Excerpt from All Through The Night by Mary Higgins Clark, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Her expression changed as she unwrapped the blankets from around the tiny infant, picked her up and cradled her in warm and comforting arms. "Beautiful, bella. How could your mama not want you?" She looked at Lenny. "What do you call her?"

Lenny thought of the star-shaped diamond in the chalice. "Her name is Star, Aunt Lilly."

"Star," Lilly Maldonado murmured as she soothed the sobbing baby. "In Italy we would call her Stellina. That means 'little star.'"

Through narrowed eyes, Lenny watched the bonding between the infant and the aging woman. No one would be looking for the baby, he thought. It wasn't like he had kidnapped it, and anyhow, if anything ever did come up about the kid, he'd have the note to prove she had been abandoned. He knew the word for grandmother in Italian was nonna. As he turned and hurried into the kitchen to warm the bottle, Lenny told himself with satisfaction, "Star, my little girl, I've found me a home -- and you've got yourself a nonna."

Copyright © 1998 by Mary Higgins Clark