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Chapter One

The sun shone overhead, the tely high on the Caribbean island of St Lucia,soon Ella Shaw glanced up at the blue sky, knowing it wouldn’t re

The calm before the storm

She pulled her hair into a high ponytail and headed out of her hotel, deterht of on her way to the photo shoot yesterday She’d seen long, draping, blue-beaded necklaces from the storefront , but she hadn’t had tiht shot in the exact light, and they’d worked well past dark By the time they’d wrapped for the day, the store had been closed

As an assistant for Angie Crighton, a fashion designer based in Miami, Ella was responsible for the little details involved in a photo shoot And though Angie, the photographer, and , Ella had stayed to h to allow them back another time And if she were honest with herself, she liked the downti around of the crew, the bossiness of soie herself

Ella appreciated the fact that she had time to souvenir shop for her best friend, Avery Dare How ironic was it that the two girls from very different worlds had met at all? But they had And it was Avery who’d introduced Ella to the finer things in life, leading her to seek out a job with an haute-couture designer Whereas Avery came from a wealthy fairls had bonded instantly They’d even shared an apartment until recently, when her best friend had ston

Yep, two different worlds, even now, Ella thought wryly But their friendship was solid Which reht not make it back to the States tomorrow as planned

When Ella had heard about the storht out, without success She shivered at the possibility of being stranded here alone during a hurricane and knew Avery would like the news even less Her best friend suffered from severe anxiety, and Ella didn’t like to make her worry

She’d just buy Avery an extra gift tointo the shop She imh theThe shopkeeper claimed they were Larimar beads Even if they were fake, the beads, popular in the Caribbean, were said to have healing powers Ella purchased two dozen, a mix of bracelets and necklaces, so she could share with the children at the cancer treatment center where she and Avery volunteered

Avery had been nine, Ella ten years old when they’dbone marrow, both there at the behest of a parent Neither of the All Ella had knoas that she was doing a favor for her father, helping the stepin with Even at a young age, Ella had been a good judge of character, a better one than her father, obviously, because shortly after Janice had gotten well, she’d left Ella’s dad And both her father and Ella’s life had gone downhill frohts of her past before she could go deeper and darker, and focused on the pretty jewelry

She spent so a thick turquoise bracelet for Avery and a si for the shopkeeper to wrap things up

Bag in hand, she started back to the hotel, cutting through side streets and looking into the s of the stores, soaking up the culture along the cobblestone streets before heading back to Mia she couldn’t change the outcohts aside She’d deal with the situation as it came

Sweat dampened her neck fro a cab back to the hotel She reached into her straw bag and pulled out her cell phone to , she felt a hard jerk on her purse

“What the—?” She spun around, but whomever wanted her purse was quicker

She barely caught a gliuy with dark hair as he yanked harder, nearly pulling her shoulder out of its socket before sla with his other hand

Her head hit the concrete wall, and spots immediately appeared behind her eyes frorabbed her purse, along with her cell phone that had fallen to the ground

She opened her s collapsed beneath her, and she fell to the ground, her head s went black