become. For so long she’d thought of herself as a city-girl. But the small cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains was becoming her center. Her home. She heard music differently in the quiet of the mountains. Listened better.

Suddenly wanting to hear Michael’s voice, she dialed his cell. Message.

“Hey you, it’s me,” she whispered. “Call me tonight, I’ll wait up. I have so much to tell you.”

If only…

If only she didn’t have to tell Michael the secret she’d been keeping from him these past few weeks. That once again, a vicious murderer was threatening all she held dear. Dane, with his scarred, wolf-like face and mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes. The one nightmare she could not put behind her.

Because now Dane was back in her life.

+ + +

Over 4,500 miles to the East, the man who called himself Dane could not sleep. Still hours before dawn, shadows lay sharp across the tiles of the villa’s bedroom, angling from the terrace doors. Dane sat in a cushioned chair, crutches propped beside him, staring out the glass at the black Aegean far below – waiting for the sun’s light to spill over the horizon and fill the dark water with gold.

A sudden shift of the moon, and he caught his breath at his reflection in the window. All the mirrors in the villa had been shattered years ago, by his own hand. As shattered as his life. Now, caught off guard, he stared at the disfigured face of the stranger wavering in the glass.

Without warning his mind flung him back several years. He had been standing in the Kennedy Center’s Grand Foyer, his French knife secure under his tuxedo jacket, when he had caught a glimpse of himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Tall and god-like, he’d had muscles that rippled beneath the silk, a strong carved face, flowing hair the color of wheat, streaked by the Provençal sun. A diamond in his left ear, mirrored aviator glasses that hid tiger-colored eyes. His stride had been long, fast and as powerful as the Jaguar he drove.

And then he had crossed paths with Magdalena O’Shea.

First, the badly burned hand, thanks to an encounter with Magdalena’s Colonel at a Provençal abbey. He held up his right hand, now encased in a tight black glove. Then the botched plastic surgery in Italy after being forced into hiding. The scarred, distorted face, the loss of an eye. And then, months later… He looked down at his withered legs. The fall. The sickening feeling of spinning into the void. The excruciating pain that followed. The months of unbearable physical therapy.

All because of one woman. Magdalena O’Shea.

He glanced at his Rolex. Early evening in the states. Firas should have arrived in Martha’s Vineyard by now. He smiled. Until the time came, Firas would be his legs.

The image in the glass wavered, dissolved, and Dane turned away. “For death remembered should be like a mirror,” he whispered. “Who tells us life’s but breath, to trust it error.”

***

Excerpt from Echoes on the Wind by Helaine Mario. Copyright 2020 by Helaine Mario. Reproduced with permission from Helaine Mario. All rights reserved.