Invisible Girl

Invisible Girl
Erica Orloff

A Buddhist monk sets himself ablaze in protest.A woman swan dives to her death in Manhattan's East River.Secrets on 1970s Cambodia emerge in Hell's Kitchen.Now Maggie Malone must trace the steps of a ghost-father in the CIA, to save her own life.Running her father's venerable Irish bar, Maggie and her criminally inclined brother are scarcely surprised when a man shows up on their doorstep, holding an urn full of ashes, with news that her father is not just missing. He's dead.Clutching a fistful of damning old photos, Maggie enlists her reluctant boyfriend, Detective Bobby Gonzalez, to help her unravel the mystery of her father's murder. But unearthing her father's murky secrets means tracing Maggie's and her brother's roots to the flames of Vietnam. Who was their father? What became of a tiny baby girl sent to America in Operation Babylift? And why will shadowy figures stop at nothing to prevent the secrets of the jungle and a family coming to light, even if that means destroying Maggie and her brother?

Also by TESS HUDSON

DOUBLE DOWN

And writing as ERICA ORLOFF

DO THEY WEAR HIGH HEELS IN HEAVEN?

MAFIA CHIC

THE ROOFER

DIVAS DON’T FAKE IT

DIARY OF A BLUES GODDESS

SPANISH DISCO

Invisible Girl

Tess Hudson

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)

With great love, to my mother, Maryanne

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A long time ago I was befriended by a Vietnam-era veteran who taught me a great deal about writing and art and even faith. I was an impressionable twenty years old at the time, and I glimpsed a different side of the war from what I remembered on the evening news when I was a little girl. I owe a great deal of the imagery of this book to Ed. Far away, but still in my thoughts.

As always, I thank my agent, Jay Poynor, for his support. And I especially must thank, from the bottom of my heart, my editor Margaret Marbury. For some reason, I have never written about the mother-daughter relationship, always choosing in my books to write about fathers and daughters. Margaret urged me to add the character of Mai, and when that happened, it was like a dam bursting. This novel is really the story of mothers and daughters and bonds that are never broken.

I must thank my own mother, whose friendship is one of my adult life’s most precious gifts. I also pause to remember my grandmother, Irene Cunningham, whose absence never stops being a great emptiness in my heart. I also want to thank Alexa, Nicholas, Isabella and Jack…by loving my children so totally, the story of Mai was able to come to life.

My father…somehow his stories of Manhattan are always interwoven in my books. This one is no exception.

My sister Stacey Groome is one of my biggest cheerleaders. She has read every one of my books, and I am so lucky to have her as a friend.

Other family and friends: my sister Jessica, Kathy J., Kathy L., Nancy, Cleo, Pammie.

I’d like to acknowledge the wonderful team at MIRA, my publisher. I especially love my cover. Thank you to Sasha Bogin for her insights and editorial direction, and for her enthusiasm for this book. And the members of Writers’ Cramp. I began this novel three times, always agonizing about weaving the past and present. Jon, especially, encouraged me to travel deeper into the past and into Vietnam and Laos as I wrote, and the book is better for it.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge J. D. He patiently let me read aloud to him, and felt every tear and heartbreak that my characters did. I love you.

If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him.

—Buddha

In war, truth is the first casualty.

—Aeschylus

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.

—Jimmy Carter

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

—Lao Tzu

I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

—George McGovern

Contents

Prologue (#ubf7fb3df-3c8d-51a8-8d5f-f8e388367826)

Chapter One (#ub7fecee1-3a0e-5ba5-a131-bf7200857416)

Chapter Two (#u653b4f58-32a8-5922-8321-dd753614c685)

Chapter Three (#u6580100e-56f5-5587-8cec-85b170c0dca7)

Chapter Four (#uc0660105-3454-51e6-a8ff-3a2f386dd0ca)

Chapter Five (#ueac2b41b-72b1-5451-8cde-ba7744be97e6)

Chapter Six (#u67de4919-999d-566c-a2d1-479d293009de)

Chapter Seven (#u2eb17b2f-abbd-52f6-b2ee-63df3196993d)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)