The face in the shadows

Description

"You'd better stay away from me," the little girl whispered to Ellen Stacey, "or they'll get you like they did Amy. She was my friend. So they killed her." The little girl's voice held such hushed horror that Ellen felt a chill of fear. Who were they? Did the dazed child have real enemies, or were they the shadowy figures of her imagination? The young actress had found Cecily Vandering huddled on the terrace of the Cloisters Museum, half-unconscious from drugs. She wore the uniform of one of New York's most exclusive schools and in her bag were identification cards with a Fifth Avenue address and three packets of heroin. Her divorced parents had tried vainly to discover who was giving drugs to their carefully guarded daughter, but they dismissed her tale of shadowy figures as fantasy. Yet Ellen's interest in the pathetic child aroused someone's anger. There was an anonymous warning, a nearly fatal "accident." Ellen began to wonder if Amy Thornhill, Howard Vanderling's gentle fiancée, had really been murdered by thieves who broke into her apartment, or if she had been killed by an enemy who was determined to keep Cecily lonely, confiding in no one. Here is an enthralling novel of romance and suspense about a girl whose friendship with a frightened child brings her into the world of the rich and the successful, a sunlit world, but one that for Ellen and Cecily was surrounded by dark shadows where a killer waited. (book cover description)

Description

THE CHILL OF SUMMER Ellen Stacey was pretty, talented, out-of-work young actress, facing a long, hot New York summer. She welcomed the offer to take care of 11-year-old Cecily Vandering at the family's seaside estate. But soon it became clear this was no ordinary job. Someone was trying to corrupt Cecily with drugs, someone whom the little girl refused to reveal, someone who would let no one stand in the way. And even in the protective arms of a brilliant, handsome man who said he loved her, Ellen felt the icy embrace of fear, as a killer tightened his deadly noose... (less)

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