Prologue
1903 - Philadelphia
"You're going out early."
Adam Cartwright had been heading through the foyer but stopped at the voice from the darkened library. Where—?
There. His brother Reggie sat in his wheeled chair, half-hidden behind a sofa. Adam would've passed by the room without ever seeing him if Reggie hadn't spoken.
"Does your nurse know you're down here?" Adam asked. Reggie had been wheelchair bound for near fifteen years. He rarely came downstairs anymore, mostly staying confined to his rooms.
"Where are you going?" Reggie shoved the wheels of his chair almost angrily, rounding the sofa.
Where are you going? It was an echo of the younger brother who had once followed Adam everywhere. Even that last, fateful day.
Adam blinked away the memories.
A shaft of moonlight had fallen over Reggie, and Adam could see his eyes were bloodshot. He stank of being unwashed. And there was a tremble in his hand where it gripped the wheel.
"Have you been down here all night? I'll ring for Miss P—" What was her name? Adam could never remember. Powers? Peters?
"Don't bother. She left, and she's not coming back."
"Don't think you're rid of me so easily." Soft yellow illumination lit the front hall as a slender woman wearing an apron bustled out of the kitchen and past Adam. Obviously, she'd been listening at the door.
Some nameless emotion crossed Reggie's expression but was quickly blanked.
"You stink," Miss P. said in her brisk, no-nonsense manner. Frankly, Adam was surprised she'd lasted six months.
Adam had barely spoken to his brother in all that time. Reggie stayed locked away, and Adam couldn't bear his company. Not after what Adam had done.
This was not the time for self-recrimination. He had a very short window before he had to be back at the newspaper.
He slipped out of the house as Miss P. hustled his brother away to bed.
An hour later, the sun was up, and Adam was standing on an expansive green lawn, well back from the estate house.
"Hallo, you.” His friend Frank extended a hand. “It's been too long. I hardly recognize you."
Adam took the hand, smiling and shaking his head when Frank shook it with far too much enthusiasm. "It's only been a couple of months," Adam said.
"Try eighteen."
"No!"
"That's far too long to go without seeing your blood brother." Frank was joking, wearing a hearty smile, but Adam heard the undertone of seriousness in his voice.
Adam rolled his shoulders beneath his suit coat. He'd been busy chasing stories for Father. The last time Frank had been in Philadelphia, Adam had been on assignment in New York City. But eighteen months? Where had the time gone?
Adam and Frank's parents had been friends for decades. The boys had been all of eight when they'd pricked their thumbs with a dull pocketknife and sworn a brother's loyalty to each other.
That had been fourteen year ago, a lifetime for Adam. More. Their swearing ceremony had been mere months before Reggie's accident.
Adam didn't want to think about the darkness he'd left behind at home on Warburton Street. He had a few hours of freedom from the desk this morning, and he intended to make the most of it.
"Where is she?" he asked.
"Ah. The truth comes out." Frank didn't sound perturbed in the least as he inclined his head toward the dirt track that bisected the rolling green grass. "You didn't come to see your blood brother after all. You came for her."
