Copyright © 2007 by Mary Higgins Clark

Writing is essentially a lonely occupation. A writer is blessed who has people who support and encourage along the way. When I begin to tell the tale, my forever editor, Michael V. Korda, and senior editor Chuck Adams continue to cheer and advise me. My thanks always to them and to Lisl Cade my publicist, my agent Sam Pinkus, and Associate Director of Copyediting Gypsy da Silva and her special team: Joshua Cohen and Jonathan Evans.

Kudos and thanks to my family, children, and grandchildren, to Himself, the ever-perfect John Conheeney, to my closeknit supporters Agnes Newton, Nadine Petry, and Irene Clark. You’re a grand group, and I love you all.

And now, my dear readers, I hope you enjoy this story.

For Marilyn

My Firstborn Child and Very Dear Friend

With love

My father was the landscaper for the Carrington estate. With fifty acres, it was one of the last remaining private properties of that size in Englewood, New Jersey, an upscale town three miles west of Manhattan via the George Washington Bridge.

One Saturday afternoon in August twenty-two years ago, when I was six years old, my father decided, even though it was his day off, that he had to go there to check on the newly installed outside lighting. The Carringtons were having a formal dinner party that evening for two hundred people. Already in trouble with his employers because of his drinking problem, Daddy knew that if the lights placed throughout the formal gardens did not function properly, it might mean the end of his job.

Because we lived alone, he had no choice except to take me with him. He settled me on a bench in the garden nearest the terrace with strict instructions to stay right there until he came back. Then he added, “I may be a little while, so if you have to use the bathroom, go through the screen door around the corner. You’ll see the staff powder room just inside it.”