Hideaway Read online

  Books by Fern Michaels:

  Fancy Dancer

  No Safe Secret

  Wishes for Christmas

  About Face

  Perfect Match

  A Family Affair

  Forget Me Not

  The Blossom Sisters

  Balancing Act

  Tuesday’s Child

  Betrayal

  Southern Comfort

  To Taste the Wine

  Sins of the Flesh

  Sins of Omission

  Return to Sender

  Mr. and Miss Anonymous

  Up Close and Personal

  Fool Me Once

  Picture Perfect

  The Future Scrolls

  Kentucky Sunrise

  Kentucky Heat

  Kentucky Rich

  Plain Jane

  Charming Lily

  What You Wish For

  The Guest List

  Listen to Your Heart

  Celebration

  Yesterday

  Finders Keepers

  Annie’s Rainbow

  Sara’s Song

  Vegas Sunrise

  Vegas Heat

  Vegas Rich

  Whitefire

  Wish List

  Dear Emily

  Christmas at Timberwoods

  The Sisterhood Novels:

  Crash and Burn

  Point Blank

  In Plain Sight

  Eyes Only

  Kiss and Tell

  Blindsided

  Gotcha!

  Home Free

  Déjà Vu

  Cross Roads

  Game Over

  Deadly Deals

  Vanishing Act

  Razor Sharp

  Under the Radar

  Final Justice

  Collateral Damage

  Fast Track

  Hokus Pokus

  Hide and Seek

  Free Fall

  Lethal Justice

  Sweet Revenge

  The Jury

  Vendetta

  Payback

  Weekend Warriors

  The Men of the Sisterhood Novels:

  Fast and Loose

  Double Down

  Books by Fern Michaels (Cont.)

  The Godmothers Series:

  Hideaway (E-Novella

  Exclusive)

  Classified

  Breaking News

  Deadline

  Late Edition

  Exclusive

  The Scoop

  E-Book Exclusives:

  Desperate Measures

  Seasons of Her Life

  To Have and To Hold

  Serendipity

  Captive Innocence

  Captive Embraces

  Captive Passions

  Captive Secrets

  Captive Splendors

  Cinders to Satin

  For All Their Lives

  Texas Heat

  Texas Rich

  Texas Fury

  Texas Sunrise

  Anthologies:

  The Most Wonderful Time

  When the Snow Falls

  Secret Santa

  A Winter Wonderland

  I’ll Be Home for Christmas

  Making Spirits Bright

  Holiday Magic

  Snow Angels

  Silver Bells

  Comfort and Joy

  Sugar and Spice

  Let it Snow

  A Gift of Joy

  Five Golden Rings

  Deck the Halls

  Jingle All the Way

  The Godmothers: Hideaway

  Fern Michaels

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Fern Michaels Fern Michaels is a registered trademark of KAP 5, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Kensington and Kensington logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: April 2017

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1206-6

  Table of Contents

  Books by Fern Michaels:

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Cast of Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  SPIRITED AWAY

  Dabney House Peach Jam

  A Family Affair

  Late Edition

  Crash and Burn

  Cast of Characters

  The Godmothers

  Toots

  Sophie

  Mavis

  Ida

  Four lifelong friends who first met in junior high school. Sophie, Mavis, and Ida all serve as godmothers to Toots’s daughter Abby. After an extended stint on the West Coast, they have returned to South Carolina.

  Family, Friends, and Significant Others

  Abby—Toots’s daughter. Reporter and former editor-in-chief of the Informer.

  Chris—Abby’s husband and father of their twins, Amy and Jonathan.

  Phil—Toots’s boyfriend, a doctor and upcoming novelist.

  Goebel—Sophie’s second husband, a retired New York City police officer.

  Bernice—Toots’s friend.

  Daniel—Bernice’s son and Ida’s boyfriend, an attorney.

  Robert—Bernice’s boyfriend and Toots’s neighbor.

  Wade—Mavis’s boyfriend and co-owner of their funeral parlor.

  Animal Friends

  Frankie—Toots’s dachshund.

  Chester—Abby and Chris’s German shepherd.

  Coco—Mavis’s Chihuahua.

  Prologue

  Dabney House

  Florence Dabney waited at the top of the staircase while Theodore said goodbye to their guests. They had celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary tonight, and she couldn’t wait for the evening to end. Just couldn’t wait to be alone with her husband.

  Her low-waisted, bright scarlet dress, with a full, just-below-the-knee hemline and bodice typical of the times, fell around her, yet when she tried to grasp the silky material, her hand appeared as though it was passing through her dress. Again, she tried to touch her dress, yet she still could not feel the material in her hand. She remembered dressing earlier tonight as she prepared for their evening dinner party. Ruth, her personal maid, had made sure that the way her dress fell around her hid the slight burgeoning of her waistline. She recalled Matilda Watson’s remark last week, pointing out that Florence was no longer as thin as Cora Russell, and that maybe she should not overindulge in Cook’s sweets. Florence had smiled, knowing full well that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for her thickening midsection.

  Tonight, she would tell Theodore all about that reason. Though she was unsure of exactly what his response would be to her important news, she took heart. Ever since their nuptials, he’d talked of no
thing else but having an heir. Possibly, he would visit her rooms later tonight—after he learned she was with child, carrying his much-desired heir.

  Though Florence had dreaded that part of their marriage once she and Theodore were betrothed, she knew it was required and gave Theodore his needed relief. As a child, when her mother entertained guests, she’d very often overheard whispered discussions about what took place on one’s wedding night. Truthfully, being raised as she had been, until her own wedding night, she’d been completely unaware of what happened between a husband and a wife. Though it had not been as pleasurable as the hushed whispers had suggested, making her wonder what all the fuss was about, other than experiencing a moment of intense pain, she had found the experience not entirely unacceptable.

  Again, she reached for the luxurious silk, and, for the second time, she was unable to feel the soft texture of the fine material that had been shipped all the way from Spain. For a moment, she felt a slight tremor of fright, but then disregarded it. There was nothing for her to fear. Her evening had been pleasant if somewhat long. The Hamiltons had been very impressed with Cook’s baked quail and peas. Conversation about the arrival of goods for use in a new method of using waste products to fertilize the fields had dominated the evening. Theodore was quite excited about the new shipment arriving and could hardly talk of anything else. Actually, she thought it was distasteful dinner conversation, but it was not her place to voice an opinion.

  Downstairs, she could hear Theodore bid a final goodnight to the Hamiltons. As she waited for him, she smiled in anticipation, suddenly even more excited. A child would make Theodore happy. As of late, their marriage had not been quite as pleasant as it had been those first few months, since dear Theodore had so many responsibilities running the plantation he’d inherited from his father on the day of their wedding in June of 1921. Florence adored her position as the lady of the manor and took her duties as a wife quite seriously.

  Taking a deep breath, she suddenly felt chilled, and the air around her had become icy, unlike anything she’d ever known. It was so cold, and as she exhaled, she saw wafts of air come from her mouth. Again, she felt frightened and desperately wished that Theodore would finish up with whatever was taking him so long and come upstairs. She peered down the stairs in search of him, but the scene before her was not what she expected to see.

  The staircase, which should have displayed a brilliant polish on the gleaming oak surface, seemed aged and in need of repair, dilapidated. The rich tapestries that had been hanging on the walls were no longer there. The sconces, lit when she’d come upstairs, were not only snuffed out but were no longer even visible. Florence moved her hand toward her chest. It felt strange. She looked at her hand as she placed it across her heart and saw it as an eerie luminescence, more like a misty fog than her own flesh-colored appendage. As she pushed her hand harder against her chest, waiting to feel the reassuring beat of her heart, she became still when she felt absolutely nothing other than her hand slowly gliding through her dress and right through her flesh.

  Dear Lord, she must be dreaming. Taking a deep breath, she was sure this must be a result of her condition. She was having a nightmare and would wake up in the morning, at which time she would tell Theodore all about this, and the two of them would have a good laugh discussing the utter silliness of her dream.

  But no, this was different. She felt as though she was wide-awake. “Theo,” she called out. Again, she felt cold, and again, she saw wisps of a white, smokelike substance coming from her mouth. “Theo, please, where are you? I am quite frightened.”

  Suddenly, another frigid blast of cold air swirled around her. She observed the phenomenon as though in shock. The cold gust swirled around her, then stopped as quickly as it started. “Theodore?”

  And, suddenly, Theodore was there, right in front of her. Then a cruel, cackling laughter emanated from the man. But it wasn’t her Theo standing there; he wasn’t the man with whom she had dined earlier. No, this was some evil form of Theo. His finely tailored clothes hung in shreds, and his eyes glowed, as though a candle were lit behind them. “If this is a dream, please wake up,” she said aloud. “I don’t like this.”

  She reached out for the image of Theo before her. Her hands went right through him. She yanked them away, so frightened now that she backed away from the evil image and tried grabbing the banister for support. As she tried to steady herself again, her hand seemed to melt right through the wood. And before she knew what was happening, she felt a heavy hand at the small of her back, a hand with great power.

  Theodore’s hand? Except it wasn’t as comforting as she remembered. No, this was forceful. Before she could turn around and ask him to please remove his hand, she felt him shove her forward, toward the staircase. “Theodore!” Those were the last words Florence Dabney uttered before everything went totally blank.

  Chapter One

  Sophie jerked upright in the bed, stunned. Her heart drummed against her chest, sweat dampened her forehead, and the back of her neck was slick with perspiration. Unsure whether she had just experienced a vision by way of a dream, she reached for the lamp on the bedside table. Turning it on, she could see that she was safe in the master bedroom, with Goebel snoring contentedly beside her. They’d celebrated their first wedding anniversary that evening. Poor Goebel! He rarely drank, and had imbibed one too many celebratory glasses of champagne. Not wanting to wake him, she grabbed her robe from the bedpost and tiptoed out of the room, not bothering to turn out the light. She knew that Goebel wouldn’t hear her. His soft snores were comforting as Sophie crept out of their room and headed downstairs.

  She didn’t even want to begin to analyze her dream, or rather her vision, until she’d had a cigarette. As usual, Goebel had been after her to quit, and, as usual, she said she would think about it. Downstairs in their newly renovated kitchen, Sophie found her cigarettes and lighter on the counter by the back door. Just like at Toots’s house, she thought. Except she didn’t have a coffee can full of sand in which to stub out her cigarettes. She’d actually bought one of those ashtrays used in public places, the kind where you dropped the cigarette in a small hole and it went out as soon as it began to suffer from oxygen deprivation.

  Sophie stepped outside on the screened-in veranda, into air almost oppressively thick with humidity. Goebel’s bubble-gum tree filled the air with its sweet scent. Birds chirped and the occasional croak of a frog could be heard, all the ordinary night noises that were normally soothing. But after what she had just experienced, Sophie found them annoying. She stepped outside, where she had a lounge chair and table for this very purpose. She lit her cigarette and took several drags, letting the nicotine’s calming effect settle her nerves. She thought about the dream or vision she’d had.

  The woman in her dream had been dressed in clothes from the early 1920s, before the flappers but after the drab style of the World War I era. And she had been excited, then all at once frightened; Sophie felt the woman’s fear again. She closed her eyes and focused, something that was becoming easier with time. Last year, Sophie had developed a new psychic skill, clairsentience. By touch she was able to see through the eyes of another, to feel what they were feeling in real time. She returned her focus to the woman in the dream. Her dress was scarlet, made of the finest silk. Sophie saw a bolt of cloth on a ship, which startled her. “That wasn’t a dream,” she said out loud.

  Knowing this, she lay back against the recliner’s plump cushions, closing her eyes and trying earnestly to decipher the images imprinted on her mind. Taking several deep breaths, Sophie could feel herself relax, the way she did right before she fell into a trance. Unlike a trance, however, she was very much aware of the woman, her fears, and her physical pain.

  She’d been celebrating; Sophie knew this as she felt the woman’s anticipation. Focusing on the emotions coursing through the woman, Sophie again felt the woman’s fright when it rekindled the same fear in Sophie that had awoken her from a sound sleep. The first trickl
e of apprehension coursed through her, the woman, as Sophie’s external self would refer to her.

  A tinge of alarm was replaced by an icy-cold fear that permeated the woman as she called out a name. Sophie homed in on the words that only she could hear.

  “Theodore?”

  Anxious, Sophie concentrated on the name, hoping that her perceptiveness would lead her to find the meaning behind the woman’s fear as she spoke the man’s name. Again, centering every ounce of her psychic abilities on the emotions felt by this woman, she experienced a stabbing fear so great, she felt panicky. Acknowledging her gift, yet sometimes unsure of her own power, Sophie felt the force of the woman’s complete and utter fear spread through her nervous system like an electrical jolt.

  Leaning forward in the chaise lounge, Sophie catapulted from her visions of another’s past and became instantly aware of her present surroundings. She was sitting in the backyard, her pack of cigarettes lying on the small table beside her. Her hands shook as she reached for the lighter and smokes. This dream, this vision, this clairsentience, if that’s what had just happened, was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Last year, she’d discovered this ability when two children had gone missing. She’d been able to touch their possessions, feel their emotions in real time, seeing through their eyes as they’d been led down into a dank basement in Charleston. By the grace of God, the police found them before they were shipped off to a known pedophile.

  But this experience was different. She knew she was seeing through the woman’s eyes, and the woman had lived in the early 1920s. Sophie could almost feel the lightness of her undergarments, something very different from the corsets of the previous decade. Most likely she was wearing a chemise or a camisole and bloomers. Her low-waisted gown with the just-below-the-knee hemline and the bodice typical of the time was made of the finest silk embellished with rhinestones that sparkled when the right lighting hit them. She was waiting at the top of the staircase for her husband. All of this Sophie knew.