Prologue

GRANT FERGUSON HAD IT ALL. A tall, strapping man with movie star looks, he was a high-priced divorce attorney with a brunette trophy wife, Felicia, and a home and cars that others could only envy. Well-liked by his peers, his only enemies were the husbands of his female clients who felt that Grant had shafted them with exorbitant alimony or child-support payments. Grant loved kids, and in his mind the welfare of the children came first, so he never paid much attention to the grumbling.

The Ferguson’s desperately wanted children of their own, but much to Grant’s chagrin, after six years of marriage, Felicia had not been able to bear a child. And then one day, she’d said those magical words: “I’m pregnant.” For four months, Grant and Felicia were in heaven, and counting the days until they could hold their baby in their arms. And then, right around the holidays, the unthinkable happened: Felicia miscarried. With the loss of his son, Grant threw himself into work to avoid the heartache that kept eating him. Felicia was living in her own form of hell as well, blaming herself for not being able to give her husband the thing he wanted most in life: a son.

Two months crawled by. Although they both tried to rise above the hurt, they carried their burdens silently, like two ships passing in the night. Then, on this particular Saturday in February, it came to Grant that they could adopt.

It was early afternoon on that day, when Felicia came around the corner to the den, snazzied up in tight jeans and a clingy yellow top. Grant was watching sports and looked up when the voluptuous brunette entered the room. “I’m going to the store,” she said running her slender fingers through her long hair. “This evening I thought I’d make a romantic dinner and then perhaps we could sit by the pool. Sweetheart, we’ve got to get the mojo back in our marriage. Neither one of us have been the same since I miscarried. I’ve gone through the mourning as you have, and now it’s time to move on.”

Grant pulled her down on the couch and kissed her lips. “I feel the same way, and yes, how ‘bout we have a juicy rib eye for dinner with all the fixings, and I’ll make us some martinis?” He held her face gently in his hands. “We’ll get through this. In fact, tonight let’s say we start all over from square one. No more dredging the past – only looking forward to the future. There is something I’d like to run by you, but we’ll discuss it over dinner.”

“I love you,” she said. With those parting words, she headed to the garage with a new outlook on life. She was humming as she got in her Mercedes and pulled away. As she drove, she figured he wanted to discuss adoption, and that was fine with her. She was more than ready to love a child – anyone’s child. She pulled up to the high-end grocery store and smiled as she rolled her cart to the meat counter.

In the meantime, Grant felt the heavy weight that he’d been carrying, lift like morning fog. The sound of the doorbell broke his thoughts. He went to the front door and checked the side window to see who was interrupting his day off. He smiled his recognition and opened the door.

Before Grant could say a word, a .357 was drawn and two bullets were pumped into his body. One in the head and one to the chest.

With the vehicle running, the murderer made a fast getaway, while Grant lay bleeding inside his foyer, never to see his wife’s face again or the baby he had hoped to adopt….