Praying for Time

by Carlene Thompson

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Also by Carlene Thompson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Also by Carlene Thompson

  BLACK FOR REMEMBRANCE

  ALL FALL DOWN

  THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT

  TONIGHT YOU’RE MINE

  IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH

  DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES

  SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE

  IF SHE SHOULD DIE

  SHARE NO SECRETS

  LAST WHISPER

  LAST SEEN ALIVE

  IF YOU EVER TELL

  YOU CAN RUN …

  NOWHERE TO HIDE

  TO THE GRAVE

  CAN’T FIND MY WAY HOME *

  JUST A BREATH AWAY *

  * available from Severn House

  PRAYING FOR TIME

  Carlene Thompson

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2020

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2020 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2020 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2020 by Carlene Thompson.

  The right of Carlene Thompson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8984-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-698-2 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0423-3 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To my husband Keith

  PROLOGUE

  Eight Years Ago

  Vanessa Everly squished wet sand between her toes and looked out at the ocean waves foaming beneath a nearly black sky. She sighed and her barely fifteen-year-old sister Roxanne looked at her.

  ‘Sad that you’re going back to school next week?’

  ‘No. I’ve wanted to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts since I was twelve and I’ve been lucky enough to be accepted for the third-year program.’

  ‘You like it because it’s in Los Angeles.’

  ‘I like it because its dramatics arts program is considered one of the best in the country.’ Vanessa grinned. ‘And because I love Los Angeles.’

  Roxanne groaned, tilted back her head and shook her long, wavy honey-blonde hair that looked like her mother Ellen’s. ‘How can you leave me behind with Dad? He’s so much stricter with me than he was with you. He’s smothering me. I need you to stand up for me, talk him into letting me do things instead of treating me like a prisoner.’

  ‘You get to go places.’

  ‘Nowhere fun. He’d never let me come down to the beach for a midnight swim like this one unless I was with you.’

  ‘It would be a bad idea to come for a midnight swim alone.’

  ‘This is nice but he wouldn’t let me come with a girlfriend.’ She hesitated. ‘Or a guy.’

  ‘A guy? I see what this is all about. Is he a local or a tourist?’

  ‘I didn’t say there is a guy but I wouldn’t want Dad to know about anyone I like. He’d ask a million questions. He let you start seeing Christian Montgomery when you were seventeen even though he’s four years older than you because he thinks Christian walks on water. He believes I shouldn’t date until I’m eighteen and then it will be some dork who doesn’t even have his driver’s license.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Roxy.’

  ‘I’m not. Since Grace came back to live with us he does what she wants,’ she said, referring to Grace Everly who owned the large home known as Everly House that sat on a hill overlooking the town. ‘Mommy’s always on my side but even she’s afraid of Dad’s mother. Why couldn’t she stay in France? She’s been here less than a year and everything’s changed for me.’

  ‘Grace came home because she’s seventy-eight. She wanted to be with her family. Maybe she doesn’t believe everything you say because sometimes you fib to her.’

  ‘Sure I do! My life is none of her business!’

  ‘She doesn’t see it that way. You’re young and she’s protective.’ The slender, elegant woman had never wanted to be called Grandma or any variation. She was Grace to everyone in the family except her son, who called her Mother. ‘But she – well, no one – would like it that I brought you here so late at night,’ Vanessa went on. ‘I’m not a strong swimmer. This is a secret, Roxy.’

  ‘I’d like to have a more thrilling secret than swimming,’ Roxanne groused. Then she shivered. ‘Brrr.’

  ‘Chilly in that string bikini?’

  ‘I have a better body than most girls my age and I show it off whenever I get the chance.’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons Dad is strict with you.’

  ‘He’s so old fashioned. Anyway, my bikini matches my eyes. And my birthstone ring.’ Roxanne wagged her finger with its sapphire and diamonds set in gold. ‘My birthstone brings me good luck. You should wear your birthstone ring. The emerald matches your eyes.’

  ‘I wouldn’t wear it for swimming. I’d never forgive myself if I lost it.’ Roxanne squealed as a wave washed in, submerging her feet and slender ankles in cold water, and Vanessa laughed. ‘You sound like you did when you were four.’

  ‘When I was four, you were nine and you squealed, too.’

  ‘I didn’t. I was fearless.’

  Roxanne rushed forward and waited for the next wave
to break and rush in. She appeared ethereal in the mist that had begun to coil sinuously across the beach. Vanessa couldn’t remember ever seeing such a dense, creeping mist. It looked supernatural. To her right stood a craggy rock formation nearly nine feet high, looking as if it had suddenly erupted, solitary and sinister, from the soft sand. Such tall, jagged rocks were common on the Oregon coastline, but it had always made Vanessa think of the Dark Tower in Lord of the Rings. Tonight the stone did look huge and unnerving with all of its shadowy sharp edges.

  And not too far down the beach lay the remains of the Seraphim May, a four-masted schooner that a vicious storm had driven against the shore in 1896. Like the remains of several ships on the Oregon beach, this wreck was never hauled away. The once-beautiful vessel lay forever still and lonely, its sails long gone, its oak hull slowly rotting and sinking into the sand. It was considered a harmless tourist attraction, but when she was a kid, Vanessa had thought it was haunted by the souls of the five men who had died when a merciless wind slammed the torn and gouged ship onto the beach. She used to sneak out at night and crouch near the ship’s skeleton, thinking she saw floating shapes and heard thin voices of sad, lost souls calling for help. And maybe she had …

  Oh, lord, I must be really tired, Vanessa mused. I’m imagining an ordinary mist is eerie, making a fairy-tale tower out of a rock, and thinking I might have been right about the Seraphim May being haunted by desolate souls. Still, as this time Roxanne scampered away from the incoming sea water, Vanessa called, ‘It’s time to go home. I’m freezing.’

  ‘Oh, not yet!’

  ‘Yes. Grace is in bed and doesn’t know we’re gone, but Mom and Dad will be home from the Drakes any time.’

  ‘Oh, them. Simon Drake is a pervert,’ Roxy said viciously. ‘His wife’s either blind or an idiot and so’s their daughter.’

  ‘Roxy, Simon is a friend of Dad’s and you barely know his wife or Jane.’

  ‘Oh, I know Simon all right! And Janey makes me sick the way she drools over her father like a lover. You’ve seen it – I know you have.’

  ‘Well, maybe she’s too physically affectionate, but—’

  ‘No buts!’ Roxanne ranted. ‘Vanessa, sometimes talking to you is as useless as talking to Dad! You don’t see what you don’t want to see and you don’t want to hear about it – you won’t hear about it!’

  ‘Calm down, Roxy.’ Vanessa was accustomed to her sister’s flashes of temper. ‘Everyone knows Simon has affairs with other women. And I don’t like him personally – he thinks he so cool – but he’s a business partner of Dad’s.’

  ‘An important business partner of Dad’s. That’s all Dad cares about. And you, too.’

  ‘I’m trying to be practical. Simon Drake is essential to the Everly business. His other women are his wife’s problem and what do we care about how Jane acts around her father? She’s not a friend of yours, and you and I aren’t friends of the Drakes so what do they matter to us? We only see them three or four times a year.’

  Roxanne was silent for a moment before she said with dismal foreboding, ‘Mommy hates them so, when she’s around them she always drinks too much and gets loud and says things that embarrass Dad, and afterward they fight and then she lies in bed for days, not speaking even to me.’

  So that was Roxanne’s real problem, Vanessa thought. The Drakes brought out the worst in their mother. Vanessa was usually able to ignore Ellen’s dark moods but they deeply upset Roxy.

  ‘Yes, they always have an argument, so I really don’t want to walk in after they get home. An argument means if they find out about our midnight swim, they’ll make an even bigger deal about it than they normally would, so let’s get our robes and go home. Fast.’

  They headed away from the ocean toward the base of a wooded hillock edging the beach, Roxanne lagging behind. Only a sliver of moon shone dully on the beach and Vanessa frowned. ‘I’m not sure where we left our stuff.’

  ‘It’s right ahead of us.’

  ‘I don’t see it. It’s the mist.’ She looked ahead and squinted. ‘Oh, there it is.’

  When they reached the towels, Vanessa handed one to Roxanne. ‘This one doesn’t have any sand on it. Use it on your hair.’

  ‘You didn’t even get your hair wet. Trying to look glamorous?’

  ‘Yes, I really care what I look like right now.’

  ‘Who would around here, even in the day?’ Roxanne massaged the ends of her thick hair. ‘Everly Cliffs, Oregon, population eight thousand, nine hundred and forty-three, is a colossal bore.’

  ‘Is that why we have such a big tourist trade in the summer? Because Everly Cliffs is boring?’

  ‘I admit that the Oregon coast has a lot of pretty little towns and beautiful beaches. We have some nice restaurants and shops, and there’s the golf course, and people bring their boats for the summer, but the only time this place is even halfway fun is in the summer when the tourists are here and they’ll start leaving in a couple of weeks,’ Roxanne said glumly. ‘Everly Cliffs will come to a standstill in the winter and I can’t bear this place when there’s nothing to do.’

  ‘There are things to do in winter. Plenty of them. Trust me, you’ll live, Roxy.’ Their robes weren’t with their towels and Vanessa suddenly felt uneasy. ‘Where are our robes?’

  ‘Farther back. You’re not listening to me. I won’t get to go anywhere this winter.’

  Roxanne’s whining was beginning to grate on Vanessa’s nerves but she kept her voice patient. ‘I have an idea. Why don’t you take the next couple of years to really concentrate on your music? You’re good on the acoustic guitar but I’ve hardly heard you play this summer. You have a good voice that could be even better, and you write music.’

  ‘I’m only OK at all three of those things.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘My music teacher.’

  ‘That old grouch Cremeans? He’s tone deaf. Why don’t you switch to the music teacher at the high school? He’s young, has professional experience and gives private lessons.’

  ‘I’ve heard he’s really demanding.’

  ‘Which is why you’ve been avoiding him. He’s what you need. I know him slightly. I could talk to him for you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I mean, well, I don’t want to humiliate myself.’

  ‘I don’t think fear of humiliating yourself is really the problem. It’s laziness.’ Vanessa paused then plunged ahead firmly. ‘Roxy, I don’t want to criticize, but you have a gift and you’re wasting your talent.’

  Roxanne didn’t burst into anger as Vanessa expected but instead asked in amazement, ‘You really think I’m gifted?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to be the next Taylor Swift,’ Roxanne said thoughtfully.

  ‘Do you think Taylor got to where she is by not working on her craft, just sitting around complaining about how boring her life is? You have to work if you want to succeed.’

  ‘Gee. Mommy and Dad are never too encouraging.’

  ‘They don’t encourage my acting, either. They’d like for both of us to get married, have babies, and never leave Everly Cliffs. But I want more.’

  ‘Me, too.’ Roxanne was quiet for a few seconds. ‘Maybe you’re right. I don’t practice the guitar enough. I could write so many more songs than I do if I spent more time on them. And my singing definitely needs work. I could do a lot better.’

  ‘It’s not too late to change your focus. And if you really start proving yourself, maybe when you graduate from high school you’ll want to come and live with me in Los Angeles. I might even have made some music industry contacts by then.’

  Roxanne looked at Vanessa with a gleam in her blue eyes and excitement in her voice. ‘Would you really do that for me?’

  ‘I’d do anything for my little sister.’

  They’d reached the scant evergreens lining the beach. Vanessa found her robe and gratefully shrugged into the heavy, white terry cloth. ‘Now where are my sneakers?’


  ‘They’re only canvas and old – forget them.’

  ‘I’m not walking up the hill to the house barefooted. Dammit, where are they? I wish I’d brought a flashlight.’ She stepped between two trees, looked around, then saw them about four feet back where the evergreens grew more closely together. ‘I know I didn’t put them there.’ Vanessa stepped carefully on scattered pine needles and bent over to pick up her shoes.

  Something hard crashed against her head. A spear of pain shot through her and lights seemed to flash as she reached up to touch the left side of her skull. ‘Wha—’ she managed before another blow snapped her fingers. She wailed, jerking her injured hand toward her mouth. Then came a third bash that spun her around to face the beach and sent her to her knees.

  Her vision darkened and she felt warm blood oozing down the side of her face. As her world swirled, she heard Roxanne scream and dimly saw her struggling with someone lumbering and bulky. Vanessa tried to stand but crumpled dizzily face-down in the sand. She heard Roxanne yelling, ‘No!’ before she began shrieking, ‘Vanessa! Help!’

  ‘Roxanne,’ she murmured, her mouth filling with sand. ‘Roxanne …’

  Vanessa tried to push up on her hands for balance but groaned as pain seared through broken and useless fingers. My God, no, she thought, still struggling to stand up, falling once, twice, her head throbbing, then losing all strength and collapsing in defeat. Roxanne, this is all my fault, all my fault. The words danced endlessly, agonizingly through Vanessa’s mind as she lay helpless, her consciousness waning, and her sister’s desperate screams fading down the lonely beach.

  ONE

  Present Day

  Vanessa Everly closed her green eyes as she listened to the soaring, majestic opening song of Kingdom of Corinna, the hit anthology television series now nearing the end of its first season. It had already been nominated for three Golden Globes.