by Sarah Hegger
Dropping the affable expression he’d plastered on his face since his release, Oliver sank onto the bare, stained mattress. So close, only to have his salvation ripped away from him. He knew where the problem lay. The delectable Doctor Rose had shoved herself between him and his intention. Unable to sit still, he got up and went over to the one, grimy window.
Outside a gray row of identical houses marched in a row up and down the street on either side. Low, pewter clouds hung over their rooftops. Thick, yellow smoke belched out of the chimneys against the horizon. The ache for a clear sky punched him in the belly. He needed to go home. And Doctor Rose was the only way he knew to get there.
Laura didn’t get jumpy. So why did she keep checking in shop windows to see the street behind her? She’d read that on Facebook as a way to check if you were being followed, and not alert your follower. Through the daily meat special scrawled across the plate glass of her local Tesco, the street behind her remained normal. A pair of teens were necking against the wall across the road. A mother was dragging her whining child home. Traffic flit past and went on its way.
Absolutely nothing to explain why her nape prickled. She ducked into Tesco anyway and bought some milk, bananas, a loaf of bread and one of those “home-made” meals in a box. Toast wrapped up her cooking skills. There didn’t seem much point to learn when you cooked for yourself.
She lingered at the checkout, even letting the woman in front of her go first. Her paranoia resembled her patients’ right now. Nothing to worry about, so she needed to get her ass out of Tesco and home.
Her lecture didn’t stop her from quick-stepping it all the way home. She got her keys into her hand before she got to the door. One more stop outside the exterior door— yes, she knew she was being ridiculous—before she opened the door.
Fully furnished, her flat occupied the ground floor of the building. Upstairs belonged to a thirty-something couple who liked to cycle. She edged past their parked bicycles and opened the door into her flat. Thin and long, her flat marched in a straight line of lounge, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen all accessed by one dark corridor. Charmless and devoid of personality, its saving grace lay in the small garden at the back.
She dropped her purse onto a rickety end table and toed off her shoes. Finally, the edgy feeling went away. Still, she did another street check before she drew the curtains. For company, she turned on the television and let the sound of British accents soothe her. Out of habit, she checked her landline for messages.
“You have no new messages,” said the lady from British Telecom. BT lady genuinely sounded pleased about it too.
Maybe she should have made more of an effort to befriend people, but newly bereaved when she arrived in England, she had lacked the will to try. Now, with only eight months to go, she no longer wanted to try. Sometimes being a psychologist was a pain in the ass. It gave you just enough knowledge to examine your own naval and not like what you found.
She warmed her meal and ate it in front of the news. A quick shower and she crawled into bed. The couple above her did their nightly bowling ball rolling across her ceiling. She read her book for about fifteen minutes before turning off her light.
Laura couldn’t breathe. She jerked awake gasping for air.
Oliver Fitzwilliam’s voice came out of the darkness. “Calm yourself, Doctor Rose.”
Adrenalin spiked through her nerve endings.
His hand over her mouth constricted her breathing.
“Be still,” he whispered. “I am not going to hurt you.”
“I can’t breathe.” At least that’s what she went for. It came out sounding more like. “Ah gent eethe.”
Light, no pressure at all but the implied threat clear, his other hand gripped her throat.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Against the dark, his head formed a darker smudge. He was sitting on the edge of her bed. In her flat.
She needed to calm down. None of her training came to mind despite her experience with the mentally ill.
He shifted his hand, freeing her nostrils.
Laura sucked in as big a breath as she could.
“If I take my hand away, will you scream?”
Laura shook her head. First chance she got she intended to yell blue goddamn murder. Hopefully the couple upstairs would wise up and call the police. But first she had to get him to stand down. Maybe put some physical distance between the two of them. A certifiable maniac had invaded her home. God knows what he intended.
When she next saw that prick, Montgomery, she had plans to beat the crap out of him.
Oliver leaned closer. The hand on her throat tightened. “If you scream, I will snap your neck like a twig.”
She believed him. So, no screaming in her immediate future. She shook her head again.
Slowly, the hand around her mouth lifted. The one at her neck stayed.
“Oliver.” Amazingly, her voice sounded calm. “Could you take your hand from my neck? It’s very threatening.”
His teeth flashed white in the dark. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Doctor Rose. I take my hand away and you’ll scream the house down.”
“If I give you my word that I won’t?”
“Sorry, Doctor Rose.” He shook his head. “I can’t be taking that chance.”
He leaned over and snapped on the light.
Sudden brightness speared her eyeballs and Laura recoiled, blinking.
Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, Oliver looked calm and in control as if breaking into a person’s house in the middle of the night was no big deal. Maybe it wasn’t. Just because his background check hadn’t turned up anything, didn’t mean he had no history of this sort of behavior.
Hansom would hear about this.
“May I sit up?” With him looming over her as she lay supine, she felt horribly vulnerable.
“No.” His gaze drifted over her.
Laura thanked God for the bulky duvet.
Oliver grinned. “Of all the times I pictured you in bed, this wasn’t how I saw it.”
Dear God, was she dealing with a case of transference? She wasn’t even his full-time therapist.
“Oliver.” She tried again. “If I give you my word that I won’t scream, will you let me sit up?”
He frowned. “Are you planning to run?”
“I give you my word that I won’t run or scream. Now may I please sit up?”
His gaze searched hers. Then he nodded. “Move slowly.”
“Okay, Oliver, I’m moving slowly. See.” She levered herself into a sitting position. Great, one step accomplished. Now she had to figure out how to get the hell out of here.
“You look scared,” he said.
Was he kidding her? “I am scared, Oliver. You broke into my house in the middle of the night. This could be construed as threatening behavior.”
“Really?” He looked taken aback. “I said I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
Now she felt so much better. Not. “Why are you here, Oliver?”
“I need my sword.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “And as you’re the reason they didn’t give it to me. You’re the one who is going to get it back for me.
Not a snowball’s chance in hell was she giving this maniac five feet of wickedly sharp steel. “I don’t understand what you mean, Oliver.”
“The saying my name all the time”—he made an apologetic face—“it’s getting annoying. I know who I am and I’m not going to lose my mind and go crazy on you.”
“Noted.” Her hands shook so badly she twined her fingers together and placed them in her lap. She needed to remain calm. If she lost it the situation could escalate rapidly. The situation could escalate anyway.
“As for the sword, what is it that you don’t understand?” He scowled over her head at the headboard. “You didn’t think I should be released. When Montgomery overruled you, you made sure they didn’t return my sword to me.”
Where the hell did he get his information?
“Seth,” he said, pu
lling his mind reading thing again. “He likes to torture the inmates by telling them they won’t be getting out.”
She knew all the skulking had a purpose. If she got out of this—when she got out of this, Seth would hear from her too. “I see.”
“Just out of curiosity, why did you want to keep me there?” He seemed so reasonable, lucid as he asked the question. But his actions were those of a goddamn lunatic and she needed to keep that in mind.
“I didn’t think you were ready,” she said. “I had some concerns that you might not manage outside of the safety of Deer Fallows.”
He grinned. “You’re lying, Doctor Rose. Or should I call you Laura, given that I’m in your bedchamber?”
A red flag popped up in her mind. Oliver had used similar language to that he’d used when he’d first been admitted. Any triumph she might have felt over being right quickly dissipated in the face her predicament.
“You can call me Laura, but I would prefer if you stuck to Doctor Rose.” Waiting for his reaction, she held her breath.
“Doctor Rose it is then.” He wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger. “More’s the pity. In another time, another place, we could have had a grand time. Doctor Rose.” He enunciated her name. “Now, let’s get back to my sword. I need it and you’re going to get it for me.”
No way, no how, buster. “The sword is locked in the basement at Deer Fallows.”
“I know that.” Bringing the scent of soap and water with him, he leaned closer to her. “And we’re going to go there and you’re going to get it for me.”
“In the morning.” Laura played for time. “I can see in the morning if I can gain access to the basement.” Maybe he’d go for it? Sometimes the insane were susceptible to rational suggestions.
“I’m bats, Doctor Rose, not stupid, remember?” He pushed his hands through his hair. “Actually, I’m neither, but I don’t suppose you’re going to believe that now.” He sighed. “Anyway. Back to the matter at hand. Get me my sword and I’ll be out of your life forever.”
Yeah, and if she believed that, he had a piece of land he wanted to sell her. “The home is locked for the night.”
Standing, he grinned. “And you have a key.”
5
God help her, but Laura was breaking into a mental institution in the middle of the night with a homicidal maniac by her side. If she believed in karma she would have had to have screwed up big time in a previous life to have earned this.
Oliver was clever, too, and even more frightening, he remained calm and in control. Any attempt she made to get clear of him, he saw her coming. Now he sat beside her in her car, seeming to enjoy the scenery.
“So many lights,” he said.
“Sorry?” She pressed the gas harder. Maybe a cop would pull her over for speeding.
“Slow down, Doctor Rose.” Oliver stared out the window. “I was saying how many lights there are. All the time. You cannot even see the stars.”
“They say you can when you get out of the cities.” She eased up on the gas for a bit, and then let her speed slowly pick up again.
“Doctor Rose.” Oliver turned to her. “See my hands.”
“Yes.” Large, blunt fingered and strong, she could hardly miss them.
“They could snap your bones,” he said. “But I don’t want to do that. I just want my sword and then you will never have to see me again.”
Laura slowed down to the speed limit. “What will I tell them when they find it missing and realize I helped you?”
“Tell them the truth.” He shrugged. “That I kidnapped you and forced you to help me.”
She eased into the turn. Two more streets and they would arrive at Deer Fallows. The time on her dash read two in the morning. The night shift orderlies would be sitting pretty in the break room. Oliver had picked his time well. “Did you plan this?”
He laughed. “Aye. I had a lot of time on my hands.”
A group of men stumbled down the sidewalk on the far side of the road, yelling drunkenly to each other. “Why do you need the sword?”
Oliver sighed. “It’s my way back home.”
“Where is home?” Perhaps she could gather enough information for the cops to track him down.
“Here,” he said. “And not here.”
Well, that was useful.
“Do you have family?” Street lights bathed his face in an eerie orange glow. Orange, dark, orange, dark as she drove beneath them.
“A mother,” he said. “But you know that from reading my file.”
“Yes.” She stopped at a traffic light.
Hand on her arm, Oliver tensed beside her. “Please don’t try anything stupid.”
She eased her hand away from the door handle. “I don’t get why the sword is so important. Could you just go home and make a request to have it returned to you? It belongs to you. They can’t keep it from you forever.”
The light stayed red. Oliver’s grip tightened. “I will tell you, but you will think me quite mad when I do.”
“Why don’t you tell me anyway and I can judge for myself?” She already thought him insane. The light changed to green and Laura got them moving again.
“I’m not sure how it works.” He dropped her arm and went back to staring out the window. “But the sword has some sort of magic.”
And this here folks, is why Oliver Fitzwilliam had spent the last six months of his life locked in the nuthouse. She kept any emotion out of her voice. “Tell me about the magic.”
“I really don’t know any more.” He shifted in his seat and looked at her. “I only know that one moment I was a heartbeat away from cutting the head off William de Wolfe and the next I was standing in the middle of hell with people screaming and pointing at me.”
That would be his arrest. “People don’t take kindly to a man waving a sword.”
“You think I’m making this all up.” He ran his fingers over her cheek. “And the more I speak, the more convinced you become of it.”
“Oliver.” Laura shivered and waited for oncoming traffic to pass before she made a right. “You have to see this from my point of view. I don’t believe in magic.”
“Neither did I.” He dropped his hand. “Until it happened to me. You want to know where I’m from, but you refuse to believe the truth.”
Deer Fallows drew closer and then she would be out of time. Old Frank guarded the gate and he rarely did any more than glance into his monitor and open the gates. She could not let Oliver Fitzwilliam loose on the world with a deadly weapon. Dammit, why her? She wasn’t the heroic type. She got tears in her eyes when she gave herself a paper cut. “Then tell me again.”
“I am from England,” he said. “Only not this England, but the England of around eight hundred years ago. I did not know the year when I lived in it, so that is my closest estimation.”
Oh God, she was going to have to sac up and do something heroic. If she didn’t puke first.
“I am the bastard son of William de Wolfe. My mother and I live in a small cottage near Questing Castle. We live a simple life. My mother is something of a seer and well respected in our village.”
Seers and magic. Great! Just fucking great!
She took the final turn to Deer Fallows. The large iron gates that led to the parking garage loomed in her headlights. Maybe, just this once, Frank would be having an attack of conscientiousness and decide to do his job properly.
No such luck. Frank barely glanced up from his portable, black and white television when he opened the gate. The abandoned parking garage didn’t offer much in the way of rescue either. First floor belonged to administration, and nobody would be there. But above that three floors of patients and orderlies and all of them oblivious to the drama taking place below them. All the cleverly concealed panic buttons sat on the other side of the gates. Gates designed to keep inmates in, and not taking into account the possibility that one might be standing on the other side holding a therapist hostage.
Laura used her ke
ycard to access the lift.
Oliver slipped into the lift beside her. Keeping his back to cameras mounted in the corner, he ducked his head. If one of the orderlies happened to glance at the screen all they would see was her.
Willing someone to glance at the live feed, she stared up at the camera.
“Do not.” Oliver’s voice rumbled. “I do not want to hurt you, Doctor Rose, but make no mistake that I will get my sword back.”
Laura believed him. She punched the button for B2, the last of the basement floors and the storage rooms. In years past, all manner of horrible things had taken place in those two below-ground floors. Back in the days when One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was the standard for mental health care.
The basement had always creeped her the hell out. Panic crawled over her skin as B1 lit up on the elevator panel. Next B2.
Yes, her life pretty much sucked, but she didn’t want to die today. Suddenly her mind flooded with all the “had nots”. Her throat tightened and she struggled to draw even breaths. She’d never found that person she wanted to settle down with. Never had those children who had only ever been a hazy dream. The self-actualization book she had toyed around with would remain never written. Her college dream of working with at risk, inner-city kids would never even get the chance to fail or grow stale.
“Doctor Rose.” Dark eyes warm, Oliver watched her. “I swear I will not harm you. All I want is to go back home.”
He meant it, she could see he did, but he had no idea how sick he really was. The demon in his head wouldn’t allow him to see his reality wouldn’t change when he retrieved his sword, and the same demon would see her die tonight in a creepy-ass basement.
Enough! The mental bitch slap took her by surprise. True she wasn’t the heroic type, but her default didn’t have to be lie down and die. Survival, the ultimate driver had kicked in. Adrenalin surged through her blood, the fight or flight reflex. Laura Rose refused to die tonight.
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Motion sensing lights flickered on overhead as they walked, holding them in their own ethereal spotlight between metal racks of plastic cartons.
