Prologue

Londyn put the stack of books that she’d been using back. The law firm that she worked for didn’t have the most up-to-date versions of them, so she mostly used her computer to find case material. After getting all the books put away, she was headed to her cubie hole to gather her things up and head home.

“Miss Rice?” She smiled at Donnie when he approached her. He was, she thought, one of the nicest people working at the firm. He worked in the mailroom and delivered the mail to the offices during the day. “I have some envelopes for you. I did find some about four months ago with your name on them, but I didn’t hear back from you. Did you get them?”

“No. I don’t know why I’d be receiving mail here. Do you know who you gave them to when you found them?” He told her that it had been Mr. Daily. “He’s my direct report. Maybe he forgot.”

“No, miss, he didn’t. When I was going through the mail again about a week later, there were a couple more. He told me that he’d take care of them, but I’ve been watching him. The envelopes were put into his trash the next day.” She didn’t know what to think about that as she’d told Donny she’d never had mail sent here before. “I have them with me now. Not the old ones, but the new ones that came in over the last couple of months. I’ve been waiting to find you alone.”

She didn’t bother looking at the cameras that were all over the room. Not one of them worked. She knew that for a fact. As did most of the people working there. They were put in when she’d started here and never set up with the program that would make them run. Donny seemed to know that, too, and didn’t try to hide what he was handing her from the white cameras.

“I don’t know what these would be. Do you?” Donny told her that they had a law firm that wasn’t this one on them, and a lot of them had insurance names on them. “That’s really strange. All right. Thank you for giving them to me, Donny. I don’t know what it could be about, but I’ll look into them on Monday. I just want to go home and take a nap, then sleep for several days.”

They both laughed, and he walked her to the bus stop. There were security guards that were supposed to do that for anyone leaving the building late, but she’d never been able to get them to get off their butts and help her out. She did wonder at times if it was because whatever they were watching on the little television that they brought in nightly had anything to do with it.

She was on the bus when she pulled out the first of the eight envelopes with her name on them. Not opening, fearful of what it might be saying, she stuffed them back into her bag and waited to get home. Whatever they were about, it had been this long. A few more minutes wouldn’t make that much difference.

She got off the bus right in front of her building. Londyn had lived here since she’d gotten into college and knew the place and the people residing here like she did her own hand. As she was pulling out her keys, waiting just long enough for the man coming out to go in, she made her way up to the fifth floor, taking the steps two at a time. Which she thought was quite a feat, with her wearing high heels.

Changing her clothing to some comfy jammies, she hung up her skirt and blouse on the curtain rod so that it wouldn’t get wrinkled. She didn’t have much in the way of clothing. Two skirts, five blouses as well as two different sweaters that she wore when she was supposed to be going to court. She snorted when she thought of that.

Londyn hadn’t been in the courtroom once, where she was the actual lead attorney. She could have been taking her own cases and making them work for her. But she’d been told, not less than a dozen times since working at Davis and Davis, that it was a man’s world out there, and having a little bitty thing like her taking cases wasn’t going to cut it. Also, she was told that the men of the firm all had families to support, and she’d just be taking food out of their families’ mouths if she were to go to court. Londyn only had four more weeks before she’d be free of the obligation she’d signed when she’d gotten out of college.

Even graduating first in her class didn’t give her any goodwill with the firm. She had resigned to the fact that it would be after she got out of this place before she was able to do what she had wanted all her life. Be an attorney.

After making herself a nice cup of tea, she opened up the tin of cookies that she’d baked last weekend. Londyn didn’t allow herself too many of the treats. They weren’t in her budget, nor could she make any more until her next week off. She was looking forward to the next four months.

There had been a retreat or something like a convention out in California, and the big-named attorneys were all going out there for the entire four months. She didn’t know how they ever justified it, leaving the firm in the hands of the few people who weren’t invited—her being one of them, but it was their thing, and she was just happy that they’d be all gone when she served her last day there. Having to calm herself down so she didn’t dance, Londyn pulled out the envelopes again.

Using a butter knife to open them neatly—she had a pet peeve about people just ripping open an envelope like a savage and put them in order of mail date. The first one she pulled out was a firm by the name of Winston Jacobson Underwriters. Something fell out of the envelope, but she was too busy reading the letter to bother with it right now.

“Ms. Rice, I hope this correspondence finds you well. I wish to extend my deepest condolences about the loss of your loved one, your grandmother. The insurance check is in this envelope, and that would conclude our business with the estate. Please let us know if there is anything we can do for you in the future.”

Bending over, she picked up the check and stared at it for several minutes before she realized that it really was for just under a million dollars. Lying it back on the table, picking up the next envelope, she was astonished to find that it was nearly for the same amount, but the letter was saying that she’d lost her father.

Londyn didn’t have any family left. She’d not had anyone since she’d been seven, and her entire family was wiped out in a flash flood that took their home down a long slope. Her grandparents had lived with them, and the ones that hadn’t were already gone by the time she came along. Opening the other envelopes, she wasn’t surprised that all of them were telling her that they were sorry for some member of her family and that there was a check.

Adding up the amount in her head, she laughed, a nervous one, when she realized that she had just under ten million dollars in check before her. They had her name on them, too, even with the strange spelling of London. Leaving them on the table, she went into her living area and turned on the television. There had to be some kind of weird shit going on because there wasn’t any way that she had that much money. Especially since her family had been gone for nearly twelve years. And she’d been in the system in all that time she had been alone.

When she realized she didn’t have any idea what was on the television, she turned it off and sat there in the dark. It was nearly three in the morning when she was startled out of her thinking when her cell phone went off. With shaking hands, she answered the call from Mr. Davis, one of the partners in the firm.

“What are you doing taking my mail home with you?” She asked him what he meant. “My mail. Not yours, and it’s at your home. I wouldn’t have thought you would be a thief, Miss Rice. Please tell me that you didn’t open it. It could be bad for you if—”

“You mean the mail that has my name on it? The letters addressed to me that are about family members that I don’t have? That mail?” He snarled. It scared her so badly that she had to change her phone to her other hand. She was shaking so hard. “I demand that you tell me why you have checks made out to me that I knew nothing about.”

“You bitch. Now you’ve done it. I should have taken care of that little fucker Donny when he realized that I was having the checks come to me with your name on them. Well, there’s no hope for you. I’m going to have to cut my vacation short. Go out there and kill the two of you for putting your nose in my business.” She asked him what he’d just said. “Oh, don’t get all squishy now. You should have just done what you were told and stayed out of the business of the big boys like me. Damn it all to fuck and back. And to think that I was going to give you a fat bonus come this Christmas. You’d better be there when someone comes for you, Londyn, or so help me, I’m going to enjoy killing you more than I should.”

When the phone went dead, she tossed it across the room. How did he know? Kept going through her mind. Not wasting any time with that right now, she grabbed up the checks and envelopes and stuffed them into her bag. Going to her room, she pulled panties and bras out of her drawers and nearly screamed when her cat, Maxi, leaped up on the dresser. Talking to the cat somewhat calmed her down. It also made her think beyond Mr. Davies telling her that he was going to kill her like he was quoting the weatherman about tomorrow’s forecast.

“He’s going to kill me. What will happen to you if he…well, he’ll try and get you too. I don’t know why, but he’s just mean enough to…should I pack any food? No time for that. I have to get out of here.” Picking up her cat, the only true friend that she had, ten minutes after the call, she was in the stairwell walking as calmly as she could with her favorite person, her cat.

Making sure that she had remembered to pick up her cash, very little of it compared to what she had in her backpack with her name on them. Londyn also remembered at the last minute to not bring the cell phone with her. As surely as the shows that she got caught up with in the evening, murder shows, there was going to be something in that cell phone that would give her away. She wondered briefly if they had tampered with any of the things that she now had on her.

Londyn was at street level when a long black car slid to a stop in front of the building. There were four men who got out, and then the car drove down the street, turned around, and headed back to the front door. No one tried to stop her, thankfully, and she just continued walking until she was out of sight of the building. Even from where she was hidden in one of the alleyways, she could hear the popping of guns. Or perhaps she thought that’s what she was supposed to hear, so it was playing in her head. Her mind wasn’t on right now. She was just too nervous to think beyond getting out of here in one piece.

She was just getting to the edge of town, Maxi following her now instead of being carried. He was fine to be hauled around when he wanted it. But not when she was in a hurry, it seemed. Christ, why didn’t she just leave him behind?

“Because I love you, you big furball.” He kept rubbing his head around her legs, nearly tripping her up when she heard a car coming. Slipping into the woods, thankfully, Maxi decided to come with her. She stood there against the trees as the big black car made its way out of town. While she didn’t know where Donny lived, she wished that she had some way to warn him that he could be hurt. She only hoped that he was able to get away as she’d done. So far.

When the car paused, slamming on its brakes really, she stood as still as she could, holding onto the tree with one hand and the cat with the other. She even managed to hold her breath for nearly too long when she let it out as quietly and as silently as she could.

Maxi seemed to sense there was danger, so he curled himself up and around her neck, nearly making it impossible for her to breathe, much less see the car. When he backed up, flashing a huge light over the woods that she was hiding in, Londyn closed her eyes.

Like her not being able to see them was somehow going to translate into them not seeing her. Opening her eyes, she closed them tightly again when the light flashed over her tree. Not moving, so desperately wanting to take off running, Londyn stood her ground and waited. Finally, in what seemed like forever, the car took off again.

She didn’t move out of the trees. Thinking that she was at least marginally safe since they’d not found her. Turning her back to the road, she made her way down the hill, careful not to fall and break something until she came to a clearing.

All kinds of things popped into her head then. Did they have drones looking for her? Was there a snipper just lying in wait for her? She was going to have to keep from watching those stupid shows, or she was going to be a basket case all the time. But instead of going through the clearing to God knew what else, Londyn sat down on the very edge of what she thought was summer wheat and leaned against the tree behind her.

“I’m in a pickle, Maxi. I don’t know anyone to call who would want to come out in the middle of the night and rescue me. Because I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but we are in a pickle.” Opening her pack up, she dug into it to see if there was anything that she could munch on. Finding a beef stick and a bottle of water made her a little leery. “I’ve never bought a beef stick in my life. But I must have, right? Want some?”

She kept talking to her cat, though she was careful not to talk too loudly. There were cars going back and forth on the road she’d been on, and she didn’t want to alert anyone of her hiding place. Thinking how the beef stick smelled, she did think about if it would give away her cover, then hurriedly finished it off, giving a large portion to her companion.

The sun was coming up when she realized how exhausted she was. There were probably only a few miles between her and the town she’d been living and working in, so she was going to have to stay on her toes. Just as she was thinking that she had to pee, Londyn closed her eyes to let her mind settle a bit before she got up and moved on.