Customer Satisfaction [COMPLETE]

Prologue

"When they came to deliver the good news, I cowered in the shadows."

A silence lapsed, and through her closed eyes she heard a pen scratching the surface of an expensive paper, the fire in an artificial grate cracking soothingly, washing over her in the hypnotic stillness of the sterile office.

"Go on."

It was difficult, but the gentle voice of the therapist and the soft scent permeating through the humidifier near the window lulled her as she lay in a recliner, forced to confront her darkest memories.

"I want you to say anything that comes to mind, Kate. Anything of value."

"It had been so...dark..." she murmured, sinking further into the memory, her hands fisting in reaction to the vividness of the images in her mind. She remembered every fraction of moment, every tense exchange of that darkened day.

Marietta Charlotte's Foster Home hadn't been the most colorful even during the day. The walls had been painted grey, the sheets a dull, washed out blue, their beds and the minimal furniture all wooden, well-worn and lacking any personalization. The children had worn hand me downs that had been threadbare to varying degrees. The dull driveway had housed their ancient turtle, a permanent fixture at the Home and the only pet allowed within the grounds. Even the small flower beds peppered across the estate had seemed lifeless and limp.

The bright red Ferrari that had crawled through the driveway that morning had stood in a sharp relief against the faded background that was the Home. The children had almost breathlessly lined up to gawk before being sharply reproached by the attending matrons. While the Head Mistress had spoken to the couple that had emerged from the car, the children were quickly ushered inside and ordered to comb their hair, straightened their clothes, and await their cue to line up for inspection. The air had charged with excitement.

Everyone had wanted to be adopted, to move away from the depressing environment of the Home with a new family, to just be discovered.

"Everyone, of course...except us." she whispered, realizing she had been speaking as the images washed over her.

"Who would 'us' be?" Mr. James asked, his voice a soothing baritone.

It was difficult to get the words out, "Myself, my big brother...and Luke."

"Why didn't you want to leave?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, the pictures flashing behind her eye with vivid intensity, and she felt dizzy, almost sick. She took a deep breath, whispering so that he barely heard her, "We loved the place...No, we loved being there...just being together."

And they had. The Foster Home had never seen a trio like them--they had been admitted as tragic orphans, yet soon enough they had been the light of everyone's eyes. Well, at least her brother and his best friend, Luke, had been.

Her brother had been assigned the bed next to the eleven year old Luke, and from the moment they had shook hands, they had been inseparable. Luke, a lean, beautiful boy with a shock of dark hair, dark brown eyes and a wry smile, had been a stark contrast to Will with his too fair coloring and glittering blue eyes, his handsome face still taut with grief over losing their parents. It hadn't been the counselling and the sympathy of the teachers that had helped them cope, it had been the strength they had found in the mischievous, intensely loyal Luke.

He had pulled her brother into all of his mischief, be it from toilet papering the Home during Halloween, to switching chemicals in the chemistry lab in their small school. Soon Will had started to smile, losing that haunted look in his icy eyes, returning to some of the charm that had made little girls in their old private school inscribe his name in their glittery notebooks with hearts. The two had been a formidable pair, the sort that were implicated in every mischief and yet got away with it solely due to the power of their charmingly reckless grins.