by Sharon Dunn
“I will.” Maybe Elizabeth was right. Her attachment was unhealthy. She needed to trust him. She needed to work with him. But she needed to be able to walk away from him and stand on her own once the trial was over. “Remember what I said about staying away from the window.”
She nodded and then slipped back into her bedroom. He heard the deadbolt slide as he pulled his weapon and went down the stairs.
Gun raised, he pushed through the swinging door of the dining hall. He sighted in on each of the four corners of the hall and then, stepping lightly, made his way toward the kitchen. He pushed open the door. It was dark. As he reached for the light switch, he listened but couldn’t detect any out-of-place sound. Light illuminated the room. He scanned from one end to the other.
Then he heard scratching from the pantry. When he opened the door, Ophelia meowed at him and strutted out. Gavin shook his head and chuckled. The old it was the cat ploy.
Gavin gathered the cat into his arms and walked into the lobby, making sure the doors were closed behind him. “Why don’t you stay where I can keep an eye on you?” He placed the animal on her favorite cushion. He made his way back up the stairs and knocked on Julia’s door. “Everything is okay. Ophelia was prowling around.”
The deadbolt slid back, and Julia opened the door. “Thanks. Good night.”
Gavin settled back down in his chair. Still feeling unsettled, he stared at the doorknob for a moment. Had he seen it turn, or had his imagination been fed by a prowling cat?
TWELVE
Julia slipped under the covers and sat up in bed with her book. All the excitement had made her even less sleepy. A few minutes later, she noticed the sound of Elizabeth moving around in the room next to hers. The older woman hadn’t poked her head out when Gavin heard the cat noises, but maybe she had been awakened, too.
Julia read until she was drowsy. She reached to turn off the light next to her bed. Outside her door, the familiar and comforting sound of Gavin scooting his chair across the floor helped her fall asleep. She drifted into a deeper rest.
She awoke with a start, fully alert, mind clear. The sheets rustled as she moved from lying on her side to her back. Something felt different. She couldn’t hear Gavin’s faint snore as he drowsed.
A sliver of light snuck into the room at the base of the door, but she couldn’t see if his chair was still there. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
Whether it was the noise from a dream or an actual noise, something had caused her to wake up. After lying in bed for a few minutes, it was obvious she wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep right away.
She pulled the covers back, walked into her private bath and splashed cold water on her face. The clock read 2:00 a.m.
She moved back toward her bed, glancing out the window as she stepped past. A flash of movement caught her eye. She stepped toward the window, keeping in mind what Gavin had said about not standing where she was an easy target. She stood off to one side and angled her head so she could look again.
The tall cottonwoods stood like dark sentinels, their bare branches waving in the wind. She scanned the ground below. Moonlight had revealed movement by the trees.
Only allowing half of her face to be visible, Julia stared more intently. She felt a hammer blow to her heart. A figure separated from the trees. The color yellow became more distinctive as the person moved across the yard, then stopped abruptly and lifted her head toward Julia’s window.
Julia moved away from the window and pressed her back against the wall. Her heart pounded out a raging beat. A young blond girl who could have been her twin from nine years ago looked up at her.
She felt lightheaded as panic spread through her body. She scrambled toward the door in the dark and fumbled with the knob.
Gavin jumped to his feet and whirled around when the door opened. “What is it?” He grabbed her arm above the elbow.
“I…I…out the window. I saw…a girl…who looked like me.” Her bones and joints felt like they were being shaken from the inside.
Gavin’s forehead wrinkled. “Are you sure?”
Julia took a step back. He didn’t believe her. She rested a hand against the wall and shook her head. “I wasn’t…dreaming it. I know what I saw.” Then she realized how absurd what she said sounded. Even as she spoke, doubt entered her mind. Maybe the stress was making it hard for her to separate imagination from reality.
“I’ll check it out.” He ran the few steps to Elizabeth’s door and pounded on it.
“Elizabeth, I need you to stay with Julia.”
No answer. He pushed open her door. Elizabeth sat at a desk with her headphones on.
She took the headphones off as concern registered on her face. “What is it?”
“I need to go check something out. Please stay with Julia.” Gavin bolted down the stairs.
Julia gripped the railing. What if she was sending Gavin on a wild goose chase?
“Okay, I can do that.” Elizabeth’s face had gone pale, and her wavering voice revealed the level of fear she was feeling. She gripped her flannel nightgown at the collar. “You think someone might be out there?”
Gavin glanced up at Julia, giving away nothing in his expression. “Julia may have seen something by the cottonwood trees.”
Uncertainty assaulted her at every turn. Saying that she had seen a woman in the yard that looked like a younger version of her sounded crazy. The cult members wouldn’t send a teenage girl to kill her. “I’m not sure. Maybe it was nothing.”
Gavin squared his shoulders. “I need to check out everything.” He looked up at Elizabeth. “Lock the door behind me. I have a key.”
After Gavin left, Elizabeth swept downstairs and locked the door.
“Let’s go to your room,” Julia said. She was still disturbed by the image of the young woman she had seen by the cottonwoods. She had no desire to go back to her own room.
Elizabeth came back up the stairs and gathered Julia into her arms. The older woman opened her door, allowing Julia to step into the room first. She turned the lock into place. The light above the desk was on, and the quilt on the bed didn’t look as if it had been pulled back.
Julia walked over to the desk, that had an open laptop on it, as well as a pile of papers. “You haven’t slept yet?”
“I needed to get some work done. Once the repairs are complete, I’ll have to start working on getting my clientele back.” Elizabeth settled into a rocking chair. “Just thought I would catch up on some correspondence.”
Without pulling the curtain back, Julia snuck a glance out the window. Gavin walked by with his gun drawn. It bothered her that he hadn’t believed her about the girl. He had been the one saying all along that she was not emotionally fragile. Was he just telling her that he thought she was strong and capable to give her confidence for the trial, or did he really believe that?
The rocking chair creaked as Elizabeth slipped into it.
Aware that she could be seen from the window if she sat on the bed, Julia slipped down on the floor, using the bed as a backrest. As always, Gavin was diligent about checking out every false alarm, whether it was a cat or a figment of her imagination.
She crossed her arms over her body. The girl had looked so real. If she had just imagined her, it put her back at square one, after two years of counseling. Her mind was still playing tricks on her. “It was probably nothing.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
The minutes ticked by, marked by the creaking of the rocking chair.
Julia checked out the window again by walking on her knees and peering from the bottom. This time she couldn’t see Gavin, only the tall cottonwoods and the darkness beyond.
“I hope he’s okay out there,” Julia said.
Elizabeth wandered over to her laptop, picked it up and sat back down in the rocking chair. “He seems to know what he’s doing.”
The creaking of the rocking chair and the tapping of the keys on the laptop filled the silence. The longer Gavin was gone, t
he more she worried. What if somebody was out there? Though Julia’s mind raced, she tried to push away any thoughts of bad things happening to Gavin. How long would she wait before she went out there to find him? Even as the tension and fear seeped through her, she knew that she would be more than willing to risk her own life to find him. He had done the same for her over and over.
Elizabeth angled the laptop for a better view of whatever she was reading. “Gavin is a very capable bodyguard, but the more I see of what this job involves, the more I think that this is almost a two-bodyguard job.”
“My father could only afford one bodyguard.” Most of her father’s savings had been wiped out for her counseling. He had sacrificed so much, been through so much. The memory of seeing her father for the first time after seven years returned. At the police station where she had waited after her escape, she had turned to see him as he came through the doors. Her heart had lurched at the sight of her daddy. She rushed over to him, burying herself against his soft, wool shirt as strong arms folded around her.
Even now, the words he said rang through her head. “I never stopped hoping…never stopped praying.”
She had felt her father’s prayers in the dark moments of her captivity.
Elizabeth’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Gavin was willing to step up to the plate and take the job.”
“Yeah.” Now she wondered why he had taken the job. Her father couldn’t be paying him enough to justify all that he had to go through. Elizabeth had gotten way more than she bargained for. Her father had been through so much. Everyone had made sacrifices.
Her resolve to see justice returned. If there had been a setback and the nightmares were back, she would get past them. And she would make it to the trial. If not for herself, then for everyone who had given up so much.
Elizabeth stopped rocking. “I think I’m finally starting to feel tired.” She lifted her arms and yawned. “As soon as Gavin gets back, I’m hitting the hay.”
As soon as Gavin gets back.
The words ricocheted through her head. “Maybe I should go look for him.” She spoke in a whisper.
“No, stay here where it’s safe.” Elizabeth rose from her chair and pulled a Bible out of a drawer. She got down on her knees so she was facing Julia. “Here, read. Maybe that will help take the worried look off your face.”
Julia opened the Bible and read while Elizabeth closed her eyes and rocked in the chair. Julia suspected that the older woman was praying.
She read through several psalms. When she looked up at the antique clock on the wall at least half an hour had passed since Gavin had left. She took in a deep breath to try to shake off the tension that knotted around her muscles.
The rocking chair stopped. Elizabeth was drowsing.
Julia tried to focus on the words on the page, but couldn’t. She closed the Bible and set it on the carpet. She thought she heard Gavin’s footsteps on the stairs. She waited in anticipation of his knock on the door, but there was only silence.
Elizabeth’s breathing had become heavier as she fell into a deeper sleep. She might wake up if she heard Julia get up to go look for Gavin. The older woman wasn’t likely to let her go, anyway. How long were they going to wait? Gavin might be hurt.
Three soft knocks on the door and the sound of Gavin’s strong bass voice saying, “Julia, it’s me. I’m back,” caused relief to spread through her.
She jumped up from the floor, walked across the carpet and twisted the lock. She stopped herself from falling into his arms, despite the rush of gratitude she felt.
Elizabeth stirred in the chair.
Julia stepped outside the room and eased the door shut. “She’s really tired.” She turned to face him, still speaking in a whisper. “What took so long?”
“I thought I saw some four-wheeler tracks, but I think I was mistaken. It was hard to see anything in the dark. I checked all the way out to the barn. There’s nobody out there.”
She should have been relieved. But that meant the girl in the yellow dress was something her mind had made up. The nightmares were back, and they seemed real enough to her that she had awakened the whole house. “Sorry for the false alarm.”
“At least yours wasn’t a cat,” he joked.
She appreciated his sense of humor about all the trouble. Elizabeth’s comment about this being a two-body-guard job came back into her mind. “When you took this job, did you think it would be like this? Or did you think it would be kind of boring, just watching me and staying close?”
He chuckled. “I have to admit that is what most bodyguard jobs are like. Having nothing ever happen but being ready for anything is part of the job description.” He leaned a little closer toward her. “I don’t mind the excitement, Julia. I’m trained to deal with all of it.”
Chasing nonexistent girls through a snowy yard went above and beyond his job description, though. “I guess that means this place is still secure.”
“That’s the good news,” he said.
And the bad news was that she was seeing things that weren’t there. “I should go back to sleep.”
He grabbed her arm at the elbow. “If you need anything, Julia.” His stare took on a probing intensity. “I’m just right out here.”
She knew what he was really saying. He thought she was losing it mentally because of the attack and all the stress. It didn’t matter. She’d do whatever counseling work she needed to do to be ready for that trial. She’d come this far. She wasn’t going to give up.
“Thanks, I’ll be all right.” She wasn’t sure if she had the confidence to say whether she thought his worrying was warranted or not. He hadn’t found anything outside, but the image of the young woman looking up at her was burned in her brain. Something in the girl’s expression had seemed desperate…and real.
Julia entered her room and got into bed without turning on the light or looking out the window. She closed her eyes.
Just as she drifted off to sleep, she heard her name whispered. Julia’s eyes popped open. Now she was hearing things. Her eyes welled up with tears. She really was still not ready to face Elijah.
Then she heard it again, a soft whisper. “Julia.”
It was real. It had to be. Too afraid to scream, she lay paralyzed in the bed.
She found the strength to sit up. A hand went over her mouth.
THIRTEEN
Gavin positioned his chair in the usual spot. The adrenaline rush from the search had energized him. He’d be able to stay awake for most of the night.
He hadn’t meant to doubt what Julia told him, but her assertion that she had seen someone who looked like her in the yard seemed almost like something she’d made up. She’d held it together through the attack at the hotel. Was this a delayed reaction to all of it? Or maybe her father had been right. She was still fragile.
What if he had only wanted to see her as healed and ready for a relationship because he was falling for her? He had to let go of the intense affection he felt for her. The thought of this job being over soon and him not having an excuse to see Julia, to be close to her, made his heart ache.
Her father had said there had been nightmares and that Julia had a hard time being alone because she heard things that weren’t there. William Randel hadn’t said anything about Julia seeing things, though. It wasn’t his job to play psychologist, but it bothered him that he might not have protected her from more emotional trauma. He knew that in desiring to protect her heart and her mind, he’d gone way beyond his job description. If he couldn’t hope for a relationship with her, he could at least take care of her until the trial.
He sat down in the chair and crossed his arms. Two or three years from now, when the trial was a distant memory for Julia, she would cross the path of some lucky guy. He only hoped that guy saw how special she was.
“Don’t be alarmed. Please don’t scream.” The voice was very close to Julia’s ear. “I’m going to turn on the light.” The hand came off her mouth.
In an insta
nt, Julia found the strength to cry out for Gavin.
The light went on. A blond girl, not more than sixteen years old, stood in front of her. Gavin burst through the door, his weapon drawn. He backed off the second he saw the girl.
The girl stumbled back against a chair, her eyes wild with fear. She drew her hands up protectively in front of her. “Please…please, don’t shoot me.”
Julia took in a ragged breath. Her heart thudded from all the excitement. She knew this girl from the compound. “Don’t be afraid, Lydia. I remember seeing you working in the garden that day Marlena snuck me outside when Elijah was gone. I talked to you.” The memory of that spring assaulted her. She had felt the sun on her face and smelled honeysuckle in the air for the first time in months.
Lydia’s head jerked as Julia spoke in a calm voice, but she continued to shake and hold her hands up. “Please…please…don’t hurt me.”
Gavin holstered his weapon and moved toward the girl. “I’m not gonna—”
The girl screamed, the terror in her eyes growing even more intense. Julia ran over to her and wrapped her arms around her in the same way Marlena had done for her. Lydia was trembling uncontrollably. “It’s all right,” Julia soothed and then addressed Gavin. “Could you step back outside? You’ve made her afraid.”
“But she could be—”
Julia didn’t know why the girl had come, but compassion overwhelmed any suspicion she had. “She’s a child. I don’t think she’s going to hurt me.”
Gavin opened his mouth to protest, but then stepped across the threshold, remaining where he could still see Julia.
Elizabeth came to the door. “What on earth is all the noise about?” She rushed over to the two women. “Who is this?”
Lydia wailed. Her head jerked side to side as tears streamed down her face.
“She’s from the cult,” Julia said.
Gavin loomed in the doorway. “Did you come here by yourself?”
Still panic stricken, Lydia held up her hands, palms out. “I promise you. I came alone.”
