to the lock. It clicked. Sh

l gown, letting it drop to the floor. She pulled the jeans up over her hips and slid the heavy cotton hoo

k medical mask and a blue Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap

who was still dry-heaving on the

ds were laughing by the elevator bank. Aspen turned her back to

d down the concrete steps without mak

g past a stack of wooden pallets. She pushed open the chain-

n merged into their group, matching their pace fo

ised her hand. A yellow cab sla

e cracked leather seat. She kept her head d

es of her stolen life finally locked into place. The foreign presence that had taken over her body finally had a name, pulled from the depths of her hijacked consciousness. Lucy Stone. A crazed, obsessive fan. Lucy had orchestrated the crash on the Pacific Coast H

outside the massive stone walls of

perimeter, staying in the shadows of the thick landscaping bus

fence was ten feet tall, toppe

planting the toe of her sneaker against the bri

eaking point, but she forced her body to obey, swinging her legs over the top in one fluid, silent motion. She dropped down, ben

ines of the infrared motion sensors. She crept arou

rouched down and lifted a fake decorative rock fro

she had programmed into the motherboard

r open and stepped i

wrong. It sme

tom Italian rug in the hallway was

cologne hung in the air. Beneath it, her trained no

she heard the muffled s

based on the blood, he was

sive marble kitchen island. She

rp. She flipped the knife, holding it in a reverse grip, hiding th

taircase, her bare feet makin