Snowdrop Dreams: Excerpt #6 from THE LUCKY ONES by Tiffany Reisz

The Lucky Ones by Tiffany Reisz

Published: February 13, 2018

Publisher: Mira Books

Find Online: Goodreads | Amazon | Books-A-Million | B&N

They called themselves “the lucky ones.” They were seven children either orphaned or abandoned by their parents and chosen by legendary philanthropist and brain surgeon Dr. Vincent Capello to live in The Dragon, his almost magical beach house on the Oregon Coast. Allison was the youngest of the lucky ones living an idyllic life with her newfound family…until the night she almost died, and was then whisked away from the house and her adopted family forever.

Now, thirteen years later, Allison receives a letter from Roland, Dr. Capello’s oldest son, warning her that their father is ill and in his final days. Allison determines she must go home again and confront the ghosts of her past. She's determined to find out what really happened that fateful night--was it an accident or, as she's always suspected, did one of her beloved family members try to kill her?

But digging into the past can reveal horrific truths, and when Allison pieces together the story of her life, she'll learns the terrible secret at the heart of the family she once loved but never really knew.

A vivid and suspenseful tale of family, grief, love—and the dark secrets that bind everything together—Tiffany Reisz’s latest is enthralling to the final page.

“Xanadu?” McQueen repeated. “Like the movie?”

“Like the poem,” she said. “‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree…’ I used to have it all memo rized. Anyway, it was lovely there.”

She couldn’t sit still anymore so she put her glass on the table and stood up. She went to the bookshelves that lined the walls and started searching for a book, not because she wanted to read it, but to find something she’d slipped inside it long ago.

“You know that’s crazy, right?” he said.

“What? Didn’t everyone live in a magical beach house with a famous doctor as a kid?”

“Cricket.” McQueen hated sarcasm as much as he hated when she wore jeans.

“I know it sounds nuts,” she said. “I do, but it seemed nor mal at the time. I was seven, though. I still thought Santa Claus was real. Of all the kids, Roland was the one I was closest to. He was older. He was nice. I just… I never thought I’d hear from him again. That’s all.”

McQueen leaned back in his armchair and steepled his fin gers. He did this when he was thinking. She had a feeling he was thinking, That’s not all.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

“That I want you out of my apartment right now,” she said casually, without malice and without much truth, either. She ignored him as best as she could as she studied her shelves.

“About your brother. Usually when nice people send me mail, I don’t almost lose my lunch.”

“I’m done talking about this with you.”

“I’m not done listening.”

“Well, there’s nothing more to tell.”

“We’ve been sleeping together for six years, Allison. I know when you’re faking it with me. You’re faking right now. You went white as a sheet when you saw his name on that enve lope. That’s not like you. You are not a drama queen. You don’t overreact. When we were mugged in Milan, I was the one who puked afterward, not you. There is something you’re not telling me, and I’m not leaving until I know what it is.”

“You’re being nosy.”

“I care,” he said.

“You have an interesting way of showing it,” she said. She’d found her book at last, but didn’t open it.

McQueen sighed. He beckoned to her and she walked to him, sitting in front of him on top of the coffee table between his knees. He leaned forward and took the book from her hand and put it aside. He raised her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles, before turning her hand over. He caressed her palm with his fingertips, a sensual touch but also comforting.

“Did something bad happen to you in that house?” he asked, meeting her eyes. If she’d thought for one single second that McQueen was prying out of curiosity or nosiness or because he felt entitled to her secrets, she would never have answered. But the man who’d asked that question wasn’t McQueen the rich jerk who was dumping her, but McQueen the scared fa ther who’d burn the world down if anyone hurt his children.

“Dr. Capello didn’t molest me if that’s what you’re asking.”

McQueen took a heavy breath, relieved on her behalf.

“That’s what I’m asking,” he said. “So nobody hurt you, then?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“It’s not—”

“Tell me what happened and I’ll leave.”

“You promise?”

He carved an invisible X on his heart with his finger. “Once I know you’re okay, I’ll go.”

Allison hadn’t thought about her old life with Dr. Capello and his kids in a long time. She tried not to think about them, she certainly never talked about them and she never ever in vited memories into her mind. They came sometimes, how ever, uninvited, creeping like ants through a crack in the wall.

“You wouldn’t be this freaked out if it was really that good there,” McQueen said.

“I’m not freaked out,” she said, maybe a lie, maybe not. She was just…surprised, that’s all. “You’d be shaky, too, if your brother contacted you out of the blue after thirteen years.”

“True. Because I don’t have a brother, even an almost-brother. You do.”

Allison released his hand and picked up the book she’d found, an old copy of Shaw’s Pygmalion, the pages highlighter-yellow from her days as an English major in college.

“Allison?”

She gave in.

“The last summer I was there, someone in the house maybe possibly pushed me down the stairs.”

“What?” McQueen said, eyes wide with fury.

Allison shrugged, said nothing.

“An accident?” McQueen asked.

“So I was told.”

“But you don’t think it was an accident?”

Allison held the book to her chest.

“My great-aunt was seventy when my mom died. She was living in southern Indiana. That’s why I went to live with Dr. Capello instead of her. But I still called her once a week to check in. The day of my fall—or whatever it was—someone apparently called her, pretended to be me and told her that there was a killer in the house and I needed her to come get me.”

McQueen started to speak.

“Before you ask,” Allison said, “I don’t know who it was who called or who pushed me—if someone did push me. When I fell, I hit my head so hard I don’t even remember falling. I don’t remember waking up in the hospital. I don’t remember much of anything from around that time. What I do remember is that I was living at The Dragon, happiest kid on earth, and then I was in Indiana later that summer, living with my aunt in her tiny apartment.”

“That must have been a hard hit,” McQueen said. “What did the police say?”

“There wasn’t even an investigation,” she said. “There was no evidence other than the phone call, and everyone chalked that up to my aunt being old and hard of hearing, maybe even confused. Everyone but me. That woman could hear a pin drop and she had all her faculties intact to the day she died.”

“No witnesses?” McQueen asked. Allison ignored the urge to roll her eyes. He was talking like a cop.

“Nobody came forward that I know of.”

“Kids can be really violent,” McQueen said.

“Not these kids,” Allison said.

“Then who did it? Someone did something or you never would have had to leave.”

About the Author:

Tiffany Reisz lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband (author Andrew Shaffer). -source

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