September
Rachel Nightingale kept her head down and resisted the urge to look over her shoulder while she waited in the queue to buy passage on the ferry to Wyrd. There was no reason for anyone to look for her here. Alistair wouldn’t think she’d have the courage to go to the Isle of Wyrd.
Her fiancé didn’t understand that sometimes desperation could look a lot like courage—and she had been desperate for a long time.
Not at the beginning. Alistair had been wonderful to her in the beginning, bragging to everyone that his lady friend was a beautiful bestselling novelist. He’d wined her and dined her and bedded her with care—until he persuaded her to move in with him.
Then the slow erosion of her life began.
He said she needed to lose some weight. She was getting broad in the beam from sitting on her ass all day writing those “hack stories.”
She couldn’t go with him to his important dinner out of town because she had a deadline for some stupid book only marginally literate domestic staff would want to read? How could she be so selfish?
Why did she have to embarrass him by telling his associates she was reading some crap?
Never mind that the wives of those associates were also reading that book, and she and the other women had been enjoying a lively discussion about the characters and storyline until he pulled her away from that group so that she could stand with him among a group of men who “joked” that a woman’s proper place was on her knees.
When she pointed that out to Alistair when they got home, he’d dragged her into the bathroom and pushed her head into the toilet bowl, pulling her head up before she drowned.
She didn’t have any friends. Not anymore.
Alistair monitored her phone calls and her e-mails to her agent and editor.
She set up another e-mail account, a secret one she used to stay in touch with them.
She had a post office box in another part of King’s Hill where she received her royalty statements and any contracts that might come in, although those were rare now.
She hadn’t written anything in two years because Alistair had insisted on reading her rough drafts and had brutally criticized her skills as a writer until she couldn’t write a coherent sentence anymore, let alone a novel.
The one time she’d tried to explain the writing process and why first drafts were rough drafts was the first time he’d hit her in the face and began telling people she was “clumsy.”
He’d taken away her life and made sure she was too afraid of displeasing him to do anything on her own. He’d consumed most of her, but he still needed her because she had dug in and held on to one thing he wanted and she wouldn’t give him.
He had made a couple of bad investments a few months ago and needed a fresh source of cash—and there were the royalties from her previous books, an influx of cash that came in twice a year.
She and Alistair weren’t married, so their finances had been kept separate.
Then he began pressuring her to add him as another person who could access her savings account and her checking account.
He wanted access to her safe deposit box, accusing her of holding out on him when it came to putting in her share of the money for the upkeep of their luxury apartment—a new accusation, since splitting the costs had never been part of the agreement when he’d asked her to live with him.
The lease was in his name. Nothing connected her to the place any more than the other women who had lived with him had been connected to the place.
He used them up, then threw them out, because he was Alistair Hampton, one of the Hamptons from King’s Hill, and that’s what he could do with women.
She had some terrifying suspicions of what had happened to those other women, especially now that Alistair had escalated his campaign to gain access to her savings and the safe deposit box where she’d hidden her mother’s jewelry and some cash.
Two nights ago, she had decided to run after Alistair slapped her around again for refusing to give him access to her money.
She felt lightheaded and weak from hunger because he hadn’t allowed her to eat for several days, and he took pictures on his phone every morning before he left for work—pictures of the contents of the fridge and pantry showing him all the food.
She couldn’t even take a swallow of milk or orange juice without him knowing—and punishing her for it.
This morning, she retrieved the five hundred dollars she had hidden in a box of tampons—about the only thing of hers she knew Alistair wouldn’t touch—and packed a soft-sided overnight bag with the clothes she could fit into it, as well as her e-reader and charger.
Her cell phone went into her purse. She turned off the phone at the last moment in case Alistair had someone monitoring her phone calls when he wasn’t around.
She walked out of the apartment with the overnight bag and her purse, smiled at the man at the reception desk.
As she smiled at the doorman, who wished her a pleasant day, she glanced back—and saw the man at the desk writing something in his book.
Probably noting when she left and what she was carrying.
But he didn’t pick up the phone to inform Alistair that she had left the building.
She walked a block and crossed the street before hailing a taxi, giving the central branch of the King’s Hill public library as her destination.
She wasn’t allowed to check out books that weren’t on Alistair’s approved reading list, but she went to the library a couple of times a week just to be among books—and to peruse the posters that offered phone numbers that could connect her to women’s shelters in towns around the Fate River.
She walked into the library and waited until the taxi drove away.
Leaving the library, she crossed the street to the small market and deli where she sometimes bought forbidden food.
Today she bought a roll, a single-serve box of orange juice, and yogurt.
She tucked the roll and orange juice into the overnight bag’s side pocket and ate the yogurt at one of the high-top tables on the deli side of the store.
She wanted more, needed more, but she was afraid of getting sick if she ate too much after being empty for so long.
She lingered because now she had to decide.
There was a small commuter ferry—a “river bus”—that traveled the Fate River, stopping at a few places in each town to pick people up and drop them off.
The Fate was a wide, deep river with powerful, unpredictable currents.
But it wasn’t wide enough to hide the land on the other side of the water. The Isle of Wyrd.
Commercial vessels could anchor in Destiny Bay or dock at the Destiny Marina for a few hours while their crews off-loaded goods—or so she’d heard.
It was risky to enter the bay without permission, but people could reach the island that way, and there were buses—or some kind of vehicles—that took passengers around the island.
There was even some kind of train, but there were rumors that people who boarded that train didn’t always arrive at their destination—or any destination at all.
But if you needed help and were desperate enough to try to change your fate, there was only one place to go: the pavilion in Destiny Park.
Claiming she was doing research for a new book, Rachel had learned that much about Wyrd, just as she’d learned about the women’s shelters.
She had to decide. Reaching the pavilion was the goal because Alistair didn’t have any influence there.
God, she hoped he didn’t have any influence there. But the moment Alistair realized she was gone, he’d send someone to hunt her down and bring her back. And once she was under his control again, he would break her down until she signed over everything she had. And then…
Then…
The river bus and any tourist boat that had a captain willing to chance entering Destiny Bay were run by men who were open to bribes or would buckle under threats—to say nothing of one of Alistair’s people being on the river bus or another boat for some other reason and receiving the alert that she had bolted.
Same with the land buses. Less likely, but someone could recognize her from the author photos on her books and have the bus stopped before she reached the Penwych docks—and the particular dock where that ferry crossed the river.
Taxi was the best choice. Still a chance of being stopped, but she had a story about bringing some gently used clothes to a friend who lived near the Penwych docks.
No, not a friend. An acquaintance. Yes, that was better.
She was doing a kindness for a woman down on her luck, but discretion was required and that’s why she was traveling all the way around the Fate River.
She had studied maps of the towns that bordered the river, again claiming research, and she’d looked up residential areas on the library’s computers, so she knew there was an apartment complex a block away from where the ferry to Wyrd ran.
Rachel hailed another taxi and gave the driver the address of the apartment complex in Penwych.
The cabby turned in his seat and looked pointedly at the diamond ring on her left hand. “You sure? Cops keep an eye on things around there because…well…just because. Still, wearing a ring like that might be a temptation.”
“I’ll be fine, thank you,” Rachel replied.
“Suit yourself.”
When the cabby headed into traffic and took the main highway that followed the river, Rachel slipped the ring off her finger and tucked it into a zip pocket of her purse.
She wasn’t worried about being mugged for the ring, although that was a possibility, but the diamond and setting were distinctive and easily identifiable, since Alistair had photos of the ring for insurance purposes.
She tried to act calm, tried to remember her cover story, tried not to look like someone who was running away from an abuser.
Alistair shouldn’t know she was missing until he returned to the apartment that evening—assuming he didn’t get in late because he’d spent time with whomever he was currently screwing. She felt sorry for his current mistress, but she hoped the woman would keep him occupied long enough.
When they arrived at the apartment complex, Rachel gave the driver the fare and a precisely correct tip. Nothing that would make her memorable.
The cabby would remember the ring, but she couldn’t help that.
He didn’t linger, didn’t watch her go to one of the doors. Still, she waited until the taxi was out of sight before hurrying to the dock.
The ferry was unloading passengers when she arrived. She’d just made it. If she’d been a few minutes later, she would have had to wait for the ferry’s next crossing, leaving her exposed on this side of the river.
She watched the people, afraid she might recognize someone—and be recognized in turn.
Groups of women walked off together, chatting about tarot and colors and strange vibes in the park. Other people, including a few men, walked off the ferry looking shattered, frightened.
Some people carried large totes; others had wheeled overnight suitcases, confirming that there was somewhere she could stay—provided she could afford the price of a room and a meal.
The librarians had mentioned a hotel located near the entrance to Destiny Park, but they couldn’t find any information about the cost of a room.
If she had to, she would find a place in the park to hide and sleep rough.
One librarian who had gone to the island on a day off did tell her that she would have to buy coins at a currency exchange booth since those coins were the only kind of currency used on the island.
When the last departing passenger reached the shore, the shutters on the currency exchange booth opened.
She was in the middle of the queue. The people around her were talking about tarot readings or having their futures revealed in the lines of their hands. She kept watching the people, kept waiting to hear a shout, kept bracing for a hand to grab her arm.
Five more people ahead of her. Four more.
Shouting behind her, but when she glanced back, it was two teenage boys doing some pushy-shovey until a male voice said, “The current is rough here. If you fall into the water, no one is going to go in after you.”
The boys stopped fooling around.
Did that voice belong to another passenger? Maybe a regular who knew about the river? Or did the dock and ferry have its own discreet security?
Two more people. One more.
When she saw the person in the booth, Rachel blinked once, then busied herself with opening her purse and taking out three hundred dollars. Man? Woman? Young? Old? It was like her brain couldn’t make a decision about what she was seeing.
She held out the money. “I’d like to exchange this, please.”
The person stared at her. “You here for fun or something more?”
It was tempting to say “Fun.” Didn’t most people come here for a taste of the strange? But lying…“Something more.”
The person took her money and gave her a stack of gold and silver coins.
“Gold is ten, silver is five,” the person said. “Pay the Ferryman a gold coin. You’ll see where. Next.”
Rachel’s hands shook as she gathered the coins. She almost dropped one stack on the dock and would have watched them slip into the water, but she managed to dump them into her purse, holding on to the one gold coin she would need when she boarded.
A covered black cauldron with a slot on the top and a sign that read Pay the Ferryman. She dropped the gold coin into the slot and took an inside seat near the front of the ferry.
It was tempting to keep looking behind her, but she kept her head down and clutched her purse and overnight bag.
She didn’t breathe easy until the ferry pulled away from the dock and headed for the Isle of Wyrd.