It was the sounds that first alerted me to the fact that I was in hospital. I didn’t open my eyes but I could hear the hushed noise in the room—a machine humming, people murmuring. And the smells—antiseptic, unfamiliar sheets, flowers. Surfacing a little more, I could feel the pain, dulled by drugs but still lurking. My arm was bandaged and I could feel the pull of a dressing in my hair and the itch of stitches. Slowly, I let my eyes flutter open. The light was too bright.

‘Sky?’ Sally was at my side in an instant. ‘Are you thirsty? The doctors said you must drink.’ She held a beaker out, her hand shaking.

‘Give her a moment, love,’ Simon said, coming to stand behind her. ‘Are you all right?’

I nodded. I didn’t want to speak. My head was still messed up, full of conflicting images. I couldn’t work out what was real and what was imagined.

Supporting the back of my head, Sally held the water to my lips and I took a sip.

‘Better now? Can you use your voice?’ she asked.

There were too many voices—mine, Zed’s, a man saying he was my friend. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the pillow.

‘Simon!’ Sally sounded distressed.

I didn’t want to upset her. Perhaps if I pretended I wasn’t there, she would be happy again. That sometimes worked.

‘She’s in shock, Sally,’ Simon said soothingly. ‘Give her a chance.’

‘But she’s not been like this since we first had her. I can see it in her eyes.’

‘Shh, Sally. Don’t jump to conclusions. Sky, you take all the time you need, you hear? No one’s going to rush you.’

Sally sat down on the bed and took my hand. ‘We love you, Sky. Hold on to that.’

But I didn’t want love. It hurt.

Simon switched on the radio and tuned in to a station playing soft classical music. It flowed over me like a caress. I’d listened to music all the time during the years in a succession of foster and care homes. I’d only spoken by singing strange little half-mad songs I’d made up myself, which had led the carers to assume I was crazy. I suppose I had been. But then Sally and Simon had met me and seen that they could do something for me. They’d been so patient, waiting for me to emerge, and gradually I had. I’d not sung a note since. I couldn’t put them through that again.

‘I’m all right,’ I rasped. I wasn’t. My brain was a junkyard of bits and pieces.

‘Thank you, darling.’ Sally squeezed my hand. ‘I needed to hear it.’

Simon fiddled with an arrangement of flowers, clearing his throat several times. ‘We’re not the only ones who want to know you’re OK. Zed Benedict and his family have been camping out in the visitors’ lounge.’

Zed. My confusion increased. Panic zapped through me like an electric shock. I’d realized something important about him, but I’d slammed the door closed again.

‘I can’t.’

‘It’s all right. I’ll just go and tell them you’ve woken up and explain you aren’t up to visitors right now. But I’m afraid the police are waiting to talk to you. We have to let them in.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Just tell them the truth.’

Simon went out to give the Benedicts the news. I gestured to Sally that I wanted to sit up. I now noticed that her face looked strained and tired.

‘How long have I been here?’

‘You’ve been out for twelve hours, Sky. The doctors couldn’t explain why. We were very worried.’

Something made me glance up. The Benedicts were leaving the hospital. Zed slowed by the window in the corridor that looked into my room and our eyes met. I had a horrible sensation in the pit of my stomach. Fear. He stopped, placing his hand on the glass as if to reach for me. I clenched my fists on the cover. Deep inside I could hear a ringing note, discordant, violent. The water jug on the bedside table began to judder; the overhead light stuttered; the buzzer to summon the nurse jumped off the rail and crashed to the floor. Zed’s expression became darker, the sound harsher. Then Saul came up alongside and said something softly in his ear. Zed nodded, gave me a last look and walked on. The note stopped, snapped off; the vibrations ceased.

Sally rubbed her arms. ‘Strange. Must have been a tremor.’ She returned the buzzer to its original position. ‘I didn’t know Vegas was in an earthquake zone.’

I couldn’t tell if it had been me or Zed. Was he so angry at me he wanted to shake me? Or had that been my fear trying to push him away?

Feeling numb, I let Sally brush and plait my hair for me.

‘I won’t ask you what happened, darling,’ she said, taking care not to pull the hair around my cut, ‘as you’ll have to go through it for the police and FBI, but I just want you to know that whatever happened wasn’t your fault. No one will blame you.’

‘Two men died, didn’t they?’ My voice sounded distant. I felt I was watching myself go through the motions of talking to Sally while really I was hidden deep inside, hiding behind so many doors and locks that no one could reach me. It was the only place I felt safe.

‘Yes. The police and FBI arrived at the same time acting on separate tip-offs—it was a massive mix-up in communications, the left hand not knowing what the right was doing. The two men were killed in the exchange of fire.’

‘One of them was called Gator. He had a curly ponytail. He was nice to me.’ I couldn’t remember why I thought that.

‘Then I’m sorry he is dead.’

There was a cough at the door. Victor Benedict stood in the entrance with an unfamiliar man in a dark suit.

‘May we come in?’ Victor was looking at me with particular intent. The tremor had not gone unnoticed and he looked, well, wary of me, as if I was an unexploded bomb or something.

‘Please.’ Sally got up from the bed and made space for them.

‘Sky, this is Lieutenant Farstein of the Las Vegas police department. He’s got a few questions for you. Is that OK?’

I nodded. Farstein, a sun-bronzed, middle-aged man with thinning hair, pulled up a seat.

‘Miss Bright, how are you?’ he asked.

I took a sip of water. I liked him—my instinct was that he was genuinely concerned. ‘A bit confused.’

‘Yeah, I know the feeling.’ He pulled out a notebook to check his facts. ‘You’ve got the police departments of two states and the FBI in a spin, but we’re glad we found you safe and well.’ He tapped the page thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you’d best start from the top—tell us how you were snatched.’

I strained to remember. ‘It was getting dark. I’d been skiing—well, falling over on skis really.’

Victor smiled, his face reminding me so much of Zed when it took on a softer expression. ‘Yeah, I’d heard you were taking lessons.’

‘Tina’s car had a problem.’

Farstein checked his notes. ‘The mechanic discovered that someone messed with the leads to the battery.’

‘Oh.’ I rubbed my forehead. The next steps were shaky. ‘Then Zed and Xav persuaded me to get in a car. They locked me in the boot. No, no, they didn’t.’ I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘I can see them doing it but it doesn’t feel right.’

‘Sky.’ Victor’s tone was low and insistent. ‘What is it you’re seeing?’

Farstein cut across him. ‘Are you saying, Sky, that two of the Benedict brothers were responsible for your abduction?’

Something clicked in my head. The pictures flowing easily, smoothly, without pain.

‘They pretended to be my friend, wanted to hurt me.’

‘You know that’s not true, Sky.’ Victor was furious, his lips compressed.

Farstein shot him a quelling look. ‘Agent Benedict, you should not interrupt the witness. And bearing in mind your relationship to those she’s accusing, I suggest you step outside and send in a colleague who can listen impartially.’

Victor stalked to the door, his back to the room, but didn’t leave. ‘What she’s saying is impossible. I was with my brothers, lieutenant; they had nothing to do with her kidnapping.’ Sky, why are you saying this?

I looked frantically to Sally. ‘He’s talking to me in my head—tell him to stop.’ I pressed my fists to my temples. ‘It hurts.’

Sally took my hand, standing between me and Victor. ‘Mr Benedict, I think you’d best go: you’re upsetting Sky.’

I turned tear-filled eyes to Farstein. ‘I shot them, didn’t I?’

‘No, Sky, you weren’t responsible for the deaths of those men.’

‘Zed and Xav are dead?’

Farstein threw Sally an anxious look. ‘No,’ he said carefully, ‘the two men who staked out the warehouse are dead.’

‘Gator and O’Halloran,’ I repeated, remembering them. ‘The savant.’

‘The what?’ asked Farstein.

Which one, Sky? asked Victor urgently.

‘Go away from me!’ I pulled the covers over my head. ‘Get out of my head.’

Farstein sighed and closed his notebook. ‘I can see we are doing more harm than good here, Mrs Bright. We’ll leave Sky to get some rest. Agent Benedict, I want a word with you.’

Victor nodded. ‘Down the hall. Take it easy, Sky. It’ll come back.’

The two men left. I lowered the covers to find Sally watching me with fear in her eyes.

‘I’m going mad, aren’t I?’ I asked her. ‘I can’t remember—and what I remember feels wrong.’

She brushed her thumb over my knuckles. ‘You’re not mad. You’re recovering from trauma. It takes time. We think the people who did this to you are probably dead, killed in the shootout. The police are just trying to tie up the loose ends.’

I wish someone would tie up the loose ends in my brain. My thoughts were like ragged bunting from some abandoned party whipping about in the wind—no purpose, no anchor.

‘If Zed and Xav didn’t kidnap me, then why do I think they did?’

Thanksgiving came and went, the only sign the turkey dinner in hospital. My mind was no clearer. I felt like a beach after the passing of a tidal wave—odds and ends thrown up on the shore, all out of place, smashed to pieces. I was aware of the passage of great emotion through me but I couldn’t sort it out, what had been real, what had been false. I’d let something loose inside and not controlled it—the result had been devastating.

Zed and his brother were cleared of all suspicion by the Las Vegas police department. So why had I accused them? I was racked with guilt that I had involved them in this, too embarrassed to see any of the Benedicts. I made my parents promise that they wouldn’t let them in—I couldn’t face them. I wasn’t able to keep Victor out though; he came several times with Farstein to see if I remembered any more. I apologized to him, and the policeman, for getting it wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Victor hated me now.

‘Nightmares, Miss Bright—that’s what they are,’ Farstein said in a practical tone of voice. ‘You’ve gone through a terrifying experience and your mind got muddled.’

He was being kind but I could tell he dismissed me as next to useless in his enquiries. Everyone agreed that I’d been kidnapped, but no one could prove that anyone beyond the two men in the warehouse had been involved. I was the key but I wasn’t opening any doors for them.

Farstein brought me a pack of cards and a bunch of flowers on his last visit. ‘Here you are, Miss Bright, I hope these help you feel better.’ He split open the packet and shuffled. ‘I imagine you must be bored stuck in here. My city is a good place to visit for most folks; I’m sorry you had such a bad time with us.’ He cut the cards and dealt me a hand.

Victor was hanging back, watching us from the doorway. ‘You’re not corrupting the girl, are you, Farstein?’

‘Can’t leave Vegas without taking one gamble.’

‘I don’t know many games,’ I admitted.

‘Let’s keep it to Snap then.’

‘If I win?’

‘You get the flowers.’

‘If I lose?’

‘You still get the flowers, but you have to give me one for my buttonhole.’

Farstein left with a carnation pinned to his lapel.

Victor stayed behind. He stood looking out of the window for a moment, his disquiet clear.

‘Sky, why don’t you want to see Zed?’

I closed my eyes.

‘He’s really cut up. I’ve never seen him like this. I know he blames himself for what happened to you, but it’s knocked him off his stride in a major way.’

I said nothing.

‘I’m worried about him.’

Victor was not one to confide in someone outside the family. He really must be concerned. But what could I do? I could barely find the courage to get up in the morning.

‘He got in a fight last night.’

A fight? ‘Is he all right?’

‘From the brawl? Yeah, it was more words than fists.’

‘Who did he fight?’

‘A couple of guys from Aspen. He went looking for it, Sky. And in answer to your other question, he isn’t all right. He’s hurting. It’s like he’s bleeding inside, somewhere he thinks no one can see.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘But you’re not going to do anything about it?’

Tears pricked the back of my eyes. ‘What do you want me to do?’

He held out a hand to me. ‘Stop shutting him out. Help him.’

I swallowed. There was a streak of ruthlessness to Victor that wouldn’t let me duck behind the excuse of my confusion—it was both scary and challenging. ‘I’ll … I’ll try.’

His hand curled into a fist before he let it drop. ‘I hope you do, because if something bad happens to my brother, I’m not going to be pleased.’

‘Is that a … a threat?’

‘No, just the truth.’ He shook his head, his irritation clear. ‘You can get through this, Sky. Start looking outside yourself—that’ll help you heal.’

At the end of November, I was released from hospital but my parents had decided on the advice of the doctors not to take me straight home.

‘Too many distressing associations in Wrickenridge,’ Dr Peters, my consultant psychiatrist, told them. ‘Sky needs absolute rest and no stress.’ She gave them a recommendation for a convalescent home in Aspen and I was duly registered and assigned my own room, something we could only afford thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor from Vegas who had heard about my case on the news.

‘This is a loony bin, isn’t it?’ I asked Simon bluntly as Sally unpacked my few belongings into the chest of drawers. My room had a view of the snowy gardens. I could see a girl walking round and round the pond, lost in her own world, until a nurse came out to fetch her in.

‘It’s a nursing home,’ Simon corrected me. ‘You’re not fit to go back to school yet and we couldn’t afford to stay in Vegas any longer, so this is the best we could come up with.’

Sally stood up and shoved the drawer closed. ‘We could go back to the UK, Simon. Sky might feel better among her old friends.’

Old friends? I’d kept up with some of them on Facebook but somehow the old closeness had evaporated the longer I was away. It wouldn’t be like going back to how it had been.

Simon gave me a one-armed hug. ‘If that’s what it takes, we’ll do it, but one step at a time, eh?’

‘We’ve got classes we have to teach at the Arts Centre,’ Sally explained. ‘But one of us will be over every day. Do you want to see your friends from Wrickenridge?’

I played with the curtain cord. ‘What have you told them?’

‘That you’ve had a bad reaction to the trauma of your kidnapping. Nothing too serious but you need time to recover.’

‘They’ll think I’m crazy.’

‘They think you’re suffering—and you are—we can see it.’

‘I’d like to see Tina and Zoe. Nelson too if he wants to come.’

‘What about Zed?’

I leant my head against the cool glass. The gesture gave me a sudden flashback—a tall tower, neon signs. I shuddered.

‘What, love?’

‘I’m seeing other stuff now—stuff that makes no sense.’

‘To do with Zed?’

‘No.’ And it wasn’t, I realized. Zed hadn’t been there. And I’d been stalling. I’d promised Victor I would try. Maybe if I saw Zed, it would help get things straight. ‘I’d like to see Zed too—just for a little while.’

Simon smiled. ‘Good. The boy’s been worried sick about you, phoning us every hour of the day and most of the night.’

‘You’ve changed your tune about him,’ I murmured, suddenly remembering clearly the argument we’d had about him a month ago. Hadn’t Zed said he loved me? So why did I feel as if he was my enemy?

‘Well, you can’t help but like someone who walked into a trap to get his girl out.’

‘He did?’

‘Don’t you remember? He was there when you were injured.’

‘Yes, he was, wasn’t he?’

Simon squeezed my shoulder. ‘See, it’s coming back.’

The next day passed quietly. I read my way through a pile of novels, not leaving my room. My carer was a motherly woman from California who had a lot to say on the subject of the Colorado winters. She came in and out all day, but left me largely to my own devices. At around five, just before she went off shift, she knocked on the door.

‘You’ve visitors, honey. Shall I send them up?’

I closed my book, my heart rate accelerating. ‘Who is it?’

She checked her list. ‘Tina Monterey, Zoe Stuart, and Nelson Hoffman.’

‘Oh.’ I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. ‘Sure, send them up.’

Tina put her head round the door first. ‘Hi.’

It felt an age since I’d seen her. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her explosion of ginger brown dreadlocks and her outrageous nails.

‘Come in. There’s not much room but you can sit on the bed.’ I stayed in my chair by the window, knees drawn up to my chest. My smile felt fragile so I didn’t push it too far.

Zoe and Nelson followed her, all looking a bit awkward.

Tina put a pot of pink cyclamen on the bedside table. ‘For you,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

‘So …’

‘So how are you, guys?’ I asked hurriedly. The very last thing I wanted was to explain my totally messed up brain. ‘How’s school?’

‘Fine. Everyone was worried about you—really shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened in Wrickenridge before.’

My gaze drifted to the window. ‘I don’t suppose it has.’

‘I remember joking with you about that when you first came—I feel awful that you had to find out I was wrong. Are you, you know, OK?’

I gave a hollow laugh. ‘Look around you, Tina: I’m here, aren’t I?’

Nelson got up abruptly. ‘Sky, if I could get the guys who did this to you, I’d kill them!’

‘I think they might be dead already. At least, that’s what the police think.’

Tina hauled Nelson back down on the bed. ‘Don’t, Nelson. Remember, we promised not to upset her.’

‘Sorry, Sky.’ Nelson put his arm round Tina and kissed the top of her head. ‘Thanks.’

What was this? I couldn’t help but grin—my first genuine smile in a very long while. ‘Hey, are you two …?’

Zoe rolled her eyes and offered me a stick of bubblegum. ‘Yeah, they so are. Driving me crazy, the pair of them. You’ve got to get straightened out, Sky, and keep me sane at school.’ Thank God for Zoe making fun of the madness—it made me feel a lot more normal.

‘When, how?’ I mimicked one of Tina’s favourite gestures—a pale imitation of her long-nailed beckon but it was something. ‘Give me the details, sister.’

Tina looked down, a little embarrassed. ‘When you were, you know, taken, Nelson was really great. Stopped me losing it big time. I thought it was my fault—what with the car and everything.’

Nelson rubbed her forearm. ‘Yeah, Tina saw my good side for once.’

‘I’m so pleased—for you both. You deserve each other,’ I said.

Tina laughed. ‘Is that, like, a Chinese curse?’

‘No, you dweeb,’ I threw my cushion at her, ‘it’s a compliment.’

They stayed for about an hour. As long as we kept off the subject of my abduction, I felt fine. I had no problem remembering things about school, no pain, no confusion. I began to feel like my old self.

Tina checked her watch and gave the others a nod. ‘We’d best go. Your next visitor is due at six.’

I gave them each a hug. ‘Thanks for coming to see the poor crazy girl.’

‘Nothing wrong with you that a little time won’t put right, Sky. We’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Sally said she thought you’d be here at least until the end of the week.’

I shrugged. Time didn’t seem to mean so much to me. I’d stepped out of my normal routines. ‘I expect so. See you then.’

They left, exchanging greetings with someone in the hall. I went to the window to watch them go but I couldn’t spot the car park from my room.

There was a soft knock at the door.

I turned, expecting to see Sally. ‘Come in.’

The door opened and Zed stepped over the threshold. He paused, unsure of his welcome.

‘Hi.’

My throat seized. ‘H … hi.’

He pulled a massive gold box tied with a red satin ribbon from behind his back. ‘I come bearing chocolate.’

‘In that case, you’d better sit down.’ I sounded calm but inside my emotions were tossing like palm trees in advance of a hurricane. That tidal surge of feeling was coming back.

He didn’t sit. He put the box on the bed then came to stand beside me at the window.

‘Nice view.’

I clenched my teeth, keeping the door in my head firmly shut against the surge. ‘Yeah. We crazy people get to go out earlier in the day. I’m told there’s a snowman down in the orchard that looks like the head nurse.’ My fingers were shaking as I rested my hands on the sill.

A warm hand moved to cover mine, stilling the trembling. ‘You’re not crazy.’

I tried to laugh but it came out wrong. I quickly wiped away a tear. ‘That’s what everyone keeps telling me but my brain feels like cold scrambled egg.’

‘You’re still in shock.’

I shook my head. ‘No, Zed, it’s more than that. I see things that I don’t think happened. I’ve got all these terrible images in my head—stuff about you and Xav. But you’re not like that—part of me knows this. And I think I shot you both. I wake up in a cold sweat dreaming there’s a gun in my hand. I haven’t even touched a gun in my life so how do I know what it feels like to shoot one?’

‘Come here.’ He tugged me towards him, but I held back.

‘No, Zed, you don’t want to touch me. I’m … I’m broken.’

I don’t want her broken, not yet. Oh God, who had said that?

He refused to listen to me and pulled me firmly into his arms.

‘You’re not broken, Sky. Even if you were, I’d still want you, but you’re not. I don’t know why you see those things, but if you do, there’s a reason for it. Perhaps that dead savant messed with your mind somehow? Whatever it takes, we’ll find out and we’ll help you.’ He sighed. ‘But Xav and I, we weren’t anywhere near you until we found you in the warehouse. Do you believe that?’

I nodded against his chest. ‘I think I do.’

He ran his hands up and down my back, kneading out the knots from my muscles. ‘I thought I’d lost you. I can’t tell you what it means to me to hold you like this.’

‘You came for me even though you knew they might shoot you.’ I remembered that much, thanks to Simon.

‘I was wearing a bulletproof vest.’

‘You still could’ve been killed. They could’ve taken a head shot.’

He cradled my face in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the dip in my chin. ‘Price worth paying. Without you, I’d become the coldest, most cynical tough nut on the planet, worse even than the guys who took you.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘It’s true. You are my anchor, keeping me on the right side of wrong. I’ve been drifting since you shut me out.’

Guilt swamped me. ‘Victor told me.’

Zed frowned. ‘I told him to leave you alone.’

‘He’s worried about you.’

‘But you come first.’

‘I’m sorry I wouldn’t let you visit. I was so ashamed of myself.’

‘You’ve nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘I left you to suffer.’

‘I’m a big boy—I can take it.’

‘You got in a fight.’

‘I’m also stupid.’

I smiled, rubbing my nose against the cotton of his shirt. ‘You’re not stupid; you were hurting.’

‘It’s still stupid to take that out on a couple of Frat boys for looking at me the wrong way.’ Zed sighed at his own behaviour, then gave up the subject. ‘I know you’re confused about a lot right now, Sky, but I want you to know one thing for sure: I love you and would give my life for yours if it meant I could save you.’

Tears, always near the surface at the moment, brimmed in my eyes. ‘I know. I felt it. I could read your emotions. That’s what told me my mind was lying to me.’

He kissed my forehead.

‘And I think,’ I continued, ‘that under all this, when I find myself again, I will also find that I love you too.’

‘That’s good to know.’

And so we stood, watching the stars come out, both praying that the explanation for why I was so messed up would not be long delayed.