Excerpt

Below is an excerpt of the Introduction from The Darlings. You can read the complete Introduction using the document viewer at the bottom of the page.

The Darlings by Cristina Alger

Introduction

This is it, he thought, as he clicked on his left blinker. The end of the road.

The sign for the bridge had snuck up on him. He had done this drive before, but not at 2 a. m, and he had never been much of a night driver. There had been a little traffic leaving the city, but now there was almost none. Every time a car passed him on the left he wondered who the driver was and why they were on the road this late. He wondered if they were thinking the same about him.

More than one driver had turned to look at him as he passed by. Checking out the car, he thought. He probably shouldn’t have brought the Aston Martin. Even in the dark it was a real showstopper. Of all his cars, it was his favorite. It was a near- perfect replica of the one driven by James Bond in Goldfinger and Thunderball. The original had sold at auction two years before for over $2 million; he would have bought it in a heartbeat if he had had the opportunity. But this was the next best thing: perfectly restored and refinished in classic silver; even to a professional’s eye, it was almost indistinguishable from the genuine article.
 
As he merged toward the bridge turnoff , a white Kia pulled up alongside him. For a moment, he locked eyes with the driver. The guy gave him an approving smile, a thumbs-up. Usually he got a little rush from impressing guys like that: some accountant from Westchester who probably made less in a year than he could in a day. This time it sent his heart racing, and not in a good way. It was a miscalculation. This wasn’t the time to be attracting attention.