The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011(159)

Holly turned to the next page and instantly her heart shuddered erratically in her chest as she saw the faxed copy of a Police report, dated the twenty-seventh of December nearly twenty-four years ago. Three days after she’d been abandoned.

She sank to the bed, her throat choked with trepidation, and forced herself to continue to read the investigating officer’s coldly clinical description of the discovery of a teenage girl’s body, dead from a suspected drug overdose, under a motorway overpass. She’d been found wrapped in a bunch of newspapers. A low-resolution copy of the crime scene photo brought a cold metallic taste to Holly’s mouth. The dead girl couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. What a waste of a life.

Apparently she’d been found wearing a locket which, when the photo inside was publicised, lead the police back to her family. A family she’d run away from three and a half years earlier.

Fingers shaking, Holly flicked to the report. It was believed the dead girl was Holly’s mother—the clue lying in the newspapers that had surrounded the body, many of which shouted the headlines of Holly’s abandonment on Christmas Eve in the downtown shopping complex.

Holly pored over the photo again. She could faintly distinguish the headlines he referred to. A gaping sense of loss penetrated her chest and with it a sense of hopelessness. She would never know her mother—could never ask her the million and one questions that had plagued her as a child.

This bereavement felt different from when Andrea had died. This time her sorrow was threaded with frustration and anger at the young woman who’d taken her life and left Holly to a future no one could have known. And yet, the young woman’s desolation was painted clear and strong in the picture. Alone and wrapped in the evidence of what had probably been the hardest thing she’d ever done. What could have driven her to such a lonely death? She must have used support services when Holly was born—why hadn’t she called for help when she could no longer cope on her own? How had she slipped through the cracks?

No matter what the answers, it was all too late now.

Holly swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. She would not cry. Not again. She’d shed a lifetime of tears for her mother already.

She continued to read, damming all emotion behind an invisible wall, until finally she reached the end and put the papers back into the envelope. Hope flickered like a timid ember in her mind. A woman named Queenie Fleming lived at a coastal holiday spot, about half an hour north of Whangarei. If the investigator’s deductions were correct, she could be Holly’s grandmother. Her sole surviving relative.

How long would Connor have kept this information from her, Holly wondered. Would he ever have told her?

She had to meet Queenie Fleming, although she knew Connor would never sanction such a meeting. Finally, she thought with grim realization, fate was on her side. With Connor away she’d have no difficulty slipping away after her obstetric appointment tomorrow. She could withdraw the money that had been accumulating in her account over the past few months and pay untraceable cash for a rental car. A quiver of excitement ran up her back. Tomorrow she had a date with her past.

“You look tired this morning, miss. Didn’t you sleep well?” “A bit unsettled,” she admitted, stifling a yawn.

With forced steadiness, she reluctantly accepted the cup of tea Thompson had poured for her, taking it over to the bay window to look out on the early spring morning. Last night she’d been too excited to sleep, fearful with every creak of the house that Connor had returned. By the time the sun breached the horizon, she’d already been up and dressed and made a last-minute check on the few toiletries and personal items she’d stowed in her bag.

While she’d waited for the next hour to tick past on the bedside clock, she wondered how Connor would react. He’d be livid. By leaving him she was effectively kidnapping his baby. He’d be after her as soon as he could, which was why she had the reports rolled up and secured in the bottom of her bag. Once he discovered she had them, he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. He couldn’t force her back here if he tried, and with luck she’d gain a head start of at least a few days.

She didn’t doubt he’d come after her, well the baby at least. He loved the baby already with a single-minded intensity she envied. How could he be so certain that he wasn’t opening himself up to heartache?

Holly put the cup on the breakfast table and stretched her lower back. She’d been so achy these past couple of days and the baby felt as though it sat lower than before. She’d have to watch her fluid intake today or she’d be forever stopping at rest-rooms on the way up north. She had to be as invisible as possible. Every stop would leave another imprint of where she’d been and make her easier to find. She’d go light on the liquids.