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Prologue

Ten Years Earlier

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call your family?” the nurse said “Or maybe a friend?”

The woman’s voice was an echo inside Rachel Ford-Talbot’s head,a point high on the wall above the , she concentrated on it until the roo it took, she didn’t know Ti to everything she did

She tried to speak, but herbefore she felt a plastic beaker being gently held to her parched lips Water Lukewarhtly chemical

A sharp, stabbing pain shot down her throat with each sip before she sagged deeper into the bed “Don’t call anyone” Her voice was a croak “I don’t want anyone”

“You need someone” The wohter, I’d hate to think you were going through this alone”

“Please” Rachel couldn’t bear to look at her and see pity Not again Never again It was all she’d seen since arriving at the hospital Instead, she focused on that sah on the wall Was it a scuffat all? “Please, don’t call anyone”

As soon as she’d woken up on the floor of a hotel roonize, with several Polaroid photos beside her, she’d known she couldn’t tell anyone what happened She’d understood the warning in the photos without even reading the threats scrawled across them

“The police are here,” the doctor said as she came into the room

“I don’t want to talk to them”

All Rachel wanted to do was sleep Possibly forever Her li into the stiff mattress on the hospital bed Her head throbbed—an aftereffect of the drug that had been slipped into her drink in the nightclub Her throat ached froer marks around her neck There were bruises and scrapes all over her body So about Not yet anyway

Maybe never

She felt a touch on her hand and jerked it away, hugging her arht to her body as she concentrated on the rowing?

“It’s okay, honey,” the nurse said softly “You’re safe here”

“Rachel”—the doctor walked around the bed and stood between her and the srounded—“the police are here to help They can find the people who did this to you”

Rachel winced People Not person

“I can’t tell the I have no memory of what happened, and no evidence” She’d ripped the photos into tiny pieces and flushed the with the contents of her stoes that would help identify her attackers The only face that could be seen was hers

“Let us do a forensic exaently “Let us collect evidence It may help the police find who did this”

She shook her head, and nausea assaulted her The bile surged up into her mouth before she could even attempt to stop it Hands helped her to sit up A basin appeared under her nose, and the to left in it