“I remember.” Genevieve sat quietly. She knew all about the Trevelyan family.

“The cattle station is vast—on the Simpson Desert fringe,” Maggie continued. “Djangala, they call it. Aboriginal. No idea what it means. You don’t pronounce the D. They also own a chain of cattle and sheep stations across Queensland, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and the Kimberley. So they’re super-rich and very proud of their heritage.” Maggie sat back, intrigued by Gena’s initial reaction. It was almost as though she had thrown a switch. “Miss Trevelyan is well into her seventies, but apparently still in good health.”

Genevieve concentrated on breathing in and out gently. She hoped she didn’t look as perturbed as she felt.

She had first overheard the name Trevelyan in a conversation between her maternal grandparents when she was twelve. Her grandparents had returned home on one of their periodic visits to celebrate her birthday. She had been about to enter the room to tell them lunch was ready when she was stopped in her tracks by the sound of her grandmother’s voice. It had literally throbbed with pain. Even at that tender age she had known the pain sprang from a deep well of anguish—as if the event Nan spoke of had straddled her life and caused her the deepest torment.

Genevieve had since come to realise what was the past for some people was as yesterday to others.

Nan had been speaking of a tragic event in her youth, the trauma of it still fresh in her mind. Genevieve had hung back, a strange jangling in her ears. She hadn’t been deliberately eavesdropping. She couldn’t have moved even if she had wanted to. One peek had revealed tears pouring down her grandmother’s face. The grief she’d suddenly felt had—incredibly—been a variation on Nan’s own.

Afterwards, she hadn’t dared ask who the Trevelyans were. She’d had to find out for herself years later. She wasn’t about to tell Maggie the story now. She would be agog. But Genevieve knew beyond doubt that she would take on the role of ghostwriter for Hester Trevelyan. It was the only opportunity she would ever get.

Two weeks later.

HER nightmares came for her by night. Unlike most dreams, they didn’t vanish on awakening; they stayed with her. She knew what caused them. The shock entry of the Trevelyans into her life.

Her maternal grandmother’s first cousin, Catherine Lytton, had died in tragic circumstances on the Trevelyan family’s Djangala Station in the late 1950s. It reassured Genevieve to know any family connection of hers would be difficult to trace. She wrote under the pen-name Michelle Laurent, and she was going to Djangala as Genevieve Grenville. She had insisted Maggie did not mention her blossoming literary career, let alone her pen-name. Maggie hadn’t been altogether happy about it, but had given in to Genevieve’s adamant request. It was essential she go incognito. Everything was organised for her trip.

Djangala had escaped being contaminated by scandal. Catherine’s death had been deemed a tragic accident. A city girl, she had stepped too close to the crumbling edge of an escarpment the better to admire the stupendous view. The ground had abruptly crumbled beneath her, hurtling her to her death on the plain below. The Trevelyans and the police officer who had headed the investigation had been in totalagreement—an accidental death that had devastated them all. A beautiful young woman with her whole life before her!

Not a word of the marriage proposal Catherine Lytton had received from Geraint Trevelyan ever surfaced. Only Catherine had written ecstatically about it to her favourite cousin.

Trevelyan had later gone on to marry Patricia Newell, long stuck in the wings as his future wife. Catherine had been on Djangala as companion for her friend Patricia. The two young women had gone to boarding school together and had kept up their friendship.

Once again the wheels of fate were set in motion.

Geraint Trevelyan was Bret Trevelyan’s grandfather.

Genevieve’s father, who had torn strips off Mark and Carrie-Anne, had given his approval of her new assignment, thinking it would hasten the healing process and that the Trevelyans were a splendid pioneering dynasty. He had no idea of Genevieve’s true motivation. The Grenville side of the family had never learned Nan’s secret. But Genevieve, given such an unforeseen opportunity, was determined on learning the truth about the final days of Catherine’s life. She’d had a burning curiosity since the age of twelve—both because she was family and, it had to be said, due to her nature as a budding writer—to solve this mystery. Mysteries cried out to be solved.