Sophie had meant to stay up and awake to talk to Jake when he got home from work. She’d decided to nap just a little, but the next time she woke, it was to the cool sensation of a night breeze passing over her body, and Tank’s deep growl.

Sophie sat up on the futon bed, blinking in alarm. Connor had said he was sending over more security personnel from Oahu, but they hadn’t arrived yet—or had they?

Moonlight backlit the shape of a woman standing just outside the screen door on her deck. Was it Pim Wat? Possibly, but Sophie didn’t recognize her mother’s outline.

She couldn’t see a weapon in the woman’s open hands, loose at her sides. There was nothing overtly threatening in her stance, but Tank’s growl increased in volume, and Ginger, curled up against Sophie’s back on the bed, raised her head, her chest rumbling with her own growl. The two were about to break into full-blown barking. Sophie put a hand on each dog’s ruff and quieted them.

“You’d better tell me who you are and what you are doing here.” Sophie turned on the floor lamp beside her bed as the woman stepped forward.

Light fell on a golden-skinned, triangular face with close-set dark eyes and a mouth that had never seen orthodontia. Dark hair was pulled back in a braid that brushed the tops of her hips. The woman wore a long-sleeved tee, yoga pants, and felt-bottomed slip-on shoes, all in black.

An instant feeling of recognition resonated in Sophie.

“Sophie Malee. It is I, Armita.” The woman spoke in Thai. “Your nanny from long ago.”

Armita was tiny, even shorter than Pim Wat, and so slender she seemed almost cartoonlike, a stick drawing of a woman, her head larger than her body.

Sophie tossed her blanket aside and sat up. She was still fully dressed, never having planned to pass out for the night like she had. Her abrupt movement made the dogs lunge to their feet and give in to the barking she’d barely restrained.

Sophie shooed them back, shushing them, and slid the screen door open. “I remember you, Armita. Please come in.” A maelstrom of emotions roiled in her chest; the last time she had seen Armita, the woman had been bleeding and unconscious on the floor of Sophie’s bedroom when Sophie was kidnapped at the age of seven.

Armita slipped past Sophie and extended her hands to the dogs to sniff. Both whimpered and whuffed with excitement at having a visitor, their tails wagging as they crowded against her.

There was nowhere to sit in the bare apartment, so Sophie perched on the bed’s edge, observing Armita as the Thai woman caressed the dogs while she looked around the space, and then sat beside Sophie. The dogs calmed, but cuddled close, leaning against her legs. Their instant bond with her former nanny relaxed Sophie further.

“I had to speak with you,” Armita said. “But you must not tell her I came.”

“Tell who? I’m still in shock to see you after all these years,” Sophie said.

“You must not tell Pim Wat that I spoke with you. Or I will get much, much trouble.” Armita grasped Sophie’s hands; hers felt small and soft as a child’s. Her eyes welled as she scanned Sophie’s face searchingly. “Your scar. It’s not as bad as I worried it would be. You are still so beautiful.”

Sophie was unsure what to ask first—she had so many questions. “Why did you come here in the middle of the night? And climb up to my room?” She gestured to the deck. “It’s three stories to the ground. I didn’t think anyone could approach that way.”

“You must not tell Pim Wat I came,” Armita repeated. Her mouth quivered. “Please.”

“All right, I won’t. Did Mother fire you or something, after the kidnapping?” Sophie squeezed Armita’s hands reassuringly, disturbed that the woman was so agitated and fearful. “She told me that you left—that you quit working for us because you didn’t want a job where you were put in danger.” Now Sophie’s chin wobbled as she remembered how devastated she’d been—Armita had been her mother in everything but name from her earliest memories. The nanny’s abrupt disappearance, on top of Sophie’s trauma from the kidnapping, had always haunted her. “Where did you go?”

“I was not fired. I am Pim Wat’s personal servant; I have been all of these years. She would not let me see you after I had failed in my duty to protect you.” She let go of Sophie’s hands and turned away, her slender shoulders slumping. “I am so ashamed.”

“What? Two armed men broke in and took me! They hit you on the head!” Sophie exclaimed. Anger lit in her breast as she remembered sleepless nights in her little bed, crying for Armita—and the poor woman had been blamed, and kept away! “I can’t believe this. Mother would not be so cruel.”

Armita’s eyes were hard as black diamonds as she gazed at Sophie. “You do not know your mother the way I do. She says she is cruel to make me strong. She said that you too must be strong.”

“I was seven years old! I’d been kidnapped and kept in a closet for ten days!” Sophie shook her head. “But you did not answer my question. Why did you come to my apartment the way you did? Why now, after all these years?”

“I came when she wouldn’t miss me. I came a way that would not be seen by those watching you. I came now because I had to warn you.”

“Who is watching me? And warn me of what?”

Armita stood. “There are many watching you, and one of them wants you dead. But your mother—she wants you to serve her. She wants to own you, like she owns me. And she is planning something. She usually tells me everything, but she has not told me this, and it worries me.” She drew a breath and sighed it out, her fingertips touching Sophie’s arm lightly. “Do not go to Thailand, to the stronghold of the Yām Khûmkạn. You may not be able to leave if you do.”

“I won’t,” Sophie said fiercely. “I’m pregnant, Armita. I must protect my baby.” She hadn’t meant to tell the woman, but the words had just popped out. She still trusted Armita.

Armita’s face seemed to light with a glow of joy as she smiled. “Oh, Sophie Malee! How wonderful!” She leaned forward to embrace Sophie, her small hands fluttering around Sophie’s face and hair like butterflies. “In my fondest dreams, we were reunited. And I cared for your children as if they were my own.” Her eyes were wet. “I am so happy! I thought you could not have children, after Assan Ang.”

It was jarring that she seemed to know everything about Sophie, but oddly reassuring too.

“I thought I could not have children either. This has been a surprise, and will be a big adjustment, but I’m happy about it. And I would love you to be my child’s nanny. Leave my mother. Come live with me. I know I will need help; I can’t do this alone.”

Armita stepped back. Her smile was deeply sad. “If only that were possible. And now, we both have a secret to keep from Pim Wat. I must go.”

“Please don’t! Stay with me until the morning, and go out the front way,” Sophie pleaded. She patted the bed. “There is plenty of room, and I will sleep better with you here, I know it.”

Armita shook her head. Tears gleamed on her high cheekbones in the light from the lamp. “I am so glad to have seen you, and I will be watching out for you as best I can. Remember my warning.” The petite woman slid open the door, climbed over the balcony railing, and disappeared.