The Black Sheep’s Baby

Prologue

December 20-Los Angeles, California

S he woke in the milky twilight that passed for darkness in the city, knowing she’d dreamed of Susan again. As always, she couldn’t remember much about the dream-no details, not even a face. Just a voice-Susan’s voice, childish and frail, calling to her. Calling her, pleading with her. Help me…help me, Devon. Please…don’t leave me. Help me…

She threw back the covers and rose, paced barefoot to the window. She stared out across the glittering jeweled carpet that stretched all the way to the sea, squinting hard to hold back angry tears. How was I supposed to help you, she thought, when I didn’t even know where you were? You ran away, damn you. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault!

She held herself tightly as she shivered, and swallowed hard, once, then again. A tear ran warmly down her cold cheek.

Susan had been fourteen when she’d run away-almost a woman. But the voice in her dream was that of a little child.

Help me, Devon…

Dammit, Susan, she thought, angry and weary at the same time. I am helping, can’t you see that? I’m sorry if I let you down, but I’m trying to make it up to you now, the only way I know. Isn’t that enough?

She brushed at her cheek and jerked away from the window. The luminous numbers on the clock portion of the built-in entertainment center beside her bed glowed green-gold in the gray twilight-2:14 a.m. Way too early to even think about leaving for the airport. And yet she knew better than to try to go back to sleep. Calm, now, and resolute, she went to her walk-in closet and took her rolling overnighter from its shelf. She lifted it onto the bed, unzipped it and began, carefully and methodically, to pack.

December 20-On I-80, Somewhere in Nebraska

His eyes wanted to close-insisted on doing so, in fact, in spite of his strenuous arguments against it. That, plus an inarguable need for fuel, forced him off the interstate.

He chose an exit somewhere east of Grand Island that promised half a dozen motels and at least that many restaurants. He bypassed all of them, though his stomach had been complaining for the last fifty miles, and pulled instead into a gas station where he could pay at the pump. While unleaded gasoline gushed into the tanks of his six-year-old Dodge, he stood with shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets, rocking himself in the bitter Nebraska wind and reflecting on how the California winters had spoiled him.

Just beyond the roof of the gas station’s convenience store he could see a big green Holiday Inn sign, like a beacon summoning his exhausted mind and body into a safe harbor. But as much as he yearned for rest, as much as he knew he needed rest, he also knew that right now there was only one harbor in the world that would feel safe to him.

“We’ll be there by tonight,” he told his passenger, sound asleep in the back seat. “Five more hours…”

The fuel nozzle clicked off. He replaced it in its cradle, climbed back into his car and, after a moment’s indecision, pulled across the parking lot and up to the drive-through window of the fast-food place next door. He ordered a double cheeseburger and a jumbo coffee and a short time later was back on the interstate, heading east toward evening.

In his rearview mirrors he could see, reaching toward him out of the west like menacing fingers, the dark purple clouds of the oncoming storm.