Despite Walter’s effort, Eric’s demeanor changed very little over lunch or after the detectives arrived around one o’clock. Energized and eager to close Paresh’s case, the two-man and one-woman trio buried Eric’s office beneath layers of papers and photographs, but it took less than an hour for their initial exuberance to cool. They were no closer to an answer than they’d been for ten years.
The mood was broken when Molly charged through the door, face gray, jaw gaping, and eyes open like beacons of warning. She didn’t need to say a word. For years, the radio she occasionally listened to at her desk had been nothing more than background noise that Eric tuned out. It had his complete attention now—the look on Molly’s face said it all. He turned on the television.
A collective gasp went around the room when they saw the screen. The FBI had moved quickly in Kansas, and the size of their force had caused enough commotion to attract national news agencies. Vans and swarms of people scurried in and out of iron gates towering behind the reporters. The remote control cracked in Eric’s hand.
“They don’t know anything,” Molly said, gently prying the remote from his fingers. “The spokesperson for the investigation has only said they’re looking for a person of interest. They haven’t said a word about the kidnapping or mentioned the Hawthorne name. All those reporters have is speculation, and they’re mostly focusing on potential homeland security issues. They don’t know anything.”
In an instant, Eric forgot everything aside from David. They might finally find him. They were so close.
“Walter, I need to know what’s going on there. Can you make contact?”
Walter nodded and started punching numbers into his phone. It took thirty minutes for him to find someone able to talk.
“They’ve found about a dozen vacant houses so far,” Walter finally relayed. “They’re going through slowly and sweeping with dogs to be safe. They’re all emptied and scrubbed clean, including the ones that Paresh and David lived in.”
“Sending her to a hotel and putting her on a train gave David’s people plenty of time to clear out,” Molly said. “They did the same thing at the cottage when they stole her stuff a few months after she disappeared, right?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Eric quelled the acidic anger stirring beneath his ribs. “That break in proved they’re perfectly capable of leaving without a trace, although, knowing David, I’m surprised that place isn’t up in flames.”
“Wait, they’re not all gone,” Walter whispered with his hand over the mouthpiece. A dark look passed between him, Eric, Molly, and the detectives who had all gathered around him in front of the television.
Gesturing with his finger to give him a moment while he listened to the agent, Walter crossed from the sitting area to Eric’s desk. When there was a pause on the other end, he gave a quick summary.
“There are people living in the compound. The FBI’s conducting interviews, but so far, no one knows who David is or has seen a girl matching Paresh’s description. It appears they all bought their homes within the last three to six months. Everything was done through an agency, but they all describe the same woman at closing: red hair and bright green eyes.”
“Paresh said she hasn’t seen David in six months. That has to mean something.” Molly’s comment was quiet enough to go unnoticed, but Eric flicked his eyes up at her.
“Nicole.” He sat in his chair with his hands crossed under his chin and waited for Walter to elaborate, even though he could hear the agent clearly.
“All the people appear to be young couples who were looking for a safe community to raise their kids in. No one knows what’s going on or why. They’re just as confused as the media.” Walter looked over his shoulder to make sure the detectives heard him.
“So I suppose we can assume that only people in David’s immediate circle had access to Paresh?” asked Jacob Spade, the senior detective.
As Walter shrugged in response, Eric said, “It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he would have an elaborate network to shield her from the world. Paresh only had daily contact with two people the entire time she lived there.”
Walter tilted the phone away from his mouth. “They haven’t followed the paper trail very far yet, but it doesn’t appear that there are any records for the previous homeowners or tenants, and all the land deeds for the area are registered to a woman named Nicole O’Reilly.”
“David’s girlfriend,” Eric said, sharing a look with Molly. “We already know about her. He’s not telling us anything useful.”
“Or why David took Paresh in the first place,” added Molly.
After the accident, the investigators had tried every angle possible to determine foul play, but had not found any evidence to support it. There had been no connection between the other driver and Andrew or David, all the injuries had resulted directly from the impact, and neither vehicle had shown evidence of tampering, aside from the missing child. The only plausible conclusion put David as a stalker who’d witnessed the crash and noticed the child had survived. Then, for reasons unknown, he’d taken her.
A theory leaving that much to chance made everyone—Eric especially—uneasy. They all knew the history between David and his brother, and originally speculated that David had taken Paresh more because of her blood relation to Felicia than because she was Andrew’s daughter. Her upbringing, although unusual, offered no evidence of abuse or neglect, and in fact revealed two doting custodians who had provided for her and given her an education, turning a grieving eight-year-old girl into a well-balanced young woman. Nothing fit with David’s personality. It appeared as though he may have truly cared for her.
On Eric’s motion, Walter ended the call and moved to the seating area where he and the detectives discussed the case around the coffee table. Eric returned to his stupor and Molly dismissed herself early for the day. Although aware of the frustration his behavior was causing the others, Eric couldn’t help himself. With David’s whereabouts still unknown, his thoughts kept straying to his encounter with Jonathan... and that was not something he could share.
The authorities were focusing on the past, searching the community for clues to a motive or David’s current location, all while overlooking any looming danger. Even his team had dismissed any urgent threat to her current safety.
Eric let them theorize without interruption. They could focus on the human element and keep her protected in their respective capacities if necessary. It was his duty alone to deal with whatever menace Jonathan posed.
Jonathan’s words were cryptic tidbits with no apparent link to anything they had learned. By all surface appearances, David was after Paresh’s estate. What threat would that pose to the Vampiric Nation? Especially one that justified the High Council using a human like David? Or bothering Jonathan with tailing Paresh?
Discounting anything involving the High Council was foolish, but he knew Jonathan too well to believe he was acting solely on orders. The puppet master had arranged for his toys to fall conveniently into place, as usual.
Jonathan’s goal was always the same: kill the Hawthorne, and that loomed large over Eric. If Jonathan had finally manipulated the High Council... it was too terrifying to consider.
A smack on the arm brought back the din of his office. Walter thrust his watch in Eric’s Face.
17:19.
“You’re going to be late!” Walter followed with a whisper. “Never seen you out of it on any level, but this? Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Just thinking.” With a sigh, Eric slid his hands under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’m fine—or, at least, I will be once I’m with her. You guys keep at it and stay in touch with the FBI. The team can head back tomorrow. There’s no point in keeping everyone here while we’re waiting for information we may never get. Molly’s arranged the usual accommodations—feel free to take a room, too, if you want a little pampering, Chief.”
As though appalled by the thought, Walter waved his hands and backed away with a laugh. “I do
n’t need any of that spa treatment junk you always spring for. I’m good in my own bed, but thanks.”
“All right then. Lock up?”
“Sure thing, Counselor. I’d tell you to take good care of our girl, but we all know you’ve got it.”
A nod and a few goodbyes later, and Eric was on the road to his house. With scarcely enough time to shower and change, he was grateful Molly was there and had taken the initiative to select his attire for the evening: black wool and cashmere blend trousers and a freshly pressed, fine-cotton shirt in crimson. She relentlessly badgered him to don a silk tie, and then selected shined Oxford shoes and a matching leather belt with silver buckle—to complement his watch, of course.
Despite the heavy air back at the office, Molly was in higher spirits than usual. Watching her flit about, gathering cufflinks, his jacket, and other items, Eric wondered if Paresh’s essence had affected her, too. Normally when he was in a dour mood, she left him alone, but not tonight.
Once he placed the dreaded tie around his neck and reluctantly began threading it, she pursed her lips and shook her head. Taking over, she smoothed out a perfect Windsor knot and thoroughly enjoyed trying to lighten his mood by poking fun like an overprotective mother. She had never prepped him for dinner with a woman.
“Enough, Molly,” he admonished, despite the smile that crept up his mouth. “I’ll be good. I promise.”
His assistant’s eyes glittered.
“Oh, I’m sure,” she returned with a coy grin. She kissed him on the cheek as he headed out the door.
II
Eric arrived at the carriage house promptly at six-thirty. Exiting the car into the lightly shadowed wood, he pulled off his tie and banished it to the backseat with his jacket. Molly had almost won, but he rarely wore ties outside of court anymore and preferred a loose collar with the top button undone. Glancing beyond the canopy overhang at the sunny flagstone path, he adjusted his sunglasses and reflected on Molly’s final suggestion.
“A gentleman always takes a lady flowers!”
He had literally waved off the suggestion as he drove down his lane. Flowers gave the illusion of courtship, and their mutual attraction, while undeniable, was a dangerous distraction. Paresh was vulnerable enough already.
And she doesn’t even know who or what I really am. He sighed in disgust at the taboo path he had allowed to form back at his office. There shouldn’t be any attraction at all. The emotions tearing at him had supposedly died on the battlefield more than a century past. And yet, heat smoldered within him, in places that had been distantly cold since before Lucinda’s death.
He had loved his wife and grieved her passing. This was different. It was the weight of desperate yearning, a tidal wave of lost time and love, of a broken life and a broken man. His very soul ached.
Without Paresh, he was incomplete.
Maybe that was why he found himself rolling the single stem, with a bud the color of blood, between his fingers as he crossed the forest threshold onto the flagstone path.
His gaze lifted from the rose to the clearing. It had stood empty, lifeless, for a decade, but now it danced with life in full color.
The evening sun painted lime tips onto the grass and glossed the foliage in the velvety rose garden. It warmed the cottage’s stone walls and made the roof’s asphalt shingles twinkle as though sprinkled with pixie dust.
Squirrels and rabbits tumbled playfully as he neared the cottage, and he stepped over two raccoons sleeping belly up on the sun-heated stones. Singing house sparrows flew circles around a cardinal’s chirping chorus, and a doe nibbled grass at the tree line, oblivious to the vampiric predator that should have triggered her instinct to scatter every animal into hiding.
As a child, Paresh’s essence hadn’t been strong enough to keep the animals near when he was with her. Apparently, her essence had strengthened, greatly. She had enchanted the entire forest, making him feel like a knight coming for his fairytale maiden.
Smiling as he approached the door, he remembered to knock and pocketed his key. He mentally chided himself to focus, but when she opened the door, that delusion shattered.
She was swathed in silver satin, her hair smoothed into a bun at the nape of her neck. Mascara and pale blue liner accented her eyes, and rosy blush and lip gloss made her glow. A sapphire and diamond butterfly pendant dangled from the silver necklace around her neck.
Her shoulders were bare, her skin supple and tempting, and shimmering powder on her chest pulled his eyes to her cleavage. The mermaid-style design hugged her figure, clinging tightly to her breasts, hips, and thighs, and flared out with elegant grace at her knees. Strappy sandals and metallic, pale blue nail polish were visible beneath a hem that nearly dusted the floor.
“Hello, Darien.” She flashed an uncertain smile and bit her lower lip. Clasping her hands over her heart, she leaned forward and asked, “It’s not too much is it? I’ve never worn anything like this before. Sammy picked it out.” She lifted her arms out to the sides and twirled girlishly, swirling the fabric in an arc around her knees.
Distracted by legs surely crafted by Aphrodite, he nearly missed the sapphire and diamond studded butterfly comb, resplendent with silver filigree detail, tucked into her bun.
She caught him staring and hesitantly touched the antique adornment. “Is it too much? Sammy said he found it in one of the Hawthorne’s ‘long forgotten’ boxes.”
“No... i-it’s perfect. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful,” he said, unable to hide his surprise. He had gifted that comb to his wife as the “something blue” to wear on their wedding day. It was lost after she died.
She touched her flushing cheeks. “Thank you.”
Removing his sunglasses, he stepped inside and gently took her right hand and twirled her slowly, marveling at how the comb so perfectly complimented this gilded silver fairy who looked nothing like his wife, and how serendipitous it was to appear now, on her, both missing for so long.
The image of Lucinda’s thick, chocolate locks began to form in his mind. He fought seeing her face. He only ever remembered her covered in blood.
Paresh’s infectious giggling mercifully returned him to the present. He blew out a thankful sigh disguised as an appreciative whistle and twirled her once more. Lucinda was at rest and had been for a long time.
With a nostalgic smile, he caught Paresh and handed her the rose. “Sammy’s got excellent taste.”
Sniffing the bud, she said, “Mmm... I love roses. I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared without the flower. He shot her a puzzled look.
Pointing down the hall, she explained, “There’s a vase in there. I haven’t... I didn’t want to look for one. Being here... anything I look at brings back memories.”
Avoiding memory was something Eric understood well. “Would it be easier if everything had been boxed up and stored?”
“I don’t know.” She faced the living room. “It would have been lonely to come home to an empty shell. Everything here has meaning: Mom’s embroidery there, and Dad’s pipes. When I saw them, I swear I smelled vanilla tobacco, and remembered Mom humming in her rocking chair while Dad puffed at his desk. And you—your dad—he was there, too, reading to me on the sofa.”
With briefly hooded lids, he said, “They say scents trigger the human memory into recalling what may have been forgotten.”
“Who says that?”
“People,” he said with smile. “I read it in a magazine once, so it must be true. Shall we go?”
Nodding, she grabbed her key from the sideboard.
“Do you have a handbag for that?”
“I bought one today, but I don’t want to tote it around for this tiny thing.”
“You can leave it here, if you’d like. I have my key,” he offered, surprised by just how much she hadn’t been exposed to. All of the women he knew, including Molly, would be lost without their bottomless catchalls.
She left it on the sideboard
and stepped into the evening. “Why do you have a key?”
“My father maintains the properties of your estate, so while he’s away, I’m tending to his duties. Simon is under his employ and he has a key, as well,” he explained, mentally noting to have the locks changed. Sliding his sunglasses on, he followed her and locked the door.
“What is my local estate?” she asked.
“Sunset Grove, in its entirety, most of the countryside surrounding Orison Crossing, and few other properties. When the Sunset Grove Parish burned down, your father donated money and farmland closer to the cemetery for the new church and then built this cottage here.”
“I remember Dad telling me about the church. He said that since I was born there, they wanted to name me ‘Parish,’ but changed the spelling. And I knew my family founded the town, but I had no idea they still owned a lot of the land. I always thought we only owned this clearing...” Her voice trailed as she surveyed the treetops. “Have you contacted your dad yet? I can’t wait to see him again.”
“He is unreachable at the moment, but I’m certain he will feel the same way I do.” Coming alongside her, he waved in the direction of the animals. A few were drifting closer. He steered the conversation away from himself, careful not to lie outright or let on that he knew more than he should. “What’s this all about? I felt like I was walking through the page of a book earlier.”
“As long as I can remember, they’ve been this way. You should hear them in the mornings. They sing to me, like they’re calling me outside to play.” She laughed. “It’s only like this here, though. There wasn’t a lot of wildlife near my house in Kansas. Some of Miss Lydia’s friends had cats who seemed to like me better than anyone else, but it wasn’t the same.”
“I wish I could be that close to nature. I enjoy walking through these woods, especially at night.”
The Arrival (Children of the Morning Star Book 1) Page 7
