Novels by Samuel Sterling

I waited, my breath caught in my throat. Adrian stood there, the photograph still in his hand, his face a mixture of fear and resignation."There's more," he said quietly. "There has to be. The letters, the photograph, the way she acts, I'm beginning to suspect too. And if we are right, if she's really the girl from university which I doubt could be her, then my mother..." He trailed off, running his hand through his hair. "My mother had to have known. She had to have deliberately brought her here."I moved closer to him. For the first time in days, I didn't feel like his enemy. I felt like we were standing on the same side of something dangerous."We need to find out for certain," I said. "We need to get her to tell us something about herself."Adrian looked at me, and I saw the moment he made a decision. He nodded slowly."Tomorrow," he said. "I'll engage her in conversation. I'll ask her about university, about her past. If she's the girl from those letters, she won't be able to he

I waited longer this time to hear more but the conversation was with her and someone on the phone. I couldn't hear anything later on. I think she changed position.I also left to clean Adrian’s study room. While cleaning his study room, my mind kept replaying Vanessa's words: Adrian still doesn't remember me. After all these years, he still has no idea who I really am.I needed to know who Vanessa really was and what she meant to my husband.Adrian left for business meetings, barely kissing my cheek as he rushed out the door. Margaret spent the day in her sitting room with visitors. And Vanessa remained upstairs in her room, moving around quietly like a ghost in my house.Adrian's desk organized with meticulous precision, his books arranged by subject, everything in its place. I found a box of university photographs tucked in the back of a filing cabinet while cleaning. My hands trembled as I opened it. There were dozens of pictures. Adrian laughing with friends at parties, graduati

I left for my bedroom immediately so that I wouldn't get caught eavesdropping.I didn't sleep.I lay in bed beside Adrian, listening to the grandfather clock in the hall strike the hours. One o'clock, two, three. My mind wouldn't stop circling around Margaret's words, around Vanessa's soft voice asking if Adrian would accept. Around the question of what exactly Margaret was planning him to accept.By the time morning light filtered through the curtains, I'd made a decision. I needed to watch. To observe. To find the cracks in whatever this was before it consumed everything.Breakfast was laid out in the dining room when I came downstairs. Adrian was already there, reading the newspaper with a cup of tea at his elbow. But it wasn't the cup I'd prepared for him the way he liked it, with two sugars and barely any milk. This cup was darker, stronger. The way someone else apparently knew he preferred it.My chest tightened as I watched him take a sip without even noticing the difference.V

The words hung in the air like a curse. I stared at Margaret, then at Adrian, searching his face for denial, for outrage, for anything that suggested he hadn't agreed to this.He was looking at the floor."Excuse me?" I said, my voice barely steady. "What exactly are you saying, Mum?"Margaret set down her teacup with deliberate slowness. The clink of bone china against saucer sounded impossibly loud in the suffocating silence."I'm saying that Vanessa represents hope," she said calmly. "Something this family has been desperately lacking.""Hope for what?" I demanded, my hands curling into fists at my sides. "What are you implying?""Nothing, darling," Margaret smiled, and it was the smile of a predator that had just cornered its prey. "Simply that Vanessa is everything a young woman should be. Fertile, eager and willing."The word hung there. Willing."Adrian," I said, turning to him sharply. My voice cracked. "Tell me you didn't agree to this. Tell me you didn't know what she was pl

The funeral service was held five days later. The church was full of people I barely knew. Relatives of my parents, family friends, business associates. They came to pay their respects and to stare at me with varying degrees of pity and suspicion.Adrian never left my side. His hand was on my back, on my arm, holding mine. He was the only solid thing in a world that had become suddenly unstable.Margaret stood near the front of the church, perfectly composed in her black dress, her expression appropriately mournful. But her eyes kept finding me.After the service, as people mingled in the church hall, a woman I vaguely recognized approached me. One of Margaret's friends."Elena, dear," she said. "What a terrible ordeal you've been through.""Thank you for your kindness," I replied automatically.After the funeral. I returned back to Hales's Mansion.The house felt wrong.I could sense it the moment I stepped through the front door of Hale Mansion. The air was different. Like something

The words echoed inside me, hollow and final. I couldn't breathe, couldn't move. Adrian's arm around my shoulders felt like the only thing keeping me tethered to the ground."No," I whispered. "No, that's not, he was strong. You said there was a chance."The surgeon's face remained kind, which made it unbearable. "The injuries were too extensive. His body couldn't sustain the trauma. I'm truly sorry."Adrian pulled me against his chest. I heard him say something to the surgeon, but the words were muffled, underwater. Everything was underwater now, everything was sinking."My mother," I said suddenly, pulling back. "I need to see my mother. She needs to know. She needs—""Elena, wait." Adrian caught my hand. "Let me come with you."But I was already moving. My legs carried me down hallways I didn't remember, past nurses in blue scrubs whose faces blurred together. My father was dead. My father was gone. The words kept repeating, refusing to settle into something I could understand.My