Books by Fern Michaels
Fate & Fortune
Sweet Vengeance
Holly and Ivy
Fancy Dancer
No Safe Secret
Wishes for Christmas
About Face
Perfect Match
A Family Affair
Forget Me Not
The Blossom Sisters
Balancing Act
Tuesday’s Child
Betrayal
Southern Comfort
To Taste the Wine
Sins of the Flesh
Sins of Omission
Return to Sender
Mr. and Miss
Anonymous
Up Close and Personal
Fool Me Once
Picture Perfect
The Future Scrolls
Kentucky Sunrise
Kentucky Heat
Kentucky Rich
Plain Jane
Charming Lily
What You Wish For
The Guest List
Listen to Your Heart
Celebration
Yesterday
Finders Keepers
Annie’s Rainbow
Sara’s Song
Vegas Sunrise
Vegas Heat
Vegas Rich
Whitefire
Wish List
Dear Emily
Christmas at
Timberwoods
The Sisterhood Novels
Safe and Sound
Need to Know
Crash and Burn
Point Blank
In Plain Sight
Eyes Only
Kiss and Tell
Gotcha!
Home Free
Déjà Vu
Cross Roads
Game Over
Deadly Deals
Vanishing Act
Razor Sharp
Under the Radar
Final Justice
Collateral Damage
Fast Track
Hokus Pokus
Hide and Seek
Free Fall
Lethal Justice
Sweet Revenge
The Jury
Vendetta
Payback
Weekend Warriors
The Men of the
Sisterhood Novels
Truth or Dare
High Stakes
Fast and Loose
Double Down
The Godmothers
Series
Getaway (E-Novella
Exclusive)
Spirited Away (E-
Novella Exclusive)
Hideaway (E-Novella
Exclusive)
Classified
Breaking News
Deadline
Late Edition
Exclusive
The Scoop
E-Book Exclusives
Desperate Measures
Seasons of Her Life
To Have and to Hold
Serendipity
Captive Innocence
Captive Embraces
Captive Passions
Captive Secrets
Captive Splendors
Cinders to Satin
For All Their Lives
Texas Heat
Texas Rich
Texas Fury
Texas Sunrise
Anthologies
Coming Home for
Christmas
A Season to Celebrate
Mistletoe Magic
Winter Wishes
The Most Wonderful
Time
When the Snow Falls
Secret Santa
A Winter Wonderland
I’ll Be Home for
Christmas
Making Spirits Bright
Holiday Magic
Snow Angels
Silver Bells
Comfort and Joy
Sugar and Spice
Let It Snow
A Gift of Joy
Five Golden Rings
Deck the Halls
Jingle All the Way
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
FERN MICHAELS
SAFE AND SOUND
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Teaser chapter
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by Fern Michaels
Fern Michaels is a registered trademark of KAP 5, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4600-4
ISBN: 978-1-4201-4600-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4601-1 (eBook)
ISBN-10: 1-4201-4601-7 (eBook)
Prologue
There were those who referred to the Circle, a property in a residential area of Virginia, as an oasis. Others questioned why there would be an oasis in an area populated by an average number of human beings and a few four-legged creatures. The queries gradually died a natural death as the years passed because, to put it simply, no one cared enough to keep questioning something that didn’t matter to them one way or the other.
The truth of the matter was that the parcel of land in question was circular—a thirteen-acre plot of land with three homes on each side of the Circle. The bottom half of the Circle consisted of a massive hydraulic gate with a retina scanner to which one had to submit in order to gain entrance unless one had a key to the gate. The message was clear: If you don’t belong here, go away. Dead center, at the top of the Circle but beyond its perimeter was a long, low, sprawling, one-story structure constructed of aged pink brick and covered in ivy. A small, burnished-brass plaque near the wide mahogany double doors that might have been at home on the castle side of a moat in medieval times spelled out the words ELEANOR LYMEN AMERICUS INSTITUTE. More often than not it was simply referred to as ELAI.
The Eleanor Lymen Americus Institute hosted gifted children, all of whose IQs were off the charts. These were children who, at the age of ten, had graduated from high school and immediately gone on to college. The Institute had working arrangements with a number of first-
rate colleges and universities, including the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, and Johns Hopkins University, which allowed its students to take online courses that instructors at the Institute supervised, thus allowing the Institute’s students to obtain higher-education degrees without suffering the adverse social effects of living on a college campus with people in their late teens and twenties. At the Institute, there were youngsters who had their MBAs at twelve, and others with PhDs at the age of fifteen. It was evident to anyone who examined the situation that most of the children were smarter than their instructors, including those at the aforementioned colleges and universities.
The ELAI was, architecturally speaking, a beautiful building inside and outside, though its sterile appearance, once inside, was not to everyone’s taste. No expense had been spared to make its form and structure as good an example of modern utilitarian architecture as one could find. A five-star chef prepared meals for the students and staff. The outside campus was exquisite, with just the right amount of flowers, shrubbery, and trees, all of which were precisely maintained by someone with manicure scissors. Every blade of grass matched its neighbor. No branch, twig, or leaf dared to outgrow its neighbor. Colorful benches and chairs were scattered over the grounds alongside flower-bordered walkways. The campus, however, was all for show, because no child, instructor, or house mother ever wandered over the spiky grass, no one ever sat with a book on the colorful benches and chairs or ate lunch in the beautiful setting.
The six McMansions that dotted the sides of the Circle were magnificent Tudor-style homes ranging from eight thousand to ten thousand square feet each. Three of the McMansions were currently inhabited, one by the owner of the Circle and the other two by the owner’s two best friends. All three houses sat next to one another on the left side of the Circle facing the Institute. The three McMansions on the opposite side were uninhabited. No one among the public knew why, because no one cared enough to ask. The center of the Circle was a flower garden maintained by the same person who maintained the ELAI campus. It was a beautiful rainbow of color even in the winter, when there was snow on the ground and scarlet poinsettias— artificial, of course—dotted the dead winter grass, along with some bright green Astroturf.
The Circle was just there. A place. To be talked about or not to be talked about.
The truth was, no member of the public seemed to care about the Circle. But one person and her friends cared, the founder of the Circle and the ELAI, Eleanor Porter Lymen, whose inherited railroad wealth allowed her to create the Circle and fund it unto eternity, as she was fond of saying.
Eleanor Porter Lymen had given one interview to a pesky young reporter named Maggie Spritzer when construction began. She never granted another, even when the Circle was completed. Nor would she grant an interview when the ELAI opened to admit its first students.
It wasn’t that Eleanor Porter Lymen was a recluse.
She wasn’t.
Eleanor Porter Lymen was a woman with too many secrets, secrets that she didn’t want pesky, pushy, obnoxious reporters ferreting out, and the best way to prevent that from happening was simply to ignore any and all requests for anything pertaining to herself or the ELAI.
Thirteen years after the Circle had been built, the ELAI and the six McMansions were all but forgotten by the press and anyone else who might have been interested enough to ask about them.
The Circle was just that.
The Circle.
Chapter 1
Isabelle Flanders Tookus picked her way carefully through the beautiful autumn leaves as she made her way to a park bench to eat her lunch with her new best friend. She carried her lunch in a small take-out bag. It was a simple lunch—pastrami with spicy brown mustard on rye along with two equally spicy garlic dill pickles. And one peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just to be on the safe side. Two bottles of Snapple iced tea, along with napkins and two wet wipes, completed the contents of the bag.
Isabelle loved autumn’s crisp air, the magnificent colored leaves, and the scent of smoke in the air to go along with all the fall decorations. She closed her eyes for a moment to allow conjured-up memories of childhood to appear behind her closed lids—visions of pumpkins, scarecrows, and haystacks.
She was partial to this little park because it allowed her to see what Realtors referred to as the Circle, the enclave she had designed early in her career as an architect. She never got tired of looking at it. She had also designed the little park she was sitting in at the moment. Because she loved the area so much, she had located her offices a block behind the enclave, so she could still enjoy gazing at the fruits of her labor whenever she chose to do so.
Weather permitting, she brought her lunch every day, usually from home, and spent a quiet hour doing nothing but people watching and devouring her lunch. It was also something she did alone, never inviting anyone to join her, because this hour of the day was hers and hers alone. Until six months ago, that is.
Isabelle looked down at her watch. He was late. A first.
He was never late. More often than not, her lunch date was early and waiting for her. It wasn’t always that way. In the beginning, when she first met him last spring, he would simply wave and move on. Waving became “hi,” then a few words here and there. Each encounter was for no more than a few seconds. Gradually, over the past six months, those few seconds slid into minutes, to be followed by an exchange of identities. First names only. So far.
A worm of fear crawled around Isabelle’s stomach. She wondered if something was wrong. She’d been crystal clear when she issued the luncheon invitation. Lunch on Friday—a first. Twelve noon. He’d nodded in agreement. Seeing no watch on his wrist, she wondered if he would be on time. She smiled now when she remembered how his eyes had lit up and sparkled like bright blue jewels at her invitation. It was a sign that their relationship was safe and moving to another level. Something she totally understood.
Isabelle shifted on the bench as she strained to see down the many paths in the little park that led to another circle, then back to the main entrance. She could see two young women jogging in their brightly colored spandex outfits that screamed, Hey look at me, I’m exercising. Two elderly gentlemen were wearing gilly hats and getting ready to set up a chessboard for their daily game. And a young couple was strolling along, holding hands.
It was such a beautiful day, so inviting, so golden and bronze that Isabelle was surprised the park wasn’t jammed with office workers taking advantage of the nice weather to eat their lunch outdoors. In a few weeks, these days of Indian summer would be nothing more than a memory.
Isabelle chewed on her lower lip as she stared down at her watch. Eight minutes late.
And then she saw him, pedaling his bicycle as fast as his eight-year-old legs could pump the pedals. “Hey, Izzy! I’m sorry I’m late! I had to help a lady catch her dog. I caught him, and he was fast.” The little boy beamed happily. “Look, she gave me five dollars! I didn’t want to take it, but the lady insisted. I didn’t want to insult her, so I took it.”
“It’s okay, I just got here myself. That’s wonderful about catching the dog! You ready for lunch?”
“I am. What are we having, Izzy?”
“Something you told me you have never eaten before, a pastrami with hot mustard on rye bread and some really good pickles. Snapple.”
Ben Ryan slid off his bike and propped it up against the back of the bench before he skedaddled around to sit down next to Isabelle, his only friend in the whole world.
“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it. I also brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just in case.”
Ben grinned from ear to ear as he waited for Isabelle to hand over his sandwich and napkin. “I am sure I’ll like it. I have a discriminating palate.” He chomped down on his sandwich.
Isabelle had trouble not laughing at his final comment before starting to eat. She nibbled on her own pastrami sandwich as she studied her new friend. She was obsessed w
ith the little guy, who was so skinny she worried that a strong wind would blow him away. Childless herself, she simply assumed what she was feeling was some kind of motherly instinct. She knew so little about him. She understood his original reticence about not talking to strangers. But months of hand waves, short greetings, and short conversations meant they’d moved to a place where the young boy felt safe and comfortable around her. And yet he was still aloof to a fault. He had never volunteered any information about himself; nor had he asked her anything about herself. As much as she wanted to quiz him, she’d restrained herself, afraid that if she did, she’d drive him away.
She saw him three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Five months into the friendship, Isabelle found herself scheduling her appointments earlier or later so as to always be available at the noon hour to spend time with the little boy. She couldn’t explain it to herself, much less explain it to her Sisterhood friends or her husband, Abner. In a way, it was her special secret, one she wanted to keep to herself. She couldn’t help but wonder if Ben had told his parents about her. For some reason, she thought it unlikely.
Ben Ryan was an endearing little boy. His dark, curly hair was too long. His bright blue eyes confused her because, at least in her opinion, they were the eyes of an adult. He had a cute little pug nose and chipmunk cheeks, and there was a gap between his front teeth. Endearing. Something about Ben suddenly stirred in Isabelle. It was something she was all too familiar with: fear. Now why would a little eight-year-old be fearful? He was well dressed. Just because he was whippet thin didn’t mean he wasn’t fed. He had a bicycle, and it was relatively new. Obviously, he was allowed to be out and about on his own, so he wasn’t being held a prisoner anywhere.