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She wasn’t much of a believer in omens, but that cigarette eddying its way down watery depths until it disappeared hit close to her miserable heart.

She closed the toilet seat, sat on it, let her nerves off-leash—and cried like an abandoned baby.

When that got old, she showered and put on the plush hotel robe. Hugging herself in its soft warmth, she murmured, “At least I’m going out in style.”

The phone rang again, and she picked up, listened.

“Phylly?”

“Hey, Rusty.” It was her boss at Hot and High, the costume design and repair shop she worked for. Rusty, moving from showgirl to entrepreneur without a blink, had started the business over fifteen years ago. In the beginning it was mostly alterations and repairs, but now—with the addition of April’s talent—Rusty had moved like a caffeine-charged cheetah into design. She was a take-no-shit, leather-tough, ferociously loyal friend—the best friend an ex-showgirl like herself could have. It was Rusty who taught her to sew—a talent she never knew she had—and Rusty who’d given her a full-time job when she’d finally hung up her feathers and glitter ten years ago.

She got right to it. “A guy called for you. Said he was an old friend of yours.”

“Did he leave a name?”

“Nope. Said he wanted to surprise you. He left a number though and said to tell you all he wanted to do was talk. You want the number?”

Phyllis sucked in some air, put her hand over her thumping heart. “No.”

Silence.

“I kind of figured you wouldn’t. Besides, he sounded a little too much like that guy who made that bogus credit check. Real pushy type. And you know how I like those.” She paused, and Phylly envied her the long pull on the cigarette she heard coming down the line. “Anyway, I told him you were away on vacation—like you wanted me to—but I don’t think he bought it. He kept asking when you were coming back, and when I said I didn’t know, he wouldn’t let it go, asking for numbers, addresses, where you were, the whole bit. That’s when he gave me the number. The jerk wouldn’t get off the phone.”

“What did you do?” Phyllis fisted her hand in the lapels of the robe, drawing it tight to her throat.

“I told him to fuck off and quit wasting my valuable time.” Trust Rusty not to waste words.

“Thanks.”

“You going to tell me what this is all about?”

“I can’t . . . not until it’s over.” The less Rusty knew the better—and the safer—she’d be.

“Fair enough. God knows we’ve all got secrets. But maybe you should think about calling the cops.” She huffed a heavy exhale down the line and added, “I can’t believe I just said that.” Before Rusty went on the showgirl circuit, she was a working girl, and she had no love for the men and women in blue.

“That’s a nonstarter anyway.” Phyllis knew full well her story of theft and blackmail wouldn’t inspire the cops to work on her behalf.

“Then get the hell out of town, Phylly, and
stay
out of town until we can figure things out. Tommy will be back tomorrow, I’ll talk to him. He’ll know what to do.”

“I don’t want to bother Tommy with this, Rusty.” Tommy was Rusty’s brother, a pit boss at the Sandstone, a small casino downtown; he was all slick and slide. Phyllis had no doubt he “knew people” as he constantly claimed he did, and more than once he’d saved her showgirl ass from some stage-door creep. But this situation was beyond Tommy. And his “people.”

“He won’t mind.” A pause. “He can at least get you out of Vegas for a few days. You know he’s got a thing for you.”

Exactly.
“I can’t leave Cornie.” The minute she said it, she knew she was wrong—and she knew what was really driving her nuts about this whole rotten situation.
She’d have to leave Cornelia
—and not for just a few days hiding out on The Strip. Christ, what was wrong with her brain? Staying in Vegas, she was putting her daughter at risk. She had to leave, she had no choice.
Why in hell had she taken that damn journal? God, she was as bad as Victor.

“You can’t
not
leave Cornelia. What if this idiot decides to use her to get to you? Have you thought of that?”

She just had, and the thought congealed the blood in her veins.

When she didn’t answer, Rusty went on. “Look, here’s what you do. Call Cornie and tell her to stay a few days longer with April—”

“What do you mean April? She’s supposed to be with you.” She felt her eyes widen, heard her voice rise.

“She hopped not long after you took off, called me from Portland. Said if you called ‘not to worry—that she was with April. I think she’s picked up on the fact you’re in trouble.”

Phyllis’s heart plunged to her stomach. “You should have told me, Rusty . . . Jesus, she’s only fifteen. I’m going to skin her.”

“Fifteen going on a hundred. And I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t find you myself for a couple of days—how many damn hotels have you been in?” She sounded pissed, and Phylly didn’t blame her. “Besides,” Rusty went on, “what did you expect her to do? You disappearing like you did, leaving that dumb note about you being away for some . . .
business
reason. You seriously underestimate that kid, Phylly. You should have talked to her—at the very least called her sometime in the last few days.” She paused. “You thought she’d think you’d taken off with some guy, right?”

Rusty was right, and scared as she was, Phylly didn’t want her daughter to think a man was involved in her leaving—again. Cornie had seen enough of her mother’s “stupid- man-stuff,” as she called it, to last her lifetime. “I had to take off, and I just thought the less said, the better.” Phylly went on, “You know how Cornie is. A whiff of trouble, and she’d have stuck to me like glue.” She twirled a piece of her long pale blond hair. “I thought she’d be okay, that she’d stay with you until I got back. Like we planned.” She hadn’t called her because she didn’t know what to say, and she sure as hell hadn’t called April. She was too damned . . . embarrassed. Phylly figured what she had to do, she had to do alone.

“Teenagers don’t do plans, you know that. Plus she’s scared. Hell, I’m scared. And damn it, you should quit playing Joan of Arc and call her.”

“But she’s okay? You said she called from April’s.” At least Cornie had gone to the right place—and the right person.

Portland, Oregon, was a weird place for April to have gone to study theater and costume design, but she said she’d follow Blanche Reevis—with her string of costume design awards—anywhere to study under her, and Portland, Oregon, of all the damn places in the world, was that anywhere, for the next few months. April was so damn smart, a cool plan-ahead type—exactly the qualities Phylly needed right now. She wished she could run to her like Cornie had. Would have, if it weren’t for her tangle of lies, lies April would despise her for. As far as April knew, Phylly’s relationship with Victor had ended that awful night.

If she knew what I did
 . . .

“Yes, she called. She’s fine.” Rusty said. “The girl did the right thing, going to April’s. Like the right thing for you is to find a safe place as far away from Vegas as you can get—and stay there until this guy, whoever the hell he is, gives up.”

He won’t give up. He’ll never give up.
But, damn it, Rusty was right about Cornelia. It was best she stay with April. There was only one teeny-tiny problem. “I don’t have anywhere to go, Rusty.” Christ, she sounded like a kicked puppy.
Get a grip, Phylly.

“Then find a place. And find it fast. Somewhere you can figure your way out of whatever mess you’re in.” She stopped, spoke to someone in the office, then, “And when you get there, call me, April, and Cornie. You got that?”

“I got it.” Phyllis hung up the phone, closed her eyes, but no matter how hard she thought about it, she didn’t know a single soul outside of Las Vegas.

She was almost forty-eight years old and she had nowhere to go and no one to go to—

Except. . .

No, she couldn’t. Jesus, she’d broken his heart—or so he’d said.

She walked to the window, pulled back the heavy drapes and again stared down at the glitter and crowds. What had he said, fifteen years ago, when she’d refused to leave Vegas with him? “When you’re in trouble, don’t take it to the ones you love, baby, take it to the one who loves you—and that will always be me. I won’t come to you, but I’ll be there if you need me.”

The
there
he’d referred to was a place on the west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada. Nothing between his house on the beach and the shores of Asia except a few thousand miles of the northern Pacific Ocean—or so he said. She’d never seen it.

Noah Bristol had only been in Vegas a couple of months, doing some special speeches or seminars at the university—and when he wasn’t doing that they’d been in bed.

God, it was a sexual firestorm.

She’d never forgotten him; her most unlikely lover, a botanist with a hundred initials behind his name, who’d just sold a successful business, bought himself fifty acres in the middle of nowhere, and was about to turn himself into what he called a wilderness gardener.

She had no idea how any of his life or his plans turned out. All she remembered was the choice she’d had at the end of their too-short time together: Life with him in the cool green of a remote rain forest or a life without him wearing feathers and tights under the hot gold lights of Las Vegas. Noah was ten times smarter than her, two inches shorter, and the most magnetic man she’d ever met.

And a spectacular lover . . .

She’d been thirty-three, still in good shape—dancing and strutting-wise—and unwilling to give up what she still thought was an exciting and glamorous life, so she’d turned him down. Phyllis never regretted her decision, but in the thrall of a sleepless night, she’d often revisited it. In the end, she’d done the right thing, she was sure of it. A showgirl and a wilderness gardener? Glitter and dirt. It would never have worked.

Fifteen years is a very long time . . . He was probably married with ten kids. What if he wasn’t? What if what he’d said to her was true:
I love you, Phyllis Worth. I’ll never love anyone as much-or in quite the same way again.

He’d written her a couple of times, but she hadn’t read or answered his letters. Too confusing, too much to say, too many weird secrets she didn’t want to share. And, God knew, words weren’t exactly her thing. He’d stopped writing—which was understandable, and just as well.

But there’d been that postcard he’d sent her—just a couple of years ago:
Still here. Still remembering. Love to see you again.
And signed
Always, Noah.
She’d shown it to Rusty.

The window in front of her became a screen, playing a bad movie: She saw her ignorant, uneducated self, walking into his arms. A lost gypsy, asking to stay, even as she tried to decide what to say to him, what to tell him, about all those pesky teeny-tiny secrets of hers. Like how she was a thief, kidnapper, and blackmailer—and how she’d had his daughter nine months after he’d left and never bothered to tell him—because she’d thought it would complicate her life.
Her stupid life.

She sighed to release the building tension in her chest and leaned her forehead against the window.

What the hell . . . she might as well stay true to herself, be the selfish bitch she always was. It wouldn’t be hard to find out if he was married. After the postcard, she’d checked on where he lived. Tofino was a micro-town. A village on the shores of the end of the earth.

The perfect place to hide.

All she had to do was keep her big mouth shut. And that she knew how to do.

She went to the desk, made an airline reservation—and arranged a car rental. All they’d need was a signature when she got there. No problem.

And she’d keep her promise to Rusty; she’d call April and Cornie when she got . . . wherever the hell she was going.

Chapter 4

“What the hell’s the matter with him? Doesn’t he get it?”

“Watch your language, Cornie,” April said, “or I’ll get out the soap.” April looked around the clean but ugly motel room. “And chances are good the soap in that bathroom”— she gestured with her fork to a closed door—“will peel the skin from your tongue.”

“Promises, promises.” Cornie bit into her hamburger, chowing down as if she were a logger after a third foodless shift.

“And stop with the smart-mouth. I’m tired and cranky, which means I’m likely to do you physical harm, if only to lower my stress level.” Stress caused by being back in the city of her earliest memories—none of them good. A city she never expected to see again. Didn’t want to see again. Three days here—in this miserable motel—first trying to find Joseph Worth, then waiting, after he’d ushered her out of his office, for him to return her calls. It was too long, both time-wise and emotion-wise.

She and Cornie sat opposite each other at the Formica-topped table under the motel room window of their second floor room. As a fifties retro piece the table was worth more than the room. The view from the window showed a setting sun and a half-empty parking lot, its concrete riddled with oil stains and fissures. Not the most scenic view Seattle had to offer.

At least it wasn’t raining.

April remembered the Seattle rain, remembered watching it pound and bounce on the torn pavement in the alley below the ratty apartment she’d lived in with her mother after her grandmother died—a grandmother she barely remembered. Her mother she remembered too well. And Gus, her brother. She’d never forget Gus. For a long time, she’d blamed him for what happened, until she was old enough to understand how young he was, how powerless he’d have been to stop them from taking her away.

She stared out the window, touched her hand to the knot in her chest.

History. Ancient, non-revisable history.

April had learned some things living with Phyllis Worth: Life was about forward movement and there was no going back, not to men, not to family, not to a place. You learned to forget and you learned to look out for yourself, because no one else would—or could.