Chapter 1 - THE NIGHT HE RECOGNIZED MY SCARS
"You weren't supposed to survive."
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
Owen Callahan stood in the doorway of the supply room, staring at the scar above my right knee.
The cleaning solution I'd dropped was spreading across the floor.
My carbon-fiber prosthetic lay beside me, its silicone liner turned inside out.
And the most feared man in Chicago had just said something no stranger could possibly know about the night I lost my leg.
"What did you say?"
My voice barely worked.
Owen looked at my face.
Then at the prosthetic.
Then at the blood seeping through the dressing I'd pressed against my residual limb.
"November fourteenth," he repeated.
"The blue Honda."
I felt cold despite the heat inside the mansion.
"How do you know what car I was driving?"
He didn't answer.
Outside, the house continued operating as though nothing had happened. Doors opened and closed. Men spoke into phones. Somewhere down the hall, somebody laughed.
Inside the supply room, I was sitting on the floor with one leg and a stranger who knew the date of my worst nightmare.
"Answer me."
Owen looked toward the hallway.
Then closed the door behind him.
The movement made my heart pound.
"Open it."
He stopped.
"What?"
"The door. Leave it open."
For a moment, his old expression returned.
The expression of a man who wasn't accustomed to being given instructions.
Then he opened it.
He stepped back.
"All right."
I grabbed my prosthetic and pulled it closer.
"How do you know about the accident?"
Owen swallowed.
"Because I knew about the car before it crashed."
The room tilted.
I pressed one hand against the shelf beside me.
"What?"
"Your Honda was supposed to be intercepted that night."
"Intercepted?"
His jaw tightened.
"Somebody believed the driver was carrying documents that threatened my organization."
I stared at him.
I was twenty-one when the accident happened.
A college senior.
I had been driving home after studying for an engineering exam.
The police told me a pickup truck crossed into my lane.
The driver disappeared before they could identify him.
The case went nowhere.
For three years, I'd wondered whether the driver had been drunk, distracted, or simply careless.
Now Owen was telling me the collision had been deliberate.
"Who ordered it?"
He looked away.
That was enough.
My stomach lurched.
"You?"
"Aurora—"
"Did you order somebody to hit my car?"
Owen closed his eyes.
"I authorized an operation to stop it."
My hands began shaking.
"You knew somebody could get hurt."
He didn't answer.
"Look at me."
His eyes returned to mine.
"Did you know?"
"Yes."
I felt as though the floor had disappeared beneath me.
I thought of waking up in the hospital.
The empty space beneath the blanket.
The surgeries.
The infections.
The months of learning how to transfer myself into a wheelchair without falling.
The first time I tried on a prosthetic.
The phantom pain that sometimes kept me awake until morning.
All those years, I had believed a stranger ruined my life and drove away.
But the man responsible for setting the event in motion had just spent six months employing me to clean his mansion.
I started laughing.
A terrible, breathless sound.
Owen took one step toward me.
"Don't."
He stopped.
I pointed toward the door.
"Get out."
"You're bleeding."
"Get out!"
A guard appeared in the doorway.
Owen raised his hand to stop him.
For one second, I thought the man might order me detained.
Instead, he stepped into the hallway.
Then he looked back.
"Aurora, you need medical attention."
"I need you to stay away from me."
He nodded slowly.
"All right."
The guard remained outside.
I hated that too.
I hated the open doorway, the bright overhead light, the smell of cleaning chemicals, and the expensive marble floor beyond the room.
Most of all, I hated the fact that I couldn't immediately stand up and walk away.
My prosthetic socket had rubbed the skin raw.
The liner was damp.
Reattaching it would be painful and might worsen the wound.
I needed my crutches from the staff changing room.
I reached for my phone.
Then I heard Owen speaking quietly outside.
"Get her crutches."
"Sir?"
"Find them. Do not touch her belongings unless she tells you where they are."
I closed my eyes.
Three years too late, Owen Callahan had discovered how to ask what I needed.
---
The head housekeeper, Sylvia Marsh, arrived five minutes later.
She took one look at me and knelt beside the doorway.
"Oh, sweetheart."
I almost cried.
Sylvia had been strict since the day I started working at the mansion, but she had also been the only person who remembered when employees had medical appointments or children waiting at home.
She looked at the damaged skin beneath my knee.
"How long have you been working like this?"
I shrugged.
"A few hours."
"Aurora."
"I couldn't afford to leave early."
Her expression changed.
She looked toward the hallway.
Then back at me.
"Who told you that?"
I almost laughed.
Everyone.
Nobody.
The job paid more than any other cleaning position I'd found.
I had rent.
Medical bills.
Prosthetic maintenance.
An unfinished degree.
And no desire to return to the financial insecurity that had defined the two years after my accident.
Sylvia helped me gather my things without touching the injured area.
Then she brought my crutches.
I stood with her assistance, using my remaining leg and the crutches rather than forcing the prosthetic back on.
When we reached the hallway, Owen was waiting several feet away.
His expression changed when he saw how much pain I was in.
I wanted to slap him.
Instead, I said:
"Move."
He stepped aside.
Then he said something that stopped me.
"The man who arranged the collision told me you died afterward."
I turned.
"What?"
Owen's face was gray.
"He told me the driver survived the crash but died in the hospital."
My heart began hammering.
"How would he know what happened to me in the hospital?"
Owen didn't answer.
And suddenly, the scar above my knee made sense.
He had seen it before.
Not because he was present when the accident happened.
Because somebody had been watching me afterward.
Somebody had obtained information about my medical treatment.
Somebody had followed what happened to me while I lay unconscious in a hospital bed.
I stared at him.
"Who?"
He hesitated.
I tightened my grip on the crutches.
"Who told you I was dead?"
Owen finally answered.
"Damon Rusk."
The name meant nothing to me.
Not yet.
But I noticed the way Sylvia went completely still.
And I noticed something else.
At the far end of the hallway, Owen's chief of staff was standing beside the staircase.
He had apparently heard the name.
His face changed.
Then he turned and walked away.
Owen saw him.
May you like
For the first time that night, fear entered his expression.
And I realized the man who had arranged my accident might still be inside the mansion.
