Prologue

72 hours and 20 minutes 

(11:40 p.m. Friday)

The hotel’s metal exit door slammed shut behind me with a decisive clang, sealing my fate as effectively as a coffin lid. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. There were so many things I didn’t know. 

I often wonder if I would have changed what happened that night if I could have. I don’t think so.

Some might judge me for that. Imagine not wanting to change a thing that had caused such heartbreak to so many. But I had gone to the hotel that night wanting to change my life—and oh boy, did I.

But . . . I’m getting ahead of myself.

When that door locked behind me, it trapped me in the creepy, semi-lit parking lot behind the Dragonfly Hotel. I had been sure it led to the street out front. Add that to the long list of things I had been wrong about tonight—including, apparently, how much one martini would affect me. 

The door stubbornly resisted my tugging. Probably its only purpose was to keep drunken undesirables out. Oh, like me! A giggle escaped. Damn, I was funny tonight!

Unsteadily, I turned and attempted to get my bearings. My house was only a few blocks away. Rather than trying to find my way to the front of the hotel for a taxi, wouldn’t it be quicker to walk home? 

I shivered and rubbed my arms to warm the flesh left bare by my sleeveless black dress and thought longingly of the sweater languishing upstairs in my hotel room. Though the Texas summer had hung around in Dallas well into October, goosebumps pimpled my arms in the chilly night air. 

Walking, er, staggering through the deserted parking lot on high heels, I also thought wistfully of the black flats keeping my sweater company. I zigzagged from car to car, steadying myself on one before setting out for the next. Focused on staying upright, I didn’t realize until I had crossed the entire lot that the only way forward was through a dark stretch of alleyway that disappeared between an unlit office building and a hulking multistory parking garage. The first few feet of the alley were visible, but beyond that was inky blackness. 

I hesitated, looking back at the hotel door so far away. I could go back, but it would still be locked. I was feeling woozier by the second and just wanted to be at home, in my own bed.

Strange noises, like whispering and shushing, reached me. I clutched a nearby car mirror for support and scanned the lot. The dead autumn leaves that skittered across the asphalt on a slight breeze might be the culprit, but the alley now seemed like the lesser of two evils. I hurried into it and stumbled along in the dark, steadying myself on dumpsters. Then, to my relief, a patch of light appeared ahead. The glow from what must have been a streetlight became my beacon. 

Damn! My toe caught on God knows what and I pitched forward, my knees taking the brunt of the fall. Because of my buzz I didn’t feel any real pain, just that slight stinging that accompanies skinned knees. They would hurt tomorrow. 

I pulled myself up from the ground, using a dumpster for support, and refocused on the glow from the streetlight. A man, silhouetted by the light, blocked the end of the alley. A call for help died in my throat. Given my current state, he might help me, or not. The “or not” was what worried me.

He stared down the alley at me for several moments, then turned and walked away. A slow breath slid from me; one I hadn’t realized I had been holding. Something about his stance and the way he moved rang a bell in my memory, but everything was so fuzzy that I couldn’t place it. 

I pushed off from the dumpster and staggered towards the light.

The growl that ripped through the dark behind me was my only warning before the attack. A snarling mass slammed into me with the force of a freight train, and, with a loud crack, bones gave way inside me. My impact with the pavement was so sudden that I didn’t realize I was going down until it knocked the breath out of me. The weight of my attacker kept me pinned to the ground. 

Snarling and snapping filled the air. I felt pulling sensations on my neck and back. The cement underneath me turned from cold to warm, and a coppery scent infused the air. Strangely, I didn’t feel any pain, only an uncomfortable pressure. Though I lay facing the light that had been my beacon, the alley dimmed. 

I had just wanted to have a good time on my birthday eve. If only I had been brave, for once, and just stayed in the hotel. But as usual, I had chickened out and gone running home to hide. 

“Temple sends his regards,” a masculine voice rasped in my ear. “The True Cross will be his.” Then as quickly as he arrived, the attacker was gone. 

I knew I should try to get up, or at least scream for help. The blood that pooled beneath me, my blood, no longer felt warm. But even the possibility that I would die alone in the cold, dark alley couldn’t induce me to move. 

Hands grasped my shoulder and turned me over. That was when I knew for sure that it was the end. 

I’d always heard that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Well, folks, the face that hovered over me was definitely from my past.