The voice that lived in her head and called so many of the shots in her life said, Stop it. Engage. You’re drifting again.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

A plain Midwestern voice, now unaccented, spoke. “Ohio, originally.”

“Really? I thought you were British, or Parisian. Your French is quite cosmopolitan. And Raffalo...”

“I went to school here for a while. I’ve lived all over. My dad’s military, and of Greek descent. He was the one who saddled me with Constantine. No American kid should have more than two syllables in their name. It’s an open invitation to be a target.”

She could hear the various influences in his speech pattern. It was almost disconcerting. One minute American, then words laced with French, and some with straight-up British.

And military orthodontia. Her estimation of him rose a notch. Not a trust fund baby, then.

“Tell me your name,” he said, leaning forward slightly at the tiny table.

“Justine Holliday,” Sutton replied without missing a beat.

Hello, My Name Is...

HELLO, MY NAME IS...

Justine Holliday.

It was the identity she’d set up for herself before fleeing.

Sutton had spent a great deal of time thinking about her escape. She’d had the week in the hospital—against her will, the idiots, she was quite fine, only looking at the bottle’s directions, it was a fluke the bottle had opened and the pills had gotten into her mouth, she’d only wanted a moment of bliss—to decide what she wanted to do with her life. Life after incarceration. A moment in her life marked forever. Before incarceration, and after incarceration. BI life was odd and unexplainable, with careers and husbands and babies. The pressures of being happy, happy, happy, oh, we’re so very happy, can’t you tell?

AI life was more manageable. It was just her. Abandoned, castoff, alone but not adrift, no, never adrift. She could be whomever she needed. Whomever her mind dictated at that moment.

Justine Holliday was a combination of two names picked out of a board of directors’ listing on a pamphlet for the Christian organization that sponsored a halfway house where the doctors had wanted her to stay for a few days once she’d been discharged. Like being saved on her way out the door was going to change how her broken, adrenaline-flooded mind worked. Please.

Justine Holliday. That’s who she’d become. Her progenitor was brilliant at creating characters, remember. She tried on the persona, felt it mold to her body like cashmere.