Puppet (46 page)

“Florida,” Ben answers. He leads her toward the rows of automatic check-in machines. “You have a credit card?”

“I can do it.” Amanda inserts her credit card into the designated slot, then types in the necessary information. They wait in silence for her boarding pass to be spit out. “So, I guess this is it,” she says, forcing a smile onto her face.

“We have time,” he tells her. “We could grab some coffee.”

“No, I think I’d rather get settled. I still have to preclear U.S. customs and go through security. Who knows how long that’ll take.”

He glances down at the floor, then up again. “So, I guess this is it,” he says, repeating her words.

“This is it,” she agrees.

He leans in, his lips grazing the side of her cheek. “Take care of yourself, Amanda.”

She resists the impulse to touch the spot he kissed, seal the kiss in. “You too.”

“You’ll call me if you need anything?”

“Absolutely. And you’ll call me if there’s any news about my mother?”

“You can visit her anytime, you know,” he reminds her.

She nods. They’ve already been over all this. “I’ll have to see when I can get some time off. It might not be for a while.”

“Whenever,” he says. They walk toward the entrance for U.S. customs. Already a lot of people are standing in line. “I think there are some forms you have to fill out.” He points to a table of such forms just inside the doors.

“Oh, right. I better do that.”

“Boarding pass, please,” the uniformed guard says, holding out her hand.

“So, I guess this is
really
it,” Amanda says with a laugh.

“This is really it.”

“Good-bye, Ben.”

“Good-bye, Puppet.”

And then suddenly they are in each other’s arms, and he is kissing her hair, her cheeks, her eyes, her lips. And she is kissing him back, and crying, and holding on to him for dear life. Don’t let me leave, she is thinking. Please. Don’t let me leave.

“You’re blocking the way,” the guard informs them curtly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to step aside.”

Amanda reluctantly pulls out of Ben’s arms. She takes a long, deep breath, tries to regroup. It’s time to move forward, she reminds herself. Time to move on. “That’s all right. I’m ready.” She offers the woman her boarding pass. The woman looks it over, then nods her inside. Amanda walks through the doors, then turns back to Ben. Tell me to stay, she appeals to him silently. “Call me sometime,” she says out loud, watching him disappear into the crowd. So this is it, she is thinking. This is
really
it.

She fills out the necessary forms and takes her place in line.
Kir-rell
, she recites silently as a merciful numbness spreads from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
Kir-rell. Kir-rell.
And then somebody’s cell phone cuts into the hypnotic rhythm of her borrowed mantra.
Her
cell phone, she realizes, snatching it from her purse.

“Too soon to call?” Ben’s voice asks in her ear.

“Where are you?”

“In my car. And believe it or not, it’s starting to snow again.”

Amanda glances toward the long window at the front of the large room. It is indeed starting to snow.

“And I was thinking,” he continues, “that I haven’t had a vacation in some time, and I’d really like to get away somewhere warm for a few weeks.”

“Florida’s warm,” she tells him, holding her breath.

“I don’t know. It might be difficult to get a hotel.…”

“I know a great place you can stay. It’s beautiful. Right on the ocean.”

“Well, I’ll have to arrange my schedule, see when I can get away.…”

“I think you should do that,” Amanda tells him quickly, inching toward the front of the line. “And maybe, in the meantime, you could make some inquiries about what someone would have to do to pass the Canadian bar. I mean, I’ll probably have to spend a fair bit of time there, making sure my mother doesn’t kill anyone else.”

“I think that’s probably a good idea.”

There is a long pause. What am I doing? she is thinking. “I love you,” she says.

“I love you too,” comes the simple reply.

“Next,” the guard announces, directing Amanda to booth number 15.

“Bad time for you?” the customs agent asks sarcastically, motioning toward the phone in her hand.

“What? Oh, no.” She drops the phone back into her purse and hands the man her passport, trying not to smile too hard. “It’s a great time.”

An hour later, she sits staring out the window of the crowded jet. The pilot has just announced they are
flying at a cruising altitude of thirty-seven thousand feet. He has cautioned that although the sky is bright and clear, they can probably expect some pockets of turbulence along the way. Amanda lays her forehead against the small porthole, losing herself in the expanse of limitless blue.

What Amanda sees: the future.

Jane Whittaker finds herself on a downtown street, her pockets stuffed with a large number of crisp $100 bills, the front of her dress soaked with blood. She has no idea of her identity.

After a terrifying night of hiding, Jane ends up in hospital. There, while undergoing a battery of medical tests, she is recognized by one of the nurses. Soon her husband comes to claim her. He is every woman’s dream: popular, respected, wealthy, a tall, blond doctor. He takes Jane home and vows to cure her with loving care and modern medicine.

But Jane doesn’t get any better. The medication seems to be turing her into a zombie, and she begins to feel that her private nurse is holding her a virtual prisoner in her own home, isolating her from friends who might help her recover. Can Jane remember her past in time … in time to stop whatever it is that is happening to her, whatever made her lose her memory in the first place, whatever is trying to destroy her and her family? …

 
 
SEAL BOOKS / ISBN:
0-7704-2985-8

Family therapist Kate Sinclair, healer of lost souls, perfect wife and mother, has suddenly become trapped in a nightmare of her own. One of her teenage daughters has just discovered sex, lies and rebellion. Her ex-boyfriend has returned to threaten her marriage. And her once-peaceful hometown is being awakened by chilling headlines: Another woman is missing. Kate can sense the darkness gathering around her, can see the mistakes, the missteps, the missing pieces.

Enter Colin Friendly—a man on trial for abducting and killing thirteen women—the handsome, “misunderstood” sociopath Kate’s troubled sister plans to marry. Colin can’t wait to meet Kate and the girls. And one night when they are home alone, ready for bed.…

 
 
SEAL BOOKS / ISBN:
0-7704-2966-1

Losing Julia has become a constant in Cindy Carver’s life. The first time Julia disappeared, she was five years old and vanished at the playground. That inspired motherly paranoia. The second was when, at age fourteen, Julia decided to move in with her father. That broke Cindy’s heart. But when twenty-one-year-old Julia disappears without a trace after a promising audition with one of Hollywood’s most powerful and influential directors, Cindy begins a frantic search. Secrets are revealed, lives are forever altered, and Cindy is forced to acknowledge the disturbing truth about the young woman she realizes she never really knew.…

 
 
SEAL BOOKS / ISBN:
0-7704-2920-3

Bonnie Wheeler had a picture-perfect life: a rewarding job as a schoolteacher, a happy marriage to a successful TV director, a sprawling suburban home, and Amanda, her adorable three-year-old daughter. She’d heard the sordid details about her husband’s ex-wife, Joan—the drinking, the instability. Then Joan calls her with a cryptic warning—
you’re in danger, you and Amanda.

But when Joan is found murdered and Bonnie is the prime suspect, she knows this is no game. Suddenly her secure world comes crashing down around her. Things she once believed in are lies. People she thought she knew have shocking secrets to reveal.

Desperate to know who intends to harm her daughter, Bonnie is caught in a frantic race to keep Amanda safe—even as she feels her own grasp on reality slipping.…

 
 
SEAL BOOKS / ISBN:
0-7704-2721-9