Novelas de Dorcas Iwungha

I did not run. Running makes noise, and noise gets people killed.I stepped off the path, slid behind a rosebush, and listened. The thought had come from somewhere on my left, low and hurried, and it was already moving away from me. I counted my steps the way I counted numbers at work. Fifteen steps was my limit. If I stayed right at the edge, I could follow without being seen.I need to stay on the left path and keep low, away from the lamps, and get to the gatehouse before anyone sees me.It was a man's voice, tight with nerves. I crept along the hedge, one step at a time, until I saw a dark shape slip around the corner of the garden wall. He wore a black suit. When he passed under a far lamp, I saw his face.The guard from the gate. The one with the polite smile.I followed him past the rose beds and the old fountain until he reached the little stone gatehouse by the front wall. He stepped inside and shut the door. The window glowed yellow. I crouched in the dark beside it,

I walked up the stairs like a woman who had not just been threatened by her family's favorite uncle.I kept my back straight. I kept my hands loose. When I reached my room, I closed the door, counted to three, and dropped to my knees beside the bed.The bag was gone.I checked under the bed twice. I checked the wardrobe, the dressing room, and the space behind the curtains. Nothing. Not the cash, not the passport, not even the plain clothes. Every trace of my escape plan had been wiped away like it never existed.On the pillow lay one small piece of black carved wood.A chess pawn.My skin went cold. Someone had walked into my room, taken my bag, and left a message. There was no name on it and no note. But a pawn is the first piece you give up in a game, and the only person in this house who thought in chess was Vincent Blackwood."Okay," I whispered. "You want to play."I dropped it into the pocket of my dress. I could not go to the guards, and I could not tell my parents. In

I did not run out of the room. I did not scream. I wiped the egg off the table, drank my tea, and smiled like a girl with nothing in her head but breakfast.Isadora sat across from me, folding her napkin like a lady in a painting. Her face was soft and sweet. Her mind was a locked door with a very sharp key.If Isadora was the lost baby, then what baby was she afraid of?The voices around the table piled on top of each other. My mother worried about money. My father worried about a drawer. The maid worried about the bracelet she had taken. My head began to throb like a drum.I stood up. "Excuse me. I need some air.""Of course, darling," said my mother. "Do not be long. Alexander is coming for dinner tonight."Alexander. My fiancé. The man who would take off his ring in front of three hundred guests."I will be back soon," I said.I did not go to the garden. I went upstairs, checked that my small bag was still hidden under the bed, and left it there. Never move your money before

The last thing I remember is falling asleep with a book on my chest, hating its ending.I was a fraud investigator with a tiny apartment, a broken heater, and a bad habit of reading novels at two in the morning. At work nobody could lie to me for more than five minutes. My boss used to shake his head and say, "Nora Bennett never misses." That night I read a billionaire romance about a cruel rich family and a fake heiress who dies alone. I gave it one star and went to sleep angry.Now I opened my eyes, and the ceiling was wrong.It was cream colored with gold edges, and it was far too high. My ceiling had a water stain shaped like a rabbit. This one had a crystal light hanging from the middle like a frozen waterfall."Did I fall asleep in a hotel?" I whispered.The bed was huge. The sheets were silk. Pale morning light came through tall windows, and outside I could see a garden full of roses. My head felt heavy, as if I had slept for a hundred years. I rubbed my eyes and sat up,