To all my friends at New Jersey Romance Writers for their support and encouragement. In particular, many, many thanks to Irene, Lois, Kathye, Anne, Patt, Mary, Shirley, Chris, Nancy, Ronnie and Ann for their caring and helpfulness. For more information on this wonderful group of writers, visit www.njromancewriters.org.

      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

      Prologue

      Westchester County, October 2004

      The body twitched convulsively on the floor of the cage before death stilled its movements.

      Only two more rats to go and the active cell strain would be gone, leaving just the frozen samples and the journal taken from Dr. Frederick Danvers’s lab nearly a year ago. Not that either had been of much use. The journal contained no instructions on how to prepare the frozen cell samples for use in test subjects. Multiple attempts to activate the preserved strain using standard lab procedures had been dismally unsuccessful. There was little of the precious live sample left. In addition, the journal had not provided any clues as to the origin of the unusual cell strain so that more could be obtained. The project was close to failure.

      A nudge with a finger to the dead rat’s body—just to make sure, since one had given a rather nasty bite once. A postmortem examination would hopefully yield some knowledge. If it didn’t, there was only one way left to secure what was needed to further the experiments. One very unpleasant way.

      Unfortunately, such means were sometimes necessary when the possibility of reward was immense. And what greater prize could there be than the promise of immortality?

      After all, who wouldn’t want to live forever?

      Chapter 1

      Westchester County, November 2004

      Death would not be ignored that day.

      It was in the bite of the chill wind as it ripped through the bare branches of trees, wailing plaintively. It was in the somber darkness of the clouds as it began to rain, as if they, too, were weeping.

      Melissa Danvers stared down at the graves of her parents. A little more than a year ago, the ground had been too hard to bury them. Now a carpet of green, dulled by the frosts of fall, covered the earth where her parents rested. But there was still no peace for Melissa. There were too many things left unsaid and unresolved.

      She murmured a prayer beneath her breath as the cries of the wind grew in intensity. Melissa almost didn’t hear the rain turn into sleet that beat a rat-a-tat-tat against her umbrella as she concentrated on the graves. She wondered what it had been like for them in those last moments before their car left the road and hurtled down the incline. Would they be alive if she had called the police when they hadn’t arrived according to schedule? Had they suffered for hours before they were found, or had their deaths been quick?

      A particularly forceful gust of wind grabbed at her umbrella. Sleet stung her face and she shivered. A second later, he wrapped a strong arm around her. Looking up, she met the gaze of her family’s oldest and dearest friend. Of the man who had been so many things to her—surrogate brother, fairy godfather, protector. Now, he was all the family she had left.

      “You okay?” Ryder Latimer asked as he drew her close.

      She leaned into the comfort of his solid presence, which blocked the buffeting winds and provided her stability, much as he had most of her life. “I’m hanging in there. And you?”

      Ryder stared down at the ground. Icy rain dripped from the brim of the fedora onto his face, but he seemed not to care. He looked paler than usual and Melissa worried that this outing was taxing his strength. He had yet to fully recover from the injuries he had suffered a few months before while assisting his FBI agent lover with a criminal investigation. “Are you feeling all right?”

      He nodded and, without looking at her again, said, “I should have done more.”

      “There’s nothing either of us could have done,” she replied, although her heart was heavy with remorse.

      Ryder said nothing else, but she sensed that he shared her guilt. He had turned down an invitation to accompany her parents for a quiet weekend in Vermont. If he’d been driving instead of her father…She stopped herself, unwilling to begin the blame game again. Especially with Ryder, who had always been there for her. She also had to be his support now.

      He handed her red roses and she laid one on each grave, pausing to pass her hand over the wet, spiky grass. Softly, beneath her breath, she said another goodbye to a mother and father she had never really known.

      Ryder also laid a flower on each grave. After he was done, he took her elbow and hurried her to the limo that waited to return them to the Manhattan apartment they shared.

      As she neared the car, the driver popped out of his seat and came around to open the door. She struggled with the umbrella for a moment, then slipped inside. A second later, Ryder sat in the seat opposite her and tossed off his hat.

      She met his dark gaze, remembering a similar moment on the day her parents had been buried. He had been troubled then, as well. She hadn’t understood why until she had opened the envelope brought to the graveside ceremony by her father’s attorney.

      With vivid recall, that day came alive again as they sat in silence while the limo pulled away.

      The envelope had been old, its age apparent from the brittleness and rich yellow color of the heavy parchment. There was a patina on the envelope’s surface, as if it had been handled often.

      Ryder had clearly known what it held. He’d told her it was her destiny, but nothing could have prepared her for what was contained in the neat, precise words of the letter: a legacy from an ancestor dead for well over a century.

      On that day, she’d had to deal with her parents’ deaths. But then again, virtually everyone everywhere had to confront death and accept the inevitability that one day, death would come for them, as well.

      Only fate sometimes interceded in ways hard to imagine.

      On that day, Melissa had been forced to realize that fate had changed not only what she believed about death, but the very nature of her existence.