Sam almost gave her the answer straight away. He had to stop himself right before it happened and change it to something less direct. “It’s… someone very important to you.”

“Someone important… to me?”

His answer threw her mind into disarray. She knew Sam would never lie to her over something so trivial, but if that were the case, then who could this person be?

A figure took form in her mind, and she immediately rejected it.

It could not be her. She was dead.

Her mother was dead.

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you, Miss McKinnon.” Sam intoned helplessly. “All I’m allowed to say is that I did not lie when I said Mr. Brighthall had not been spending his time with Charlene at all. Instead, he had been using all this time to redeem himself in your eyes.

“When he was attacked by a gunman yesterday, all he cared about was calling you to tell you he’s fine. But his phone was switched off, and maybe that was why he raced to this place from the hospital as quickly as he could.”

Deirdre remembere