But at night, when she lay alone in her room or when she dreamed, that’s when the screams would come back to haunt her.
Melanie soon learned that putting her hands over her ears wouldn’t block the torment. Nothing would. But that didn’t stop her from trying. As she grew older, she experimented with new and increasingly destructive means to shut out the screams. There was a time during her teenage years when she’d been completely out of control.
But her mother still wouldn’t seek counselling for Melanie. She insisted that all Melanie needed was unconditional love, which she gave to her daughter in abundance. Through the truancy and all the wild parties and even rehab, her mother never judged, never scolded, never punished. If anything, she seemed to love Melanie even more.
Finally, after high school, things started to improve. In spite of her self-destructive behavior, Melanie had always excelled in her studies, and when she was accepted into a premed program at a local university, it seemed as if she’d finally gotten her life back on track. She even fell in love.
She and Andrew were inseparable all through college, but then, just weeks before graduation, he’d come to her and told her their relationship wasn’t working for him.
Melanie had been devastated. “Why?”
He gazed at her sadly. “Because what I see when I look into your eyes scares the hell out of me, Mel.”
Wounded, Melanie bit back her tears. “What do you see?”
He gave a helpless shrug. “Nothing. All I see in your eyes is emptiness.”
He’d walked out of her life that day, and just two weeks before getting her degree, Melanie had dropped out of school. For the next few years, she drifted from place to place, from job to job, from relationship to relationship.
And then six months ago, when her mother had died unexpectedly, Melanie had returned home to try to put their affairs in order. She’d come across the stack of letters while cleaning out her mother’s closet. They’d been stored in an old shoe box shoved to the farthest corner of the top shelf.
The first one had been sent from Houston more than twenty years ago. Melanie hadn’t recognized the handwriting on the envelope, and she’d hesitated to read through her mother’s personal correspondence. But then curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she’d opened the letters one by one, stunned to learn that they were all from her father. All these years, when Melanie hadn’t heard a word from him, he and her mother had kept in touch.
The early letters, written while she’d still been missing, had been outpourings of grief and guilt. Then later, after Melanie had returned, his letters took on a disturbing paranoia.
I’m sure the police are pressuring you to allow her to see a psychiatrist, but you have to remain strong. If Melanie remembers what happened to her, they’ll take her away again. And this time, they won’t let her come back.
She mustn’t remember, Janet. Melanie must never, ever remember….
As she’d read through those strange letters, Melanie had been bombarded with questions. Who were “they”? And why was her father’s fear so great that he wouldn’t even come to see her?
Nine years after Melanie’s return, the letters had stopped, leaving a ten-year gap in the correspondence. The final one had been posted from San Cristóbal, Cartéga just weeks before her mother’s death, but something seemed to be missing in the exchange, leaving Melanie to wonder if perhaps her parents had had some other form of communication in the years between the letters.
Her father now seemed to be pleading for a chance to see Melanie.
I know you don’t agree, Janet, you’ve made your position perfectly clear. But I think it’s time Melanie and I meet. She’s had such an unhappy, troubled life. I think I can help her.
Our daughter will be twenty-eight in August. A grown woman. Old enough, surely, to make her own decision about this.
If you decide to let her come—and I pray that you will—I should probably have you warn her that she won’t recognize me. Neither would you. I had my appearance altered a long time ago, but even more than the surgery, the years away from you and Melanie have taken a toll.
I can’t tell you what it would mean to me to see her again, to have one last chance to tell her how much I love her, how much I’ve always loved her. And how very sorry I am for my part in what happened to her. My guilt is a hell I live with every day of my life. Please give me this one last chance for redemption.
I want to see her, Janet. I want to see Melanie on her birthday. Tell her I’ll be waiting for her in the clouds.
Melanie rose from the bed and put the letters back in the suitcase. Shutting and locking the lid, she shoved the case back into the closet, then walked over to the window to stare out at the twilight.
It was stuffy inside the room. She opened the door for a moment, letting in a fragrant breeze, but she didn’t step out on the balcony. She was careful to remain in the shadows as she gazed down at the street.
Gooseflesh prickled along her arms, although the evening was mild. Perhaps it was the tears drying on her face that made her cold. Or the loneliness that suddenly engulfed her.
I can’t tell you what it would mean to me to see her again, to have one last chance to tell her how much I love her, how much I’ve always loved her. And how very sorry I am for my part in what happened to her.
His part in what had happened to her. His part.
What had he meant by that? Did his guilt stem from a father’s inability to protect his daughter? From the fact that if he’d stayed outside with her as she’d begged, she wouldn’t have been taken?
Or was his remorse the result of something far more sinister?
Had he been a party to her abduction? Did he know who had taken her and why? Had he known for those four years where she was and what was happening to her?
Did he know what they’d done to her?
Melanie had no idea of the answer to any of those questions, but she knew she had to find her father and confront him. She had to ask him point-blank why he felt so guilty. She had to make him look her in the eye when he told her the truth.
Then she would know.
And all those years of running and hiding and trying to block out the screams would finally be over.
Chapter Four
She wasn’t a natural blonde.
That little detail was oddly telling to Lassiter, because it was yet one more piece of evidence that Melanie Stark had secrets. Dark ones. And her real hair color was the least of them.
He stood at the foot of the bed gazing down at her. Light streaming in through the balcony window glimmered off the gold streaks in her hair and made her skin look soft and pale.
And he could see a great deal of skin. She’d kicked off the covers in her sleep, and she lay on the sheet in nothing but a light-blue tank top and white silk panties.
Even in her sleep, she looked like trouble.
There was an air of recklessness about her. A hint of hedonism.
Lassiter had nothing against hedonism, particularly in a woman who looked like Melanie Stark. Not that she was especially beautiful. Her features were too imperfect—even apart from the telltale dark roots—for that. Eyes that were a little too widely set, a nose that was slightly off center.
But her lips, easily her best feature, were lush and tempting, and her body…
He drew a sharp breath as his gaze moved over her. The body, he had to admit, came pretty damn close to perfection. Either she had great genes