“Right there,” I said, pointing behind my great-grandmother’s chair. Mother got that look on her face—the one right before she spanked me. She then sent me to my room without dinner. We never spoke of the incident again.
When I was eight, my father took an extended vacation to Europe. Even though no one ever talked about it, I knew the truth—that he’d run away with another woman. My mother fell apart. She hired a full-time nanny to take care of us and then took off for some spa in Arizona. The nanny’s name was Gail. She was a tall woman with golden eyes and a soothing voice. Gail was special. She had a cat living inside her. I absolutely loved cats. I’d always wanted one but my mother was allergic. Imagine my excitement when ‘Gail the cat’ came to live with us. It didn’t take long to realize that my little sister didn’t see Gail’s cat. How could she not? My eight-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend this. A few months into Gail’s stay, I broke down and told Bailey about Gail’s cat. I made her swear not to tell our parents. She was six, of course she was going to tell. My parents freaked. Mom flew back from Arizona, and Dad returned from Europe. Sadly, they fired Gail and I was grounded for a month.
After Gail left, I read everything I could get my hands on about this strange other world—which wasn’t much as I was only eight. I thought I’d discovered a secret—that I’d stumbled upon something magical.
On Bailey’s ninth birthday, we were out to dinner with our grandparents. In the middle of devouring my meal, my brain began to tingle. It felt like tiny ants crawling inside my head. When the crawling suddenly morphed into a burning pain, I reacted. I’m not sure what I did, but whatever it was, it stopped the awful feeling. On the way out the door, I saw a man sitting alone at a table by the window. Our eyes met, and I felt that same crawling sensation inside my head. Don’t ask me how, but I knew he was the cause of it. I also knew that what he was doing was wrong. Staring defiantly at him, I spoke—not out loud but inside my mind. I called him a bad man and told him to stop bothering little kids. From the surprised look on his face, I thought he might have heard me. As I couldn’t see his animal, I thought he might have been a vampire. In truth, I had no idea what he was.
Nevertheless, I was beside myself with excitement. Not able to stand it, I told Bailey. Once again, she told my parents. I’ll never forget my mother’s words. In that imperialistic tone that I hated, she said, “You are a Duvail, and Duvail’s do not associate with those kinds of creatures. One more time, Diana, and Daddy and I will ship you off to live with your aunt Reba.”
Aunt Reba was old and mean. I was devastated. If my mother knew about those so-called creatures, then it wasn’t a secret. We never spoke of it again.
My father died when I was seventeen. Mother said the good lord took him, but we all knew it was the alcohol. The day after my eighteenth birthday, she drove me across town to the family attorney’s office. It was there that I learned I was adopted. Evidently, I needed this information to access my trust funds. There were two, to be exact, one from each side of the family. Both contained more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes. I should have been thrilled to discover I was loaded. Instead, I was angry. I felt betrayed, felt as if I’d been living a lie. If I wasn’t Diana Duvail, then who was I?
I was still trying to figure that out.
My mother passed away during my first year at the police academy—no doubt from shock that I’d chosen such a lowly profession. Once Mom was gone, Bailey, who’d been kept on a tight leash, set out to find herself. She met a guy while traipsing across Europe, and ended up marrying him. His name was Amos, and he looked like Shaggy Rogers from the Scooby-Doo cartoon. The three of us had dinner together once a month. I never told Bailey I was adopted. I also hadn’t told her about Mick’s death or my reassignment to the PHD. If I’d learned anything from living