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Fortune
Erica Spindler
Also by Erica Spindler
BLOOD VINES
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
BREAKNECK
LAST KNOWN VICTIM
COPYCAT
KILLER TAKES ALL
SEE JANE DIE
IN SILENCE
DEAD RUN
BONE COLD
ALL FALL DOWN
CAUSE FOR ALARM
SHOCKING PINK
Fortune
Erica
Spindler
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
The author of over twenty-five books, Erica Spindler is best known for her spine-tingling thrillers. Her novels have been published all over the world, selling over eleven million copies, and critics have dubbed her stories “thrill-packed page-turners, white-knuckle rides and edge-of-your-seat whodunits.”
Erica is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. In 2002, her novel Bone Cold won the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence.
For three women
it has been my incredible good fortune to call friends:
Jan Hamilton Powell, Terry Richards McGee
and
Karen Young Stone
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks to the following people for helping me bring Fortune to life:
Huge thanks to Roxanne Mouton of Mignon Faget Ltd for walking me through the jewellery-making process, from design concept to finished piece, and for patiently and thoroughly explaining the workings of a jewellery production studio.
Thanks, too, to the incomparable Mignon Faget, for allowing her staff to take time out of their busy day to make my tour possible, and to the staff themselves for answering my questions and putting up with a stranger peering over their shoulders while they worked.
Thanks to my sister, Stacie Spindler, for showing me the “real” Chicago and for her enthusiasm and support.
Big thanks also to the guys at Calvin Klein Camper Sales for letting me roam freely through their trailers; to Linda Weissert for the on-the-spot information about Pittsburgh; and to Drs Leslie and Bill Michaelis for giving me a crash course in veterinary medicine.
And, as always, thanks to my agent, Evan Marshall; my editor Melissa Senate; and the entire MIRA Books staff, particularly Dianne Moggy and Amy Moore-Benson.
Part I Butterflies
Chapter One
Chicago, Illinois,1971
Sunlight spilled through the nursery’s floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window, painting the floor the color of rubies, emeralds and sapphires. Installed in 1909 to herald the first Monarch baby to occupy the Astor Street mansion, the window depicted a hovering angel, golden wings spread, her expression beatific as she guarded the children below.
Since that first Monarch baby, the angel had protected sad few children. One tragedy after another had befallen this family, a family desperate for daughters, one seemingly doomed to watch bitterly as other families grew and multiplied.
Two weeks ago that had changed. Two weeks ago Grace Elizabeth Monarch had been born and come home, to this nursery and its waiting angel, to this desperate family. She had changed everyone’s life forever.
But no one’s more than her mother’s.
Madeline Monarch slipped into the nursery and crossed to the cradle and her sleeping daughter. She gazed down at her, love and a sense of wonder welling inside her. She reached out and stroked her baby’s velvety cheek, and the infant stirred and turned her head toward Madeline’s finger, sucking in her sleep, looking for a nipple.
A lump formed in Madeline’s throat. She was so beautiful, so incredibly…perfect. She still couldn’t quite believe Grace was hers. Madeline bent her head close to her daughter’s and breathed in her baby-soft scent. It filled her head, and she squeezed her eyes shut, nearly drowning in its sweetness.
What had she done to deserve her? Madeline wondered. Why had she been singled out for such a stroke of good fortune? Even Grace’s birth had been like a miracle. She had rocketed into the world, nearly painlessly and at a speed that had taken even Madeline’s veteran obstetrician by surprise. Madeline’s water had broken and less than an hour later there had been Grace, howling and red-faced but unbelievably, incredibly perfect.
Madeline shook her head slightly, unable to fully trust her sudden luck. But how could she? She had never done anything well, or easily, before. No, Madeline was one of those people destined to make mistakes, to choose poorly and to be hurt time and again.
In truth, the moment before the nurse laid Grace in her arms, Madeline hadn’t believed that anything in her life would ever be easy, or painless, or without flaw. She hadn’t believed that she was worthy of true love, of real devotion; she had thought she would go through life reaching for that elusive emotion but always coming back empty-handed.
The next moment had changed all that. Grace had changed it. Madeline loved her daughter almost more than she could bear. And Grace loved her back, the same way. Unconditionally. Completely.
Madeline threaded her fingers through her daughter’s silky dark hair. Grace needed her. Grace loved her. Madeline found that truth to be heady and shattering, but absolutely, positively the best feeling in the whole world. She would do anything, battle anyone or any evil, to protect her daughter.
If necessary, she would give her own life.
Madeline heard a sound at the nursery door and turned. Her six-year-old stepson, Griffen, stood there, his gaze fixed intently on the cradle, his expression strange, at once fascinated and wary, drawn and repelled. She breathed deeply though her nose, fighting back a feeling of resentment at his intrusion. Fighting back the distaste that left her longing for a drink of clean, sweet water.
She scolded herself for both her thoughts and her reaction to him. Griffen needed her, too. She had to remember that.
Yet even as the thought ran through her head, she acknowledged that something about her husband’s son unsettled her, something about him affected her like an icy hand to her back; it had from the first.
It wasn’t his appearance or demeanor. He was an uncommonly beautiful child. Bright, polite, at times even sweet. He didn’t seem to affect anyone else the way he did her. So why, when she looked into his eyes, couldn’t she suppress a shudder?
Madeline knew why. Because she was different; because she saw in a way others didn’t. All her life she had been troubled by uncannily accurate “feelings” and “visions”—about people, about events to come and about ones past. For as long as she could remember, she had been embarrassed by her ability. She had learned to manage the visions by ignoring them. Over time they had become less frequent and less vivid.
No longer. Like everything else in her life, pregnancy and motherhood had changed that. Grace had changed it. Now her sixth sense, if that was even what she should call it, neither rested nor would be ignored, as if the hormones raging through her body had kicked on a switch she didn’t know how to turn off.
And her extra sense warned her that there was something wrong with Griffen Monarch. Something terribly wrong.
Madeline chastised herself. Maybe she was the one with the problem as her husband and Adam Monarch, her father-in-law, insisted; maybe all those hormones were affecting her judgment, her sense of reality and balance.
She swept her gaze over Griffen, guilt pinching at her. His own mother was dead three years now, the victim of an “accidental” overdose of sleeping pills and booze. Madeline knew it couldn’t have been easy for him, growing up with a grandfather obsessed with having a female heir, a grandmother driven to the point of near madness by seven late-term miscarriages and a father who hadn’t the understanding or the patience for the needs of a young child. Then, as if those things hadn’t been enough, she had been introduced into the mix.
And now he had a sibling to deal with, a sibling who had stolen whatever attention and affection this austere household had to offer.
Poor child, Madeline thought, mustering resolve if not warmth. She would try harder. She would be a good stepmother to the boy. She would learn to care for him.
Madeline smiled and motioned him into the room. “Come in, Griffen. But quietly. Grace is sleeping.”
He nodded, and without a word to her, tiptoed into the room. He crossed to stand beside her and gazed silently at his half sister.
Madeline studied him a moment, then returned her gaze to Grace. In the past eighteen months, Madeline had come to understand just how deeply troubled a family she had married into. In fact, she had begun to fear that marrying Pierce Monarch had been another of her mistakes. He was not the man she had thought him to be—he was withdrawn, inflexible and, she had discovered, mean-spirited. So mean-spirited that she had wondered how she could not have seen it before.
Madeline frowned. She wasn’t being truthful with herself. She knew why she hadn’t seen it. She had been blinded by the Monarch name. By their wealth, their status in Chicago. She had been awed by Monarch Design and Retail, the jewelry-design firm started in 1887 by Anna and Marcus Monarch with the money they had inherited from their parents. Within a matter of only a few years, the brother and sister team had created a firm whose works rivaled Tiffany’s in beauty, quality and originality.
Madeline recalled the many times previous to meeting Pierce Monarch that she had wandered through the Michigan Avenue Monarch’s, aching to possess one of the impossibly extravagant, utterly fabulous pieces, a brooch or necklace or ring. Just one piece, she had wished. Any one at all.
Her wish had come true.
Oh, yes, she had been blinded by all that the Monarchs had and were. After all, she was a woman with no family and no pedigree, a woman Pierce had plucked off the sales floor of Marshall Field’s and transported here, to the old stone mansion in the heart of the city’s Gold Coast, to what she had thought of as a dream come true.
But the dream had the qualities of a nightmare.
She shook her head. That was over now. Here was Grace, a savior of sorts for the Monarch clan; already Madeline felt a lightening in the atmosphere of the house, a celebratory mood that affected all, even the household staff.
“Baby Grace is so pretty.”
Startled out of her thoughts, Madeline looked down at the boy, her heart melting at his awed expression. Rather than being jealous of his new sister, he seemed fascinated by her. He seemed to adore her.
How could she think such awful things about her stepson when he looked at Grace that way?
Madeline smiled. “I think so, too.”
“Grandfather Monarch says baby Grace has the gift.”
Madeline’s smile froze. “The gift?” she repeated.
He nodded. “The one the Monarch girls get. The one my great-great-grandfather Marcus saw in his sister and used to make our fortune. That’s why Grace is so special. That’s why we must always keep her close to the family.”
Although only parroting words he had obviously heard many times before, something almost fevered in his expression chilled her. “Grace is special because she is, Griffen. Not because of some…gift. Besides, just because only the girls in the family have been the artists so far doesn’t mean that someday one of the boys won’t be.” She smiled and tapped him on the end of his nose with her index finger. “Maybe you.”
“No.” He frowned and shook his head, looking adult and annoyed with her stupidity. “Grandfather says only the girls. That’s the way it’s always been. It’s why Grace is so important.”
Only the girls. Madeline shuddered and rubbed her arms. “Honey, Grace is just a baby. She might not have this…gift.”
“She has it. Grandfather says so.”
She frowned. “And your grandfather knows everything?”
“He’s the smartest person in the whole world. I’m going to be just like him when I grow up.” Griffen moved his gaze back to Grace. “Can I touch her?”
Madeline hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “Only lightly. Like this.” She demonstrated, ever so gently stroking Grace’s silky dark hair.
Griffen watched carefully, then mimicked her actions. After a moment, he drew his hand away. “She’s so soft,” he said, looking up at Madeline in surprise. “How come?”
“Because she’s brand-new.” She nudged the cradle and it swayed. “When she gets a little bigger, I’ll let you hold her.”
Again he mimicked Madeline’s actions, nudging the cradle, making it swing. “How much bigger?”
“A little bigger. Newborns are very delicate. They can be easily hurt.”
For several minutes, they said nothing, just stood side by side, rocking the cradle and gazing at Grace. Then Griffen looked up at Madeline once again. “I’m going to marry her when I grow up.”
“Who, honey?”
“Baby Grace.”
Madeline laughed softly and ruffled his dark hair. “You can’t, sweetheart. She’s your sister.”
Griffen said nothing. One moment became several, then he narrowed his eyes, the intensity in them taking her aback. “I will,” he said softly, fiercely. “I will if I want.”
Madeline’s vision blurred, then cleared. She saw a dark, white forest and blood spilling across a gleaming floor. She heard a silent scream for help, and saw small arms flailing against larger ones.
A squeak of terror slipped past Madeline’s lips. She blinked, and she was once again in her daughter’s sunny nursery, once again staring into her stepson’s cold, angry eyes.
Fear choked her. She fought it off, fought off the premonition and its chilling image. Drawing herself up to her full five-foot height, she frowned at him. “You cannot,” she said sternly, though her voice quivered. “A brother cannot marry his sister. Not ever.”
His face pinched with fury. “I will,” he said again, grabbing the top rail of the cradle. “No matter what you say!”
He pushed as hard as he could. The basket swung wildly, almost capsizing. Madeline cried out and sprang forward, though it was too late. Grace was thrown against the side of the basket, her head against the wooden slats. The infant screamed.
Madeline scooped up her howling daughter and cradled her against her chest, rocking her and cooing, trying desperately to comfort her. Trying just as desperately to comfort herself. She shook so badly she could hardly stand. Grace was all right, she told herself. Just frightened; just a bruise.
It could have been worse. Much worse.
Blood spilling across a gleaming floor. A desperate cry for help.
She lifted her gaze. Griffen had retreated to the doorway and stood there watching her, his expression smug. Self-satisfied.
