Prologue

It was nearly midnight when the call came. She had been sleeping soundly for the first time in a very long time. She never slept more than a few hours a night. There were reasons, known only to herself. Rose was a private person, rarely finding the time or the energies to share intimacies with people she hardly knew.

Rose Elizabeth McKenna worked hard every day of her life. She came in close contact with scores of people every day. But none of them were her friends.

Her real estate business was one of the largest and most successful of its kind. And it came with many hours of sweat, hard work and sleepless nights. It is one of the things that kept her from forming relationships, other than those that were superficial. She didn’t even have a relationship with God. She didn’t feel she needed Him in her life any way. There wasn’t much that she didn’t have the she didn’t need.

God was just another thing that would hurt her anyway. He would betray her with empty promises just as he had done the last few years. She had never come to know Christ as her Savior. Many people, including her mother, had tried to convince her of her need to have him in her life.

But Rose always responded the same way to everyone. "What has he done for me these last years, when my mother has been sick? Has he healed her broken body? Has he kept her from drinking? Or taken from her the desire to take her life? Your God is not for me," she claimed. "Your God is a disappointment because he could solve all these things if he wanted to."

Doris could never argue that point and so she never forced the issue on her daughter. She allowed Rose to go through life with her own beliefs, whether right or wrong, praying and hoping that one day she would see the error of her thinking.

Through the years Rose had had lovers and acquaintances. But never had she experienced love as one would know it. Love was never a word in her vocabulary. Love was not real. Love was merely an illusion that people allowed themselves to believe in. Rose knew the truth. She understood it all too well. She had seen first hand, though she was too young to remember it, how devastating love could be. How painfully miserable and disappointing.

Through the years of growing up with a mother such as hers, it was no wonder that Rose had built so many walls around herself and her heart. She wanted none of the same experiences that her mother had gone through. But in a way, it is exactly what she had gotten.

It was because of her mother that she was screeching down the interstate heading to the hospital. The streetlights overhead did very little to illuminate her path. With the blinding rain and the ominous black clouds all she could see was an endless darkness that threatened to engulf her.

Rose increased her speed. Her windshield wipers were barely working and thick blankets of water washed over her blinding her even more.

There was an occasional burst of lightening that helped to guide her and keep her on the freeway. She knew she should slow down, but her adrenaline had kicked into overdrive with the phone call.

Rose and her mother had never had a great relationship. It was good at best. Sometimes it had been hard for Rose. Doris McKenna was a distant woman. Her husband had left her when Rose was only two. Rose had never known her father except for the distant image of him locked in the far corners of her memory. There were no pictures of him. Her mother never spoke of him. It was like the man never existed. And Rose had learned early in life never to mention his name.

Once she had made that awful mistake and paid for it dearly with a whipping that she would not soon forget.

Doris was often found with a drink in her hand. If she wasn’t drunk, she was soon to be. That lead to much friction between Rose and her mother. But it never stopped Rose from loving her. If anything, she felt an undying sympathy for her mother. She never seemed to be a happy person. She was often depressed, sometimes suicidal. At least once a month she was hospitalized until she could function again in the real world. It was once said that Doris was schizophrenic and delusional. Rose never really understood what that meant. All she knew was that her mother needed help and desperately. Where the doctors had failed, God should have come through for them. Wasn’t he suppose to work miracles in people’s lives? Weren’t they worthy of a miracle?

Doris didn’t know this, but many times, when Rose was a little girl, she’d hear her mother praying, pleading with God to help her. But God had never listened for her prayers went unanswered time and time again. And each time it broke Rose’s heart.

At last Doris had given up. She hadn’t prayed for years, as for as Rose could remember. Her faith had slipped. Therefore, Rose would never allow herself to believe in anything she couldn’t see.

Rose hit her breaks coming around a sharp turn on the interstate. She went skidding across the pavement. Her car swerved. She grabbed onto the steering wheel, gripping it tightly. She felt a hard jerk, then the car steadied itself as she proceeded forward.

The rain was coming down thicker, heavier. Water was standing in puddles along the edge of the road. It was darker. Eerie. Rose squinted against the darkness. It was vast and frightening. Her hands began to sweat. The blood pounded angrily in her temples.

She rushed forward with the speed and agility of a race car driver. It seemed that she would never make it to the hospital on time. And she had to. She just had too.

A flash of lightening bolted from the sky somewhere to her left. For a split second it seemed as if something was in the road ahead of her. An ebony figure.

Another bolt of lightening came closer, brightening her surroundings.

It was a woman. A young woman. Her hair was dark and long, matted around her shoulders, hanging in her eyes. She wore a ruffled dress that clung to her wet body.

Rose slammed on her breaks, but they didn’t work. She tried them again, but nothing. She began to pump her breaks over and over again, but the car maintained its speed, never slowing.

Fear spread through her, consuming her. She gulped for air, but nothing happened. She was frozen with terror. Numb, paralyzed.

The girl just stood there, like a zombie, refusing to move. Her eyes were huge, round black orbs that seemed hauntingly familiar to her. It was as if the girl were staring at Rose, challenging her.

Rose jerked the steering wheel to move around the girl. She jerked too hard and the car began to fishtail. A cry wrenched from her lungs as her car began to slide against the wet road. She heard a thud and felt the vibrations as she struck the girl with the rear of her car.

Rose spun around hitting the concrete barrier. The last thing she remembered before closing her eyes was seeing the lifeless body of the girl lying in the street beside her.