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  V. C.

  ANDREWS

  capturing angels

  POCKET STAR BOOKS

  New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Epilogue

  ‘Daughter of Light’ Excerpt

  Be sure to click through after Capturing Angels for a sneak peek at the next V.C. Andrews novel

  Daughter of Light

  The exciting sequel to Daughter of Darkness

  Prologue

  All around me, everything was going on as if nothing was unusual, nothing terrible had happened. People were talking to each other and to sales personnel, announcements were being made periodically about something on sale, and other people were laughing and strolling through the various departments as if for them it was a Sunday walk in the park.

  The voice I heard, however, was whispering. It seemed to come from the darkest corner of my mind and slip into my ear.

  “She’s gone,” it said. “Your precious daughter is missing.”

  I started to turn slowly, pausing at nine o’clock, five o’clock, and three o’clock like some mechanical mannequin in the showcase window of Lesson’s Department Store, where I had come to buy my mother-in-law a birthday present. I found myself facing the saleslady, who stood there holding the pair of earrings I had chosen, her face frozen in a confused smile. She had been talking to me, but I hadn’t heard a word, nor did I hear anything she was saying now. Her lips moved, but the voice whispering in my ear overpowered anyone or anything else.

  “Missing,” I heard myself say.

  “Pardon?” I heard the saleslady say.

  “My daughter, Mary. She’s not standing beside me!” I screamed and started to charge to my right, calling for her, not seeing her, and then turning to charge to my left. I glanced back at the saleslady behind the jewelry counter. She was grimacing at me and shaking her head.

  Then I started running through the store.

  As I ran, I fingered the silver cross John had given me on my birthday last year. It had a diamond at the center. Maybe we never come right out and say it, but we wear religious icons for protection. Mary had one, too, I thought, trying to keep out the troubled thoughts that were streaming out of the darkest corners of my brain behind the whisper. It would protect her. Surely it would protect her. Please let it protect her.

  Two security guards came running after me as I went up and down the aisles looking for her.

  “Hey, miss, lady, hold on,” one called. He had a potbelly that bounced as if he had swallowed a basketball. I thought he would have a heart attack before he reached me. His face was more of a burnt orange than red, and his nostrils enlarged as he snorted oxygen.

  The African-American guard who came with him was a good five inches taller and firmly built, with hair the color of charcoal briquettes. He had unusually small ebony eyes. They looked like last-minute facial features substituted for correctly shaped and sized ones that had run out. However, when he spoke, he did have a commanding, assertive voice, one that in most circumstances would give the listener some sense of security and confidence. I was desperately in need of someone to take command. The panic was turning me into a frightened little girl again.

  I recall these details so well because at the time, I was looking to them to rescue me from what could potentially be a great family tragedy. I wanted them to be special men, to be like two comic-book heroes, capes and all, swooping in to save the day. There would be flashes of lightning, puffs of smoke, and voilà, my five-year-old daughter, Mary, would be restored to my side. Was I just an ignorant innocent who was blind to all the pain and misery that swirled around us?

  “What’s going on, ma’am?” the taller one asked. His identification badge read “Tom Miller.” “What’s wrong? How can we help you?”

  “My little girl, Mary. She’s gone.”

  I looked around to emphasize.

  “Gone?” the heavy security guard repeated, looking at his partner as if he needed an English translation. His badge read “Burt Wallace.”

  “She’s gone! Missing! She was at my side, and now she’s gone. She’s only five years old!”

  “Maybe she’s just wandered off to a different part of the store. Why don’t you just relax a moment and let us search the area?” Tom Miller said. He put his hand on mine.

  “I’ve been doing that!” I shouted, even though they were right beside me. His hand flew off mine. “What do you think I’ve been doing?”

  Burt Wallace signaled to a floor manager who was standing just off to the right. He had the palms of his hands pressed against his chest. My running down the aisles and screaming for Mary apparently had turned him to stone. In fact, he was standing so still that for a moment, I thought he was a store mannequin with his mouth shaped in an oval, like an egg. Finally, the lean young man hurried to me.

  “What is it?” he asked, and tucked his thin lips into the corners of his mouth, grimacing like someone who was anticipating bad news from his doctor.

  “Her daughter is missing, Mr. Mulligan,” Tom Miller said. “She’s only five.”

  Just to hear someone repeat it made my heart jump and then plunge.

  “Five?

  “Yes, actually a little more than five,” I said. To hammer that home, I added, “It’s been four and a half months since we celebrated her birthday. We took her out to dinner with both sets of grandparents.”

  I don’t know why I gave him that information, but he nodded as if he had known. I was so afraid of embarrassing myself with tears, which would only make them uncomfortable and hinder them from helping me. I didn’t want them to waste an iota of a second comforting me. Find Mary, was all I could think.

  “Find her!” I ordered. Why were they just standing there?

  “Please, stay calm. How long has she been missing?” the manager asked.

  “How long? Only minutes,” I said, not sure now exactly when I had lost track of Mary.

  “Minutes? Okay. Then she can’t be far. Let’s go over here while they conduct a search.”

  “I’ve been searching,” I told him. I could feel my jaw tighten, my throat closing.

  “They’ll make a wider search. It doesn’t take long for a child to wander farther away. She might even have gone up a floor,” he said.

  “No, she wouldn’t. No. She would never wander that far away from me. Not my Mary. No,” I insisted.

  “Okay, okay. Let them look,” he said, indicating a chair for me in the women’s shoe department.

  Reluctantly, I sat with my knees together, my hands nervously twisting on my lap like two separate little animals, trying not to ball them into fists.

  “What does she look like?” Tom Miller asked, following us.

  I had a picture of Mary in my purse and dug it out quickly.

  “Recent?” he asked.

  “The picture is four and a half months old.
We took it on her birthday,” I said.

  He looked at the manager, and then he nodded and showed it to Burt Wallace, who was still wiping the sweat off his forehead and cheeks.

  “You see,” I said, pointing to the picture. “She has a wonderful smile. It was a happy, happy day for her, for all of us, but she’s always like that,” I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t help it. “You have to understand. This is not just another mother talking about her child. My daughter’s very special. She has such a soft, melodic voice, and there’s so much wonder in her eyes that she makes everyone and anyone who meets her feel good about themselves. Sick people feel better, and sad, depressed people become hopeful, cheery. People tell me that all the time.”

  Now they all nodded as if they were large puppets and someone was pulling their strings simultaneously. I continued my rambling, but I was terrified and couldn’t stop.

  “No matter what your mood is before you see her, you’re smiling when you leave her. She has wonderful energy about her. It’s soothing, healing.”

  The men looked at each other again.

  “If your day begins gray and depressing and you meet Mary, it’s bright and warm again. People tell me she makes the sound of their own laughter ring in their ears like sleigh bells on Christmas. That’s my Mary. She’s too sweet to recognize evil, don’t you see? You have to understand that. If you don’t, you won’t . . . I mean . . . you could miss something important and—”

  “Okay, okay. Give us a chance to comb the whole first floor. I’m sure we’ll find her,” Tom Miller said, and then they both began to search.

  “Let me get you some water,” the manager said. He looked as if he didn’t want to be near me, as if he thought my terror might be catching. I shook my head, but he went to get the water anyway.

  I was torn between getting up and running through the store again, screaming Mary’s name, and just sitting there obediently and waiting. I looked at the entrance not far from me, but I told myself she wouldn’t leave the store without me. She just wouldn’t. And she would never take the escalator up to a higher floor. She had to be someplace nearby. Maybe she hadn’t heard me calling to her.

  I smiled to myself the way someone who was humoring me might smile. Maybe I hadn’t been shouting as loudly as I thought I had. They’d find her. In just a few moments, they’d bring her back, all smiles. Or maybe she would just appear and explain how she’d had to help someone who was very sad or very sick. Mary wouldn’t cry. She would be sorry, but she wouldn’t cry. She would know how frightened I was, and she would just try to reassure me. That’s why she was so special. What other five-year-old would have that sort of insight?

  I debated whether I would tell John later after it was all over. Why make a big deal of it and get my husband all upset? I thought. He hated reprimanding her. Whenever he did, he looked as if he’d be the one to cry. He’d catch me looking at him with a smile on my face, and he’d screw his face back quickly to an expression as stern as he could manage. No, I thought. I’ll bawl her out, and that will be enough.

  “You can’t go off helping everyone you think needs help,” I would tell her. She always tried to comfort another child who was crying or afraid or just tired. It was a wonder to watch how they would calm as if they’d come through a cold rain into the warm sunshine of her smile.

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and then looked up when I sensed the manager standing there with a cup of water.

  Maybe it’s miraculous holy water, I thought. Half-kidding, John would tell me that. I’ll take a sip, and then Mary will appear. I reached for the glass, thanked him, and drank.

  “She’s a good girl, a very good girl. She wouldn’t do anything to bring pain and worry to anyone, especially to me. That’s why this is all so strange.”

  He nodded, holding that idiotic smile, but I ignored it.

  “She enjoys going to church. How many little girls enjoy that? She loves the choir, the sound of prayers, and the beauty of the church itself. You know Father McDermott, by any chance, the Church of the Sacred Heart?“

  He shook his head. “No, sorry.”

  “He’s always fawning over her. Everyone does. You don’t have to bribe Mary to do good things. She does things from the heart.”

  “I’m sure she’s just fine,” he said, looking more and more uncomfortable, and then his smile faded when he looked up. The two security guards appeared, now accompanied by a third. They shook their heads at him.

  “There’s no sign of her in the store on the first floor, and we called up to the second,” Burt Wallace said. “But no one’s seen a little girl alone up there.”

  “Would she go out of the store?” Tom Miller asked me, nodding toward the closest entrance.

  “No, never. I was just telling your manager what a good girl she is. Something’s not right. It’s not right!”

  I stood up. Panic, which had been spinning my heart like a top, suddenly seized it in a tight grip and was squeezing the blood out of it. I felt as if I had just stepped into an icy lake and was quickly sinking. I had to take action before my body became completely numb.

  “Mary!” I screamed, turning every which way. Then I started down another aisle. “Mary, where are you?”

  The three guards and the manager followed me, and then the manager took my arm to turn me toward him.

  “Relax, ma’am. They’ve covered the floor. She wouldn’t be hiding from you as some sort of childish prank, right?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Okay, we’re calling the mall’s security department right now,” he said. “Try to stay calm.”

  I could see that the customers nearby were beginning to look disturbed. The gathering of a manager and security guards was unnerving. I was sure that the first thing coming to their minds was that it was a bomb scare. Some were already leaving the store.

  I shook my head, pulled my arm out of the manager’s grasp, and screamed for Mary again and again. To get me to stop, Tom Miller asked me exactly where I was when I realized Mary was gone. I paused and pointed to the jewelry department. The manager left, repeating that he was going to contact the mall security and the police.

  “There was no one else shopping in the mall with you, was there? Someone she would go with outside the store?” Tom Miller asked, looking toward the jewelry counter.

  “No. Of course not. I would have told you that immediately.”

  He nodded. “Does she ever do this? Walk off on her own?”

  “Never,” I said. “I told you what she was like. Weren’t you listening to anything I said? She’s a very special five-year-old, and she wouldn’t dare cause me any worry!”

  “Yeah, well, we’ve seen kids that age doing things like that,” Burt Wallace said. “Special or not, they’re just kids, remember.”

  “Not my Mary. You don’t understand. She’s far beyond any normal five-year-old. She doesn’t wander off without telling me where she is going. She’s capable of watching over another five-year-old or a younger child, in fact.”

  He looked skeptical.

  “You don’t believe me? I’m telling you something’s not right!” I emphasized. I think he thought I might pound on his bloated stomach if he even tried to disagree. He stepped back.

  “Just take it easy,” Tom Miller said. “We’ll get to the bottom of it quickly. Not that much time has passed. We can alert the entire mall.”

  Again, I wondered just how much time had passed. How long had I ignored her?

  A few minutes later, the mall security police arrived and asked me to go with them to their office.

  “I don’t want to leave the store,” I said. “She’s here; she’s got to be here.”

  “It looks like she’s not,” the mall policeman said softly. “Let us get to the bottom of it. Please, ma’am. We want to help you.”

  “Let them help you,” the floor
manager pleaded.

  I knew he wanted me out of his store, out of his life, but no more than I wanted him and all of this out of mine. I looked around helplessly.

  “There’s nothing more you can do in here,” the manager added. “Please, let them help you.”

  I looked at him so intently that he blanched. Then he looked down. He couldn’t face me. Maybe he knows something, I thought. Paranoia was crawling all over me.

  Something is not right, I thought, and started out of the store.

  1

  Blue Ribbon

  Reluctantly, I followed the mall police to their office. They told me they were contacting the Los Angeles police.

  “Why? Can’t you find her yourselves? What are you saying?”

  “We’re working on it, ma’am, but it’s a missing person. We have to contact them,” the mall security officer said.

  Twice while I waited, I felt myself becoming so faint that I thought I would just keel over on the floor. In fact, I began to look so bad and was so dizzy that paramedics were summoned. When they took my blood pressure and saw how high it was and how fast my heart was pounding, they wanted to take me to the hospital emergency room, but I wouldn’t leave until the police came and found Mary.

  They came in the form of a detective accompanied by a uniformed patrolman. The detective introduced himself as Lieutenant Samuel Abraham. He spoke in a soft, calm manner, which, although it was reassuring, annoyed me, making me feel as if I was being handled. Because of that, I avoided looking at him and looked down at my hands as I threaded my fingers in and out. This was a nervous gesture I’d had all my life.

  Lieutenant Abraham asked me to go over everything again, but he wanted me to begin with when I had left our house in Brentwood with Mary. I was certain he could tell from the tone of my voice that I didn’t understand the purpose of that.

  “Aren’t we wasting time?” I asked. “She is missing here, not back in Brentwood.”

  “Details are so very important to us now,” he told me. “The smallest things will help.”