Valentina Giambanco was born in Italy. After earning her degree in English and drama at Goldsmiths, she worked for a classical music retailer and as a bookseller in her local bookshop. She started in films as an editor’s apprentice in a 35mm cutting room and since then has worked on many award-winning UK and US films, from small independent projects to large studio productions. She lives in London.

  www.vmgiambanco.com

  @vm_giambanco

  Also by Valentina Giambanco

  The Gift of Darkness

  The Dark

  New York • London

  © 2017 Valentina Giambanco

  Cover Design © www.blacksheep-uk.com

  Seattle Skyline © Alamy; Figure © Arcangel

  First published in the United States by Quercus in 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to [email protected].

  e-ISBN: 978-1-68144-295-2

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016030133

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  For Gerald

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  August 1992

  Alice Madison, twelve years old, listened for sounds beyond the hammering of her heart. All was quiet except for the rain tapping on the trees, even the road that led to Friday Harbor. Mrs. Quint from next door would get up any minute now to feed her chickens, and Alice decided to rush out of the house before that blabbermouth was in her yard. It was hardly a choice: Alice wanted—needed—to get out of there fast.

  She took stock of her bedroom—everything wrecked, broken, smashed—drew a deep breath and grabbed her backpack, which she had crammed with a few essentials and one book—Treasure Island, because her mother used to read it to her and she couldn’t bear to leave it behind. Her sleeping bag was secured in a tight bundle at the bottom of the bag.

  As her eyes moved over the familiar surfaces and objects, she knew she couldn’t stay here anymore and, one way or the other, she would never come back.

  She grabbed from a shelf a pink wooden box that had survived the onslaught, emptied the beaded bracelets and the WWF buttons with the mournful pandas onto her unmade bed, and lifted the fake bottom to free three tight rolls of money, held together by elastic hairbands. She shoved them into the back pocket of her jeans back pocket and placed the box on her bedside table. Her Mickey Mouse clock read 7:03 a.m. She picked up her baseball bat and her mitt and surveyed her room. Time to go.

  Alice tiptoed down the hall, stopping only to listen to her father’s breathing and light snoring coming from his room. She closed the front door behind her and started down the side of the house, long steps, almost but not quite running. She was pleased she didn’t have to push the creaking garage door open: her red bicycle was leaning, as usual, against the work table. She walked it up to the road, got on, and pushed off.

  The raindrops drummed on her baseball cap’s visor, but she knew the rain wouldn’t last long. Through the low-hanging mist she heard Mrs. Quint stepping into her yard and calling out to her chickens. Alice quickly turned the corner.

  The girl pedaled under the soft rain. She still couldn’t believe what had happened in the last few hours, and her heart was beating like it wanted to burst out of her chest and get clear away from her.

  The mist was heavy on San Juan Valley Road and Alice stuck close to the ditch in case an unlikely car sped past. At this time of day the road was deserted—lush green fields and patches of trees on both sides—but you never know. San Juan Island was a tourist resort between Washington State and Vancouver Island; a stone’s throw from Canadian waters, any traffic was probably guests of the bed and breakfasts scattered in the valley. The island counted roughly ten thousand permanent residents and in the summer months the number swelled to almost double. Alice had lived there for a little over a year—long enough to start making friends, camp out in the mild evenings, and watch her mother die only weeks after a late-stage cancer diagnosis. Her father was all she had left now. Except that wasn’t true either, not anymore.

  There was a long stretch just before the Valley Road became Spring Street, and Alice heard hooves in the paddock running alongside the bike; she stopped and whistled. The horse came out of the fog—a pale shape the same color as the sky—and it watched her, pawing the dirt a few feet away from the fence. The horse was curious and bored and often trotted up to the edge of the enclosure to see who was walking past. Alice didn’t ride but, as a child born in a big city—Los Angeles—and growing up in a variety of charmless urban zip codes, she was enchanted and delighted by horses. This one was as wary as they come, but it recognized her as she cycled back and forth to school and always came to the fence; once it had even let her pet the hard space between its dark eyes. Today it kept its distance and regarded her cautiously. Suddenly, with hardly any sound on the damp grass, it twisted around and disappeared back into the mist.

  Alice looked at the spot where it had stood then shook herself back to her purpose and got back on the bike: the ferry left Friday Harbor for Anacortes and the mainland a few minutes after 8:00 a.m. She would catch her breath, think, and make a plan once she was on the boat, but all that mattered was getting to the harbor, buying a ticket, and making sure the smallest possible number of people saw her. She had to get away from this island, from the one-story bungalow with her destroyed bedroom, and from her father.

  As she got close to the town Alice passed a couple of cars driving in the opposite direction; the fields and the trees were replaced by an old-fashioned main street with wooden houses on both sides and a few neighborhoods stretching behind them. She slowed down as she hit Spring Street: some coffee houses and diners were open for the breakfast crowd—such as it was—and she didn’t want to be noticed. With perfect timing her stomach started to grumble. She ignored it.

  Alice looked left and right and kept pedaling. She noticed a few groups of tourists walking toward the harbor and some car traffic joining the ferry holding lanes on East Street. The rain had turned to drizzle, and she felt warm in her sweatshirt and jeans, perspiration trickling between her shoulder blades. She turned the corner and the ferry was there—massive and lumbering in the still waters, the loading-bay door already open.

  Alice looked over her shoulder, not sure of what she expected to see. Not her father—she knew he would sleep until midday, as he usually did after a night like that. To everyone else she was just a little girl out for a bike ride.

  Alice saw the line of tourists waiting to buy walk-on tickets and watched them for a moment. An elderly couple, a single man, a family of five with teenagers, a couple in their twenties. She watched and waited, angry and scared and a little unsteady on her feet. She saw a young couple with bicycles and slipped into the queue right after them. When it was her turn she passed a ten-dollar bill under the glass partition and said: “Anacortes.” The clerk—a man she didn’t know—counted out her change and she quickly followed the young couple onto the pier, walked onto the ferry like they did, and locked her bicycle in a slot next to theirs. No one look

ed twice at her. As the cars started to drive onto the ship Alice climbed the stairs to the passenger decks.

  There was one more thing she needed to do before she could allow herself to sit down: she found a restroom, checked that no one was in the stalls, and locked the door. She only had a few minutes, but hopefully it would be enough. She leaned her backpack on the sink and rummaged through it until she found what she needed.

  Alice stared in the mirror, holding the scissors, and wasn’t surprised by what she saw: a skinny twelve-year-old girl. Not a chance that she could pass for anyone older than that. Her father would wake up and see the switchblade knife buried two inches deep into his bedside table; he’d look at the destruction in her bedroom and he’d know that she had meant business. Nevertheless, he’d probably think she’d gone to one of her favorite hideouts and would not immediately start looking for her.

  Alice took off her baseball cap, smoothed down her long straight hair, and with the scissors she cut off everything below her ears. She cut the front into long bangs—like Ronny Kopecki at school—the kind that fall just past the eyes and teachers hate.

  Her locks fell into the sink, dark gold streaked by the sun; she scooped up the hair and threw it into the trash, then rinsed the sink for good measure. Alice looked into the mirror again and noticed the pale pink T-shirt under her hoodie. Well, shoot, that would have to go. She dug out her navy Mariners tee and shoved the pink one to the bottom of the backpack. Maybe, just maybe, if she kept her voice low and her answers short. The cut was not a bad job but no hairdressing prizes there. The important thing was that she looked different, perhaps enough to pass as a boy long enough to give her the slightest advantage over whoever was going to come after her. And somebody would, she knew that for sure.

  Chapter 1

  Present day

  Alice Madison felt the bite of the air, and it was a relief after the heavy warmth and alcohol fumes inside the nightclub. The nightclub sat off the main road, surrounded by trees on one side and a warehouse on the other. It was almost eleven and the parking lot was full. The low thumping of a U2 song pulsed in the chilly air. As Alice foraged in the backseat of her Land Rover Freelander for a DVD, she heard car doors opening and closing behind her and then footsteps approaching.

  “Hello there,” a man said.

  Madison turned. “Hello,” she replied. Two men stood a few yards away; she didn’t recognize either of them.

  “Having fun tonight?” the taller one asked.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Madison replied, and knew instantly that they were not party guests: they were two guys in their late twenties—only a handful of years younger than she was—who wanted to make “conversation” with a stranger in a parking lot and who would definitely blow a 0.1 if breathalyzed.

  “You wait tables here?” The man continued. “I’ve been here before, but I’ve never seen you, and I’d sure remember someone as cute as you.” He grinned and it was neither friendly nor pretty.

  His friend giggled and darted a look around the lot. No one else was around. Madison saw him realize this.

  “No, I don’t wait tables, sir,” she said, politely, but that was all the chitchat they were going to get, and she closed the car door. The plastic bag in her hand contained the DVD she was looking for; time to go back inside. The men stood between her and the club door.

  “If you’re not a waitress, then you must be the entertainment,” the taller man said, and he looked her up and down. There was a nasty slick behind the words and Madison smelled rank sweat and beer in the cold November air.

  She took the measure of them: white, six feet tall or thereabouts, built and dressed like they did their running in gyms and their fighting on the Xbox. Had they been drinking in their car, waiting for the right person to leave the club?

  “Gentlemen, I strongly suggest you call a taxi. Night’s over. Go home,” she said and moved forward, but they blocked her path.

  The shorter one opened his mouth and his voice was reedy and too high for someone his size. “I don’t think she likes you,” he told his friend.

  Madison sighed. “You’re having a really bad night; you just don’t know it yet.”

  Their smiles faded. They were somewhere between buzzed and drunk and so were lucid enough to understand that for some reason the woman in front of them was neither charmed nor intimidated by their efforts.

  This is going to go one of two ways. Madison squared up to them—hoping they were smarter than they looked but ready in case they were just as dumb as she thought.

  “Hey now, we only wanted to make friends, you prissy little bitch,” the tall one said quietly as he stepped forward.

  Madison stood still. He had a few inches on her and clearly believed that it would be enough. Enough for what? Madison asked herself.

  “Is this what you do on a Friday night?” she asked. “Is this where you come and look for your next meaningful relationship?” Madison tried to step on her temper but it didn’t work.

  “All we wanted was to be friendly and offer you some extra work. Would have paid you for it too. Do you think you’re too good for us?” He was wide in the shoulders and the dark threat in his voice came easy to him.

  “All right, that’s it. Back off.” Madison countered.

  Three people in a parking lot. Many cars but nobody else within earshot. Madison did not want to feel overconfident: there were two of them and only one of her, and cocky is what gets you into trouble. She was dimly aware of the familiar weight around her ankle and the pulse of anger rising within her.

  Watch their hands.

  “Shut up,” the tall man hissed and his right hand went for Madison’s arm.

  Snake fast she took hold of his wrist and with a quick twist she had it in a lock. The DVD dropped to the ground. Her other hand went to the back of the man’s neck and she grabbed him and pushed him down. Now his arm was extended painfully high behind him and the slightest pressure from Madison made him yelp.

  The friend moved forward and her voice snapped him out of it. “You move an inch and I break your friend’s arm.”

  He stopped.

  “Happy now?” she asked them.

  The shorter man shifted his weight, raised his hands, and leaned forward. “Hey,” he said.

  Madison pushed his friend’s arm a little higher.

  “Stop moving!” The taller one shouted to his pal with a yelp. “Just fucking stop moving.”

  The man froze where he was. This was new, this was not something they had planned for. His mouth hung open. Madison let them appreciate the situation for a moment, then she let go of the man’s neck and her hand went inside her blazer; her badge caught the light from the club’s neon sign.

  “Seattle Police Department. You, close your mouth and lie down on the ground, hands behind your head. You too,” she addressed the taller man. “I’m letting your arm go, so don’t fall on your face. There you go. Easy. I’m Detective Alice Madison, SPD Homicide.”

  The taller man shuffled forward, almost slipped, and caught himself. He looked up at her and somehow his world had tilted on its axis. Madison saw it in his eyes: two minutes ago he thought he might score and now he was sprawled on the concrete staring at a detective’s badge. Life was not fair.

  “It’s a cop’s bachelor party, jackass,” she said. “Every single car in this lot belongs to a cop.”

  Madison had to call dispatch, get a patrol car over, and give a statement. She was pleased that she was stone-cold sober.

  It started to rain and big fat drops smacked on the ground.

  “Stay right where you are, gentlemen,” she said; one of the waiters had come out for a breath of fresh air and she waved him over.

  “If it’s a bachelor party,” the shorter one muttered under his breath, “what the hell are you doing here anyway?”

  The patrol officers hustled the two men into the back of their blue-and-white and told Madison to give their regards to the groom. Their charges had been breathalyzed and had indeed blown a 0.1. White powder in the tiny clear plastic bag in the front pocket of the shorter man’s jeans turned out to be cocaine—a minute amount, for sure, but possession of a controlled dangerous substance in Washington State would ensure they received more than a slap on the wrist.

  At the far end of the club wall, invisible in the shadows under the low hanging roof, Detective Chris Kelly stomped his cigarette into the ground. For a moment there things had gotten interesting; for a moment it looked like Madison might have been in trouble. It hadn’t lasted long, but it had been the highlight of his evening.