Subtle-Excerpt

PROLOGUE

Denver, Colorado

“How old is the child?”

Delbert Marco’s dark eyes shifted to the man standing at the windows in his

office before returning to the

picture of his family. It sat on the corner of his

polished, cherrywood desk, and at times like this, reminded him

how lucky he was

to have them. He glanced down at the letter in his hand. The contents had shocked

them

both,

but Delbert, a seasoned professional, had already mentally begun

charting a strategy on how to handle

the

situation. As appalling as the news was,

Jordon needed to snap back so that they could make some

decisions.

Since it didn’t

look as if that would happen any time soon, Delbert repeated the answer he’d

already

given three

times. “According to the letter—twelve months.”

Anguish joined the tension swarming in the lawyer’s office as Jordon Randolph

Banks turned away. His

heartbeat sped up, then slowed almost to the point of

nonexistence. He rested his forehead on the windowpane

and

stared through a

sheen of tears at the street five stories below. “Why, Gloria? Why would you do

something like

this to me?”

The barely perceptible words sounded like a painful moan, and Delbert winced.

As a celebrated divorce

lawyer,

he had witnessed his share of the awful things

people did when ending loveless marriages. Just when

Delbert

thought he’d seen

and heard it all, something else always came along to top even the most horrendous

story. But

this last vengeful act perpetrated on Jordon Banks by his ex-wife ranked

as the most disgusting

thing he’d come

across in the twenty years of his career.

Having handled Jordon’s side of the divorce, gut instinct had told Delbert that

Gloria Banks spelled bad

news. It

wasn’t enough that Jordon had gone against his

advice and agreed to her list of demands,

uncontested. Gloria had

seemed

determined to break Jordon in the process. That she’d been found dead,

murdered

by the hands of suspect

unknown, did not surprise Delbert. And if what the letter

stated proved true,

bad didn’t come close to describing

Gloria Banks or the

repulsion he felt for her at that moment.

Heaving a deep sigh, Delbert flung the letter down on his desk and leaned back

in his chair. “J.R., I know

how

bad this is for you, but we can’t take this letter as

gospel. Our first move will be to authenticate the validity

of this

letter and; secondly,

the claims made therein.”

“How do I get my daughter out of that place?”

“Let’s not jump the gun here, Jordon. This letter is not proof that a child exists.

Even if she does, we cannot

make the assumption that she is your daughter.”

Jordon turned from the window, a ruthless expression twisting his handsome

face. “She’s mine!”

Delbert sat up. “You can’t go flying half-cocked across the country on a hunch,

J.R. I’ll get a detective on this right away, and in a few weeks, after blood tests, we’ll

know for sure.”

Jordon stalked to the door. “You do that, Del. In the meantime, you can reach me

in Atlanta. My daughter

not an orphan, and she does not belong in an orphanage.

And I do not intend to let a child of my flesh and

blood

spend another day in a place

where she does not belong!”

* * *

Atlanta, Georgia

The same day Jordon Banks received his letter, another on lay crumpled on a

rickety brown table littered

with

overflowing ashtrays, half-smoked butts and the

feathery remains of white lines left in someone’s hasty

indulgence. Brown, half-

closed and glassy eyes surveyed their surroundings in disgust. A few friends, he’d

said.

They’d play a few rounds of cards and end the evening early.

The eyes took in the bits of trash and crushed potato chips littering the dark

brown carpet. One of the cheap-

looking sheers covering her windows had been

knocked from its rod. Bottles—some empty, some not, one

tipped

and leaking on the

carpet under the table—added to the foul smell in the room. The gathering that had

crowded

into the tiny apartment had been so loud the neighbors had called the

police. Now, she had to clean up

this mess.

The eyes stopped on the man, so

stoned, he probably didn’t even know that he was asleep on the

floor. As much as

she hated the tiny apartment and the poverty that cloaked the community where she

lived,

she hated him more.

Just one year ago, she’d finally gotten herself together and pulled herself up to

the next rung on the ladder.

He’

d offered her pretty words and promises, then

dragged her back down into the gutter.

Lying on the couch, Lisa curled herself into a despondent ball and tried to fight

off the memories that had

surfaced after she’d read the letter. But like an annoying

itch needing to be scratched, she couldn’t stop herself

from remembering or

staunch the flow of the tears of rolling down her cheeks.

As the older of the two, she remembered the mother they had shared and the

fathers they did not. She

remembered the sickly baby and the long nights she’d held

the frail infant in her arms while it fought against

the

effects of their mother’s

addition to heroin. Held in the grip of the drug, their mother had neglected them

both, and

at the tender age of eight, she had stepped into the role of caregiver for

her sister. When they needed

clothes, she’d

gone to the mission barrels. When

they had no food, she’d begged or stolen what they needed.

And though barely

surviving, she had kept them alive.

She remembered the day the authorities came into their house. She’d been

twelve, her sister four. Their

mother

had died, and though no one ever said, she’d

known it was the drugs. They had been taken to a strange

place,

filled with lots of

other children. The people there had not been nice and had separated her from her

sister. She’d

spent the long, lonely night crying on a lumpy mattress. The next

morning, she’d learned that her

sister had been

taken away, and no one would tell

her where. She’d searched for years, followed every lead.

The only thing she’d

gotten for her efforts was one picture a detective had found in an old police record.

Her

sister had been twenty.

That was the last time she’d seen her sister alive. A

woman had been found murdered

in a hotel room. The local

news had reported the

incident as a drug deal gone wrong. The next day, Lisa had

gone to identify the body.

Lisa believed her sister had come home and that she’d been looking for her. The

letter she’d just received

told

her all she needed to know about her sister’s life.

Married and twice divorced herself, her life hadn’t turned

out any

better, and it

saddened her even more to know that neither of them had found the happiness they

deserved.

Raising to a sitting position, Lisa sniffed up her tears and willed her mind to push

back the pain as her hands

tried to smooth the black hair standing wildly around her

head. The first thing she needed to do was get away

from

this place. Second, check

into rehab and get herself clean again. She may have been too late to save her

sister, but

she would not be too late to save her sister’s child.