Book excerpt: A death bed request, hauntings and murder lead Maria into a journey of self discovery. To please Adrianna, her dying mother, Maria promises to seek her father, whom she believes long dead. But she never intends to keep this promise. Until her mother starts haunting her dreams. Dreams, memories and visions entice her. Night after night, Adrianna visits Maria's dreams and nags her into fulfilling the deathbed request. Nightmares and visions force her on a quest to Spanish Harlem. She delves into her family history, only to find herself embroiled in a series of mysteries. Among the prostitutes and the crooked police, her family and the street people, she discovers her father was a terrible man: a pimp, thief and drug dealer. Until he is murdered. And more, there is some dark family secret no one discusses. Memories mingle with dreams and visions as she discovers her own past. Failure after failure meets each attempt she makes at solving the mysterious death of her father, who died when she was only nine. With each new discovery, things look worse. She discovers he was murdered by an unknown assailant, his throat cut from ear to ear. The family's dark secret: he was a an incestuous child molester. She learns her father was murdered by a sexual abuse victim. When things become as bad as they can be, Mare discovers that she herself was molested and may even be her father's killer. Dreams tell her she killed him because he was raping her at the age of nine. For comfort, Maria falls back on her childhood religion, Catholicism. At the Feast of Saint Anthony, she goes to Saint Anthony's, the local church, and confesses to the murder. But to her amazement, an old priest tells her that she did not commit the murder. She learns her father is not her father, but a stepfather, who married her mother in a business deal. Adrianna was an unwed girl, pregnant by a handsome young priest. She needed a "father" for the unborn Maria; he needed to marry a US citizen to remain in America. So he married his brother's pregnant girlfriend. He was killed by her biological father, the priest, who caught his brother sexually abusing her. Maria unable to believe this story, wonders who is her real father, and demands to know why she should believe him. The old priest confesses that he is her biological father and cut his own brother's throat in a fit of rage.