Sonny hadn’t had to push that hard to get him to leave the Marines, he realized. He’d been ready. All he’d really needed was a reason to go in another direction. He just wished he’d timed it better, and come home before Cash had gotten into whatever trouble caused him to disappear. If he had, maybe he would have confided in him. He could have helped him.
Family had always been important to Dylan. But he’d never concentrated on having a family of his own. After that kiss with Tammie tonight, thoughts of what he’d been missing drifted in and out of his mind. He didn’t have room in his life for where his mind was taking him. He needed Tammie’s help to find Cash. And he didn’t need to have anything cloud his thinking.
And yet, as he pulled onto the road that led to the campground, he wondered if a little clouding might just do him good.
#
Chapter Ten
Tammie gazed at her reflection in the mirror as she brushed her teeth in her private bathroom. She looked like she’d been run over by a truck. Her eyes were puffy and the lines around them looked deeper, making her look much older than she was. Or maybe she just felt that way. But she’d somehow managed to get showered, fully dressed, and put together while she was still half asleep.
After Dylan left last night—or rather early morning—sleep had been impossible, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the way Dylan had held her in his arms. The way he’d kissed her. Long after he’d left, she could still feel him around her. It was an odd and comforting feeling.
Serena had been quiet last night, but every once in a while, Tammie had heard sounds from the other side of the bedroom wall. Tammie had struggled to hear, but couldn’t make out a word of what Serena was saying.
She’d go to her this morning and talk to her. She was determined to find out the truth about what was going on in this family. In this house.
“Will you be having breakfast this morning?” Susan asked as Tammie walked out her bedroom into the hallway. Susan held a tray of food. She walked past Tammie and stopped at Serena’s bedroom door.
Tammie wasn’t hungry, but she decided it would get Susan out of Serena’s room if she had to go back downstairs to fix breakfast for her.
“I’d love some scrambled eggs,” she said, seeing how Serena’s plate was filled. “And that orange juice looks good, too.”
“Would you like some buttered toast?” Susan asked.
“No. Eggs will be enough. Thank you. I’ll take this one in to Serena.”
“But I was just going to feed her.”
“I can take care of that while you get my eggs. Serena might like having someone eat with her, instead of just feeding her.”
“She needs her strength. Make sure she drinks all her juice.”
“I will. Thanks.”
She took the tray from Susan’s hands and went into the room. Aurore was already there, propping Serena up with pillows.She fought to hide the disappointment they weren’t going to be alone. It would only make Aurore suspicious.
Tammie chose her words carefully. “Did she have a good night?”
Aurore didn’t look up. She just held Serena by the chin and looked into her eyes.
“She’s awake enough to eat. I need to get some nourishment into her. My poor girl seems to be wasting away on me.”
“I’ll do it.”
Aurore looked up then, saw the tray Tammie was holding in her hands.
“Is there a problem with that?”
Aurore shook her head slightly. “She may not take anything from you. She’s lost too much weight. She really needs to eat.”
“If I have any trouble, I’ll call for help.”
Aurore paused a moment. “I can understand why you think it is so important to be here.”
“Do you? Do you really?”
The tray was getting heavy in Tammie’s hands and the muscles in her arms were beginning to protest. She wanted to put the tray down, but she held it firm.
“Yes. But as I said, I don’t think you’ll find what you’re looking for. Your parents died, Tammie. I know you’re upset, but you can’t get them back by digging up the past. There’s nothing there.”
She smiled weakly. “Tell that to Sam Watson. He managed to dig up the past.”
Aurore nodded.
“Why did they take me from here?”
“I can’t give you that answer.”
“You can’t—or won’t?’
“Does it matter?”
“To me it does. You knew my mother. I know you did.”
Aurore straightened. “Yes, your mother and I were very close friends.”
Tammie hadn’t expected Aurore to be so forthcoming with the truth, or her own reaction to it. She couldn’t wrap her mind around any of this. How could Aurore have been her mother’s close friend all these years and she not know it?
“You were?’ she asked incredulously.
“Don’t act so surprised. We both grew up here in Eastmeadow. We went to school together from the time we were in elementary school. By now you know your parents lived here, worked here.”
Tammie did nothing to hide her surprise.
Aurore added, “Oh. I assumed you knew. I thought...” Aurore walked across the length of the floor, grabbed the tray from Tammie’s hand. “Let me take this before you drop it. Her eggs are getting cold.”
Aurore set the tray on an empty spot on the bed.
“Who’s Dutch?’
Aurore kept her gaze on Serena, who started to stir in the bed. “How do you know that name?’
“I found a letter with my mother’s things. It mentioned closing up their house and taking care of things. I knew my parents lived here. I just didn’t know this is where my mother grew up. Did my father grow up here, too?”
Aurore weighed her words. “No. He moved here after they married.”
“Except for this person named Dutch who wrote to her, I had no other information. I just found the letter...”
Aurore offered up the first real smile Tammie had seen from her. If you could really call it a smile. “And you were curious.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ve found what I’m looking for.”
“And you won’t. It doesn’t exist. Not the way you want it to exist.”
“What about Cash Montgomery? He existed.”
The mention of Dylan’s brother’s name got a reaction from Aurore. “Don’t bother trying to deny that Serena knows him. Dylan showed me the picture of the two of them. It’s clear they had a close relationship.”
“What makes you think that?”
Tammie sighed. “Aurore, please. Don’t insult me by pretending they didn’t know each other.”
“Oh, Serena knew Cash Montgomery. She met him when she was in college.”
Tammie stopped short. After so many secrets, for Aurore to suddenly give up information freely was a little unsettling. Just when she thought she knew how to handle the woman, Aurore tossed her a curveball.
“That must have been about ten years ago or so.”
“Actually, Serena didn’t attend college until quite a few years after she’d been out of high school.”
“Because of her illness?”
Aurore shook her head. “There were a lot of reasons. She never finished. College, that is. She couldn’t handle the course load, because it caused too much stress.”
“She looked fine in the picture I saw. She looked happy.”
“Pictures are deceiving.”
“Dylan never mentioned Cash being a college student just a few years ago,” Tammie said. She was fishing for information. She had no idea that Cash had even gone to college, let alone when he would have gone.
Aurore glanced at her and smirked. “He wasn’t a student.”
“Oh.”
Then Aurore bent over and kissed Serena on the head. “If you insist on feeding her, make sure she drinks. She needs it. I don’t want her to become dehydrated.” She moved the bedside cart with the food tray next to the bed. “She has a har
d time feeding herself in this state, so you’ll have to do all the work. And it could get messy.”
She sighed and looked at Tammie, and her mouth moved as if she were going to say something more. But then she just walked to the door.
“Why won’t you say it?”
With her hand on the doorknob, Aurore asked, “What?”
“That I’m Eleanor Davco’s daughter. Why won’t you just admit it?”
Aurore’s eyes glassed over. “Connie always told me you were just like Eleanor. Beautiful. Smart. Overly curious. She would be pleased. To this day, I still miss her. I miss both of them.”
When she was gone, Tammie realized that was probably the closest Aurore would come to admitting she was Serena’s sister.
Her eyes were blurry from unshed tears. Dylan had said she was strong, but she didn’t know how much of the truth she could take. The truth about why her parents had taken her away and why they had never told her she had a sister. They clearly knew she did. Why would they have denied that from her?
Serena was staring at her. Her eyes were vacant, but every once in a while Tammie saw some sign of recognition. Almost as if Serena were trying to break free.
“Are you hungry, Serena?’ she asked, not knowing what else to say.
“B-Babies. They steal b-b-abies.” Her voice was soft and weak.
Tammie lifted from the chair and put her face in front of Serena’s. “You are in there, my sister. I know you are. I know you’re trying to tell me something. I hope you’ll be able to tell me everything soon.”
But Serena’s eyes went blank again, and Tammie felt the weight of defeat on her shoulders.
The door opened, and Susan came in with another tray of scrambled eggs. Even though Tammie had specifically said she didn’t want buttered toast, Susan had gone to the trouble of making it.
“Thank you. I’ll take it from here,” Tammie said.
Susan left the room with a frosty glare.
“I’m going to take care of you, Serena. I promise you that. But you need to keep up your strength. You need to drink something.”
She lifted the cup of orange juice to Serena’s lips, but then she paused and pulled the cup away. Serena had changed since she’d come to the mansion. On the day Tammie arrived, Serena had been much more lucid. What had changed to make her this way?
What if it wasn’t really mental illness that was keeping Serena bedridden? She certainly looked fine in the photo Dylan had given her. What if Aurore and Susan really didn’t want Serena to talk to her and Dylan?
Tammie shook her head at her own thoughts. What possible reason would they have for doing that to Serena? Despite everyone in the house being a little off, it did appear that they had genuine concern for her well-being.
“Oh, Tammie, girl,” she muttered to herself. “You’ve watched way too many crime dramas.”
Serena shook her head slowly and blinked her eyes, as if she was forcing herself to do it. The movements were slight but Tammie caught them and looked directly at her sister. “If you can understand me, Serena, do that again.” Serena blinked and shook her head.
Smiling, Tammie looked at the food on Serena’s tray, then at hers. Would they poison her, as well?
“I’ve got to be out of my mind,” Tammie whispered, with what sounded to her like a slightly hysterical laugh. “Do you want to eat this, Serena?”
Serena shook her head weakly.
“Then don’t,” she said, dropping the fork on the plate and pushing the eggs away.
If the food was laced with drugs, what would they put it in? The eggs? Probably not. The heat would probably weaken the effect of any drugs. The juice? Possibly. She wasn’t going to take any chances on any of it.
She looked at the food Susan had brought in for her. The staff knew that Dylan was keeping a close watch over her while she was here. If anything happened to her, they had to know they wouldn’t get away with it. But who was looking out for Serena?
She looked at her tray of food and then at Serena.
“I want you to drink a little of my orange juice though. You need to get strong again. Later on, I’ll make you something to eat myself. I won’t let anything happen to you,” she said, looking into her sister’s vacant eyes. “Serena? Do you hear me?”
It was as if Serena were looking right through her, not seeing her at all. Then her eyes shifted and her mouth moved, but Tammie couldn’t make out what she was having to say.
“Babies?” Tammie asked. “They’re stealing babies? Whose babies?”
But then Serena was gone again, lost to whatever had a hold on her.
“You are in there. I know you are. And I’m going to help you, so you can finally tell me what you’ve been trying to say since I arrived.”
Taking the drink and the plate of eggs to the private bathroom, she poured half of the eggs down the toilet and two thirds of the glass of juice. There was no use letting anyone think Serena had drunk the whole glass, if she didn’t normally do so. Better to let them think she’d consumed some of it.
When she got back to the room, Serena’s eyes were brighter and she was sitting rigid against the pillow, as if it were taking every ounce of energy she had.
“What is it, Serena?” Tammie touched her sister’s cheek, felt the sweat that was bubbling on her skin.
“They’re...stealing...babies... They’ll...take you away...too.”
* * *
“She’s worse,” Tammie said, climbing into Dylan’s Jeep. They’d gotten a late start, because Dylan had slept so late. He was kicking himself for not setting the alarm on his cell phone so that he could have gotten here earlier.
Tammie’s face was drawn and marred with worry. He let the engine idle.
“How much worse can she get?” he asked.
“Aurore mentioned giving Serena sedatives. I think it’s the drugs that are making her like this. I think they’re giving her too much.”
He was silent for a moment, thinking about the possibility. He could tell she was waiting for a response.
When he offered none, she said, “Okay, I know. You think I’m being paranoid. Yeah, I’ve already gone there myself. I’m way past you’re-on-to-something to the point where I’m beginning to think I might just join Serena in that other world she’s in.”
“It’s a pretty strong accusation. But given Serena’s condition so far, I wouldn’t put it past Aurore or Susan to overmedicate her to keep her quiet. Which means she’s in real danger of an overdose.”
Tammie nodded and stared at the trees by the old barn at the back of the mansion. He was anxious to get to the library to use the computer. There was only so much he could research on his smartphone. But he wasn’t going to rush Tammie.
“Serena repeated what she’d said the other night.”
“About stealing babies?”
“Yes. But then she said, ‘They’ll take you away, too.’”
He rubbed his jaw. He hadn’t had time to shave this morning, and his face was starting to itch. “Cryptic.”
“Unsettling.”
“I wonder who ‘they’ are?”
Tammie sighed. “I don’t know. But Aurore...she finally admitted I’m Eleanor Davco’s daughter.”
Dylan turned to her. No wonder Tammie was having a hard morning. “Wow.” was all he could think to say.
“Yeah, I know.” She chuckled nervously. “I mean, it’s not like the evidence wasn’t overwhelming enough for me to know it on my own. But hearing her actually admit it took me a little by surprise.”
He cleared his throat “About last night...”
He hadn’t intended to blurt it out, but he’d wondered all morning if she’d thought at all about the kiss they’d shared. It wasn’t as if Tammie didn’t have a million other things on her mind. Kissing him had to be dead last on her list of things to worry about.
But he hadn’t been able to let go of it all night. His mind had wandered to thoughts of Tammie lying in the bed next to him. He wondered how she’d
feel in his arms. How she’d curl up against him while they slept. And how her warm, naked skin would feel against his. It left him aching with such need for the rest of the night that he hadn’t fallen asleep until the sun was coming up. And when he’d woken up still aching for her, he knew he was in trouble.
Dylan had tried not to think about kissing Tammie on the drive over. But he’d finally decided it would be better to just get it out in the open, so that there was nothing in the way of them getting down to business once they got to the library.
And yet...the more time he spent with Tammie, the more he realized there was a hole in his life that needed filling. And that kiss had done a pretty good job of starting that.
“You must be exhausted,” she said. “You left the mansion very late. Early.”
She was talking about fatigue, but the softness of her expression told Dylan she knew he hadn’t been talking about his lack of sleep.
Okay. He got the point. Either she didn’t want to relive it or she’d decided there were more important issues at hand. Whichever it was, the moment was gone.
Dylan pressed the clutch and then the gas pedal. “We should start at the library first.”
“The library?”
“I need to use the computer, and it’s probably a good idea to check some old newspaper clippings in their archives. There should be information there you can use to find out about the Davco family. Possibly even the fire. If it was big news, the way people seem to remember, the local paper should have something on it.”
“That library is rather small.”
“True. But even if the library hasn’t been brought into the twenty-first century, they must have town history written down somewhere. If old newspaper clippings haven’t been digitized, they may still have them on microfilm, which would make things easier to search. Anyway, it’s a good place to start.”
“I appreciate you helping me like this,” Tammie said. “I mean, you’re spending all this time helping me find out information about my parents, when you should be looking for Cash.”
“Oh, but I am looking for Cash. Something tells me the whole thing is related and wrapped around Serena Davco—somehow. If I find the answer to one, maybe the dead-end I’ve been sitting at will turn into an open road to answers.”
Reckless Hours: a Romantic Suspense novel (Heroes of Providence Book 3) Page 14
