Once More With Feeling by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

She let out a long, deep breath. “She’s coming back.”

Chapter 4
    T he sanitarium was white and clean. The architect, a good one, had conceived a restful building without medical overtones. The uninformed might have mistaken it for an exclusive hotel snuggled in California’s scenic Ojai. It was a proud, elegantly fashioned building with several magnificent views of the countryside. Raven detested it.
    Inside, the floors were thickly carpeted, and conversation was always low-key. Raven hated the controlled silence, the padded quiet. The staff members wore street clothes and only small, discreet badges to identify themselves, and they were among the best trained in the country, just as the Fieldmore Clinic was the best detoxification center on the west coast. Raven had made certain of its reputation before she had brought her mother there for the first time over five years before.
    Raven waited in Justin Karter’s paneled, book-lined, tasteful office. It received its southern exposure through a wide, thick-paned window. The morning sunlight beamed in on a thriving collection of leafy green plants. Raven wondered idly why her own plants seemed always to put up only a halfhearted struggle for life, one they usually lost. Perhaps she should ask Dr. Karter what his secret was. She laughed a little and rubbed her fingers on the nagging headache between her brows.
    How she hated these visits and the leathery, glossy smell of his office. She was cold and cupped her elbows, hugging her arms across her midriff. Raven was always cold in the Fieldmore Clinic, from the moment she walked through the stately white double doors until long after she walked out again. It was a penetrating cold that went straight to the bone. Turning away from the window, she paced nervously around the room. When she heard the door open, she stopped and turned around slowly.
    Karter entered, a small, youthful man with a corn-colored beard and healthy pink cheeks. He had an earnest face, accentuated by tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses and a faint smattering of freckles. Under other circumstances, Raven would have liked his face, even warmed to it.
    â€œMs. Williams.” He held out a hand and took hers in a quick, professional grip. It was cold, he realized, and as fragile as he remembered. Her hair was pinned up at the nape of her neck, and she looked young and pale in the dark tailored suit. This woman was far different from the vibrant, laughing entertainer he had watched on television a few weeks before.
    â€œHello, Dr. Karter.”
    It always amazed him that the rich, full-toned voice belonged to such a small, delicate-looking woman. He had thought the same years before when she had been hardly more than a child. He was an ardent fan but had never asked her to sign any of the albums in his collection. It would, he knew, embarrass them both.
    â€œPlease sit down, Ms. Williams. Could I get you some coffee?”
    â€œNo, please.” She swallowed. Her throat was always dry when she spoke to him. “I’d like to see my mother first.”
    â€œThere are a few things I’d like to discuss with you.”
    He watched her moisten her lips, the only sign of agitation. “After I’ve seen her.”
    â€œAll right.” Karter took her by the arm and led her from the room. They walked across the quiet, carpeted hallway to the elevators. “Ms. Williams,” he began. He would have liked to have called her Raven. He thought of her as Raven, just as the rest of the world did. But he could never quite break through the film of reserve she slipped on in his presence. It was, Karter knew, because he knew her secrets. She trusted him to keep them but was never comfortable with him. She turned to him now, her great, gray eyes direct and expressionless.
    â€œYes, Doctor?” Only once had Raven ever broken down in his presence, and she had promised herself she would never do so again. She would not be destroyed