PROLOGUE

Spring 2009

Groggy and disoriented, Sadie lifted a hand to the horrible aching over her right eye and winced.  Her fingers came away smeared with blood.

She struggled to focus; dumbfounded to find herself sitting in front of the steering wheel of a car she didn’t remember getting in.   There was a gear shift.  This wasn’t her car.

She groaned from pain in her head as she tried to look out into the darkness to get an idea of where she was and what she had struck.  Her vision blurred and she felt a wave of nausea seize her.  Her head lolled back against the headrest of the bucket seat as if she had no bones left in her neck.

For a brief moment she thought she heard something, someone’s moaning floating in the wind.  Maybe it was her moaning and she just thought in her current state it was someone else’s.  She had never felt such pain before.  It was as if something in her skull imploded. 

“Help me,” she whimpered and the sound of her own voice ricocheted in abrasive echoing sounds.  This time when the nausea hit, the contents of her stomach ended on the expensive leather interior and carpeting of the car and for the first time she realized she reeked of alcohol.  How?  She wouldn’t drink and try to drive.

 She’d gotten a message to meet...no, she called someone.  Who the hell was she suppose to meet?  God, her head was killing her.  Where was her mobile phone?

Her vision wavered again and she blinked several times, felt the tears flow, then finally after a fashion her vision focused somewhat.  She was looking up at the car’s overhead light.  With a shaking hand, she reached up to turn it on so she could see if her purse was in the car somewhere.  The glaring light blinded her and she screamed, placing her palm over it, dry heaving for her stomach was now empty and she hurriedly flipped it back off.

Blindly, she felt around the seat and floorboard of the passenger side.  It was a two-seater, a sports number of some sort and there was something vaguely familiar about it as if she’d ridden in it before.  Maybe she had, but why would she be driving?  It didn’t make any sense. 

She felt nothing and proceeded to do the same, recoiling when her fingers came in contact with her own smelly vomit.  She tried the car door and found it wouldn’t open wide enough for her to squeeze through.  It was too close to a brick wall.

Where am I?

She felt around the dashboard, tugging and turning the knobs on the dash until she found what she was looking for.  The front headlights of the car popped on.  It was then her glazed-eyed stare saw a horrifying sight.

The woman with her beautiful long black hair tangled about her slumped bloody form.  Her eyes were open, vacant and accusing.

What had she done?  Sadie, too horrified to scream, slumped over into the passenger seat welcoming the darkness that swallowed her up.

CHAPTER ONE