Six weeks ago, a simple trip to her neighborhood pharmacy had turned into a nightmare. She’d walked into the middle of a robbery. She never even saw the man who shot her in the head and left her for dead. She’d survived, but some of her senses had not. She was dealing with short-term memory loss and a tendency to stagger. Even though she’d been told the problems were most likely temporary, she waged a daily battle with depression. Her parents had been killed in a car wreck when she was twenty-one. They’d owned the apartment building in which she had grown up, so finances were never going to be a problem. But she was alone. There were no aunts. No cousins. No grandparents. Except for a few friends—and most recently her boyfriend, Dominic Tucci, who lived in the apartment right above hers—she was alone. Her doctor kept reminding her that she should be grateful to be alive, and on one level, she knew he was right. But he wasn’t living in her shoes. If she’d been anywhere else but at that pharmacy when the robbery happened, then she wouldn’t have died twice on the way to the hospital. She wouldn’t be mistaking salt for sugar. She wouldn’t be missing a head of hair and staggering like a drunk when she stood up.
Instead of being grateful that she’d survived, she couldn’t quit thinking of what she’d lost. But that wasn’t the end of her troubles. On top of everything else, something strange was happening inside her head. She’d begun to hear odd things. Sounds, not voices—at least, she didn’t think it was voices. It sounded more like the distant sound of rapids—a rush of wind and water inside her head that, when it came, blocked out everything around her. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was frightening, and it was driving her crazy. The blank moments, as she called them, even had a rhythm. First came that sound, then a cold sweat, then panic with no reason. Part of her feared it was the beginning of an emotional breakdown. And part of her feared it wasn’t—that it was going to turn out to be a permanent souvenir of her resurrection. She was twenty-six years old and living the life of a senior citizen with dementia, and tonight was living proof.
Here she was, alone in her apartment on a Saturday night, eating ice cream and watching the news like some old maid. All she needed was a cat. Frustrated with herself and the situation as it stood, she stabbed her spoon into the mound of mocha fudge and then scooped up another bite, letting it melt on her tongue while she upped the sound on the TV and watched Pat Sajak bantering with Vanna White. A few moments later, an announcer broke into “Wheel of Fortune” with a special bulletin.
“This just in. Police are on the scene of a kidnapping that occurred only hours ago at The Dakota. Molly Dane, the five-year-old daughter of one of Hollywood’s blockbuster stars, Lyla Dane, was taken by force from the family apartment. At this time, they have yet to receive a ransom demand. The housekeeper was seriously injured during the abduction and is, at the present time, in surgery. Police are hoping to be able to talk to her once she regains consciousness. In the meantime, we are going now to a press conference with Lyla Dane.”
Horrified, Nicole stilled as the cameras went live to where the actress was speaking before a bank of microphones. “I thought I had problems,” she muttered, instantly ashamed of herself and her attitude. When the woman began to speak, Nicole leaned forward, absently resting the bowl of ice cream in her lap. The shock and terror in Lyla Dane’s voice were physically painful to watch, but even though Nicole kept upping the volume, the sound continued to fade. Just when she was beginning to think something was wrong with her set, the broadcast suddenly switched from the Dane press conference to what appeared to be footage of the kidnapping.
The clip began inside the apartment. When the front door suddenly flew back against the wall and four men rushed in, Nicole gasped. Horrified, she quickly realized that this must have been caught on the Danes’ security camera inside. As Nicole continued to watch, a small Asian woman, who she guessed was the housekeeper, rushed forward in an effort to keep them out. When one of the men hit her in the face with his gun, Nicole moaned. The violence was too reminiscent of what she’d lived through to ignore. Sick to her stomach, she fisted her hands against her belly, wishing it was over, but unable to tear her gaze away. When the maid dropped to the carpet, the same man followed with a vicious kick to her midsection that lifted her off the floor. “Oh, my God,” Nicole said. When blood began to pool beneath the maid’s head, she started to cry. As the clip played on, the four men split up in different directions. The camera caught one running down a long marble hallway, then disappearing into a room. Moments later, he reappeared, carrying a little girl, who Nicole assumed was Molly Dane. The child was wearing a pair of red pants and a white turtleneck sweater, and her hair was partially blocking her abductor’s face as he carried her down the hall. She was kicking and screaming in his arms, and when he slapped her, it elicited an agonized screech that brought the other three running. Nicole watched in horror as one of them ran up and put his hand over Molly’s face. Seconds later, she went limp. One moment they were in the foyer, then they were gone. Nicole jumped to her feet, then staggered drunkenly. The bowl of ice cream that had been in her lap fell at her feet, splattering glass and melting ice cream everywhere.
The picture on the screen abruptly switched from the kidnapping to what Nicole assumed was a rerun of Lyla Dane’s plea for her daughter’s safe return, but she was too numb to really pay attention. Before she could think what to do next, the doorbell rang. Startled by the unexpected sound, she shakily swiped at her tears and took a step forward. She didn’t feel the glass shards piercing her feet until she took the second step. At that point, sharp pains shot through her foot. She gasped, then looked down in confusion. Her ice-cream-spattered legs looked as if she’d been running through mud, and she was standing in broken glass and melting mocha fudge, while a thin ribbon of blood seeped out from beneath her toes. “Oh, no,” she mumbled, then stifled a second moan of pain. The doorbell rang again. She shivered, then clutched her head in confusion. “Just a minute!” she yelled, trying to sidestep the rest of the debris as she limped to the door. When she looked through the peephole, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or regretful. It was Dominic, and, as usual, she was a mess...
~~~
Nicole Masters was feeling sorry for herself, but many would say she had a right to do so... She had been caught, by accident, being some place she wished she had not been and getting shot in the head for being there! How cruel fate was to have arrived at her pharmacy just when it was being robbed! Must we be forever caught in the midst of criminals, with guns, that have no concern for anybody but their own greed?!
She had resorted to treating her anger with her favorite--ice cream! Having each spoonful melt on her tongue, deliciously relaxing her mind to its wonderful diversion... At least until, a news item broke into her concentration. She stopped to listen, even stopping eating, as a clip inside the apartment of where a child was being kidnapped was shown...
Except there had been no clip of the actual event on the news... And, soon, Nicole was in the midst of a major crime--again! But, this time, she was watching as the kidnapping of a child actually took place! How?
And...Why?...
Molly Dane, daughter of a major screen star had been kidnapped! As Nicole watched, she began to feel a little ashamed of herself. After all, she was alive, and successfully recuperating a major surgery, while a young child had been taken by four men, one of them cruelly treating her as he pulled her out of her room, moving quickly to join the others and leave, after also hurting the housekeeper, who was now in the hospital... The maid had been slapped in the face hard enough to fall and then be kicked by her assailant until blood flowed around her...
Dominic Tucci lived right above her in an apartment where he had come to love Nicole greatly. Now, though, he was worried because she seemed to think that she was no longer worthy to be involved with him. Fortunately, he didn't agree and had come to visit her, only to disrupt her watching the news and her dropping her ice cream and then stepping on the glass as she tried to get to the door. He quickly picked her up and then found the first aid box to clean and wrap the latest bodily problem she was facing...
And while he was cleaning up the broken glass, they began talking about the kidnapping, until she began to talk about the four men who had taken her. Dominick stopped her--there had been no tape available and the video had not been part of the news program... Nicole knew what she had seen was real, however!
And she was willing to share everything she saw to help the police!
Could her head injury have resulted in some type of psychic ability developing? So she tried to see something more, but discovered it apparently didn't work that way... Until around noon, she could feel the same sounds that had been heard right before her first, apparent, vision. What would she see now?
The music playing on the stereo in the other room began to fade, and she felt the skin of her face tightening. It was happening again. She took a deep breath and leaned against the cabinet, waiting for the rush of wind. It came, and with it came another vision. One moment she was pouring soup into a pan, and the next she was watching a short, stocky man walking toward her. Thinking she was about to be attacked, it took her a few moments to realize that the man wasn’t coming toward her. In fact, he wasn’t even in her apartment. He was in the same room she’d seen before, and he was approaching Molly Dane. Somehow she was seeing through Molly’s eyes—seeing everything Molly was seeing. Then the man spoke. “Here, kid…you gotta eat. I brought you a Happy Meal. It’s got a toy in it and everything.” Nicole felt Molly’s despair as the man shoved the food in her hands. “Eat it!” he demanded. In what Nicole could only call an out-of-body experience, she and Molly took the food to a table. She saw the little girl’s hands trembling as she opened the small box and took out the plastic-wrapped toy. Without looking up, she set it aside. Someone in the other room called out, “Benny, come here!” Nicole saw Molly look up. The man, who Nicole now realized was one of the two men she’d seen at the kidnapping, glanced at Molly, then walked into the other room. As soon as he was gone, Molly ran to a window. It was boarded up, but she thrust her little fingers into a crack and pulled, trying to loosen the boards. Nicole winced as she saw the child lose her grip. When she pulled back, her fingers came away with splinters. Molly grimaced with pain but had the foresight not to cry out. Instead, she clenched her fists, then glanced over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone before peeking through the crack. Nicole felt Molly’s helplessness and despair. Nicole’s heart skipped a beat as Molly’s gaze went from the graffiti-sprayed wall of the building across the way to the street signs at the corner. “Oh, God…oh, God…look at them, baby. Look at the signs,” Nicole whispered. And Molly did. Her gaze went straight to the corner as if she’d heard Nicole’s long-distance plea. East 149th Street and Morris Avenue. Nicole read the names twice, locking them firmly in her mind as Molly suddenly spun and headed for the table. She was tearing into the paper around her hamburger when Benny came back into the room. Benny was staring at Molly for what seemed like a very long time. Then suddenly he shook his head and looked away. At that point Nicole panicked. The thought ran through her mind that they weren’t going to let Molly Dane go. Once the money was transferred, they were going to kill her. She had to tell Dominic and the detectives. And just like that, the vision was gone. She glanced at the clock. It was less than an hour before the transfer had to be made. If they didn’t find Molly before noon, it would be too late.
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Though less than 100 pages, this taut paranormal romantic suspense will keep you interested through each page that brings you closer and closer to the edge as you work along with the wonderful characters to bring a young girl back home! I admit that I was disappointed that it wasn't longer, wanting to learn more about how one criminal act is translated into the closeout of a different criminal act, involving a child... I enjoyed, especially, Dominick who work selflessly to help Nicole not only deal with her own misfortune but to let her completely know that she was his chosen, and nothing was going to break that bond... Highly recommended!
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