"No." Her voice sounded choked and muffled. "No, I won't do it."

He was a ruffian, a renegade. For years she had kept her life under perfect control. She had done everything properly, followed all the rules, not stepped on a single crack. How could this have happened? How could her life have careened out of her control so quickly?

Behind her stood safe, steady Cal Theroux, her twin, the man who kept the demons away. Before her stood a street-smart hustler on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Impulsively, she turned away from both of them and looked toward her sister, only to see the frozen shock on her face. Paige wouldn't help her. Paige never helped.

Susannah clawed at her neck, but the pearl choker was gone. She felt the old panic grip her, and once again she found herself being drawn back to the horror of that spring day in 1958-the day when she became the most famous child in America.

The memory washed over her, threatening to paralyze her. And then she grew aware of her father freeing himself from the row of chairs, and she summoned all of her strength to shake away the past. She had only an instant, only an infinitesimal fragment of time to act before her father took control.

Calvin Theroux stood to her right, promising love, security, and comfort. A messiah on a motorcycle stood to her left, promising nothing. With a soft cry, proper Susannah Faulconer chose her destiny.

BOOK ONE. THE VISION

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

– Goethe

Chapter 1

Susannah's real father wasn't Joel Faulconer, but an Englishman named Charles Lydiard, who met Susannah's mother when he visited New York City in 1949.