DANGEROUS, Collection #1

by Patricia Rosemoor

  The feeling was mutual.

  Without preamble, she demanded to know, “Why is Bram here?”

  A secretive smile curled those thin lips before Adrienne turned her attention back to the plant she was repotting. “He’s your son.”

  Not that it meant he shared his every thought with her. “And your brother’s.”

  Adrienne’s expression softened for a moment, then turned crafty as she slid Katherine a glance. “Donahue wants to know why you’ve returned.”

  Though she’d like nothing more than to lash out at the other woman, Katherine held onto her temper. “To protect our son.”

  “Should’ve thought of that thirty years ago.”

  “I always had Bram’s welfare at heart.”

  “By keeping the truth from him?”

  “He didn’t need to know then!” Katherine insisted. “Not after what happened. He doesn’t need to know now, either. Do I make myself clear?”

  Adrienne shrugged. “What if Donahue tells him everything?”

  “Donahue had best not,” Katherine stated clearly. “After all, he wouldn’t want to see his dear twin locked away with the other lunatics, would he?” She waited for the threat to sink in, to see the pale cheeks color unnaturally before adding, “Don’t try me, Adrienne. You know I can arrange it.”

  With that threat hanging between them, Katherine stormed off, a teeny part of her hoping that Adrienne would defy her and damn the consequences. Then, at last, she could get the revenge she’d once yearned for so very long ago.

  “IT’S GONE!” Jason said, the moment Echo stepped foot in her shop. “The coffin for Dracula’s Crypt.”

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” She looked from her nephew to Frankie, to her nine-year-old niece Gussy, all of whom wore solemn expressions. “It couldn’t have just disappeared from the Langley’s garage.”

  Echo glanced over at her sister, who was rearranging the New Age CDs. Izzy shrugged her shoulders.

  “You mean we’re going to have to build another coffin?” Echo complained. She was already figuring the added time and money that would take.

  ”Maybe he returned to get it,” Jason interrupted, dancing around her.

  Smelling a rat— Frankie was studiously staring out the front window, Izzy was intent on those CDs and Gussy was turning away, a hand over her mouth— Echo asked, “He, who?”

  “Dracula,” her nephew said, unable to hide his grin any longer. “Gotcha, Auntie E!”

  Echo narrowed her gaze. “One of these days, you’re going to get your ears pinned back, snot.”

  Jason was snickering. “Aw, c’mon, where’s your sense of humor?”

  Where, indeed? Echo guessed the time spent with Bram at the library had sobered her. She empathized with him and was still feeling the effects of the tense ride to the shop. He’d hardly spoken a word to her, and he’d driven off in his own car like a bat out of hell.

  Echo tweaked her nephew’s nose. “You and Frankie start loading the hatchback.”

  “I’m helping, too!” Gussy shouted, pigtails flying as she scrambled after the older boys.

  The kids raced through the shop. Her small storeroom was still stacked with boxes of decorations and props, though the larger and mechanical items were spread about town in various garages and basements. Some of the other parents would be delivering those later that evening or the next day.

  Sighing, Echo shook her head. She really was down.

  Bram’s father murdered.

  Crazy Addy not so crazy, after all. The only good part.

  Maybe Bram would be better off in ignorance. After all, how could anyone solve a thirty year old murder? Instinct told her Bram was about to try and in the process would become even more frustrated. She tried concentrating on the day’s mail stacked next to the register.

  Miss Addy’s fate was somehow tied up in a possible discovery of the past. And so was Bram’s. Despite their rocky start, she was drawn to him like no other man she’d known.

  “So, ready to give me the scoop?” Izzy asked, buzzing around her. She shouldered Echo and, her tone teasing, said, “You and Bram Vanmatre were together an awfully long time.”

  “We were doing some research at the library.” She felt weird saying anything to Izzy when she didn’t even know if Bram returned her interest.

  Her sister gripped her arm and shot her a disbelieving look. “You spend your time with a man dripping with sex appeal in a stuffy old library?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Izzy huffed. “Well, Travis Ferguson is interested, too.”

  ”I’ll just bet he is.” Echo slapped a bill against the counter. “The question is ‘in what’? He was spying on me or Bram. I’m not certain which. He was parked across from the library watching us.”

  “Maybe he wanted to borrow a book?”

  Echo raised her brows.

  “Hmm.” Izzy looked worried. “Maybe you’d better be careful around both of them.”

  “Mmm,” she murmured.

  She’d be happy to stay away from Travis. She knew she couldn’t stay away from Bram. She only wished she knew how far she could trust him, not only with Aunt Addy’s fate, but with her own.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO stay away from my property!” Norbert Ferguson was yelling at the men who were working on patching up the retaining wall as Bram crossed the terrace.

  Bram recognized the voice of the foreman of the group, who said, “Listen, sir, we were told to keep off your property, and we have,” in a far more patient tone than Bram himself would have used.

  Through the rapidly falling dusk, he could just make out an overly-excited Norbert waving at the work area. “You shouldn’t be here at all, not at all, digging around where you don’t belong.”

  Arriving at the edge of the terrace, Bram looked down on his aunt’s neighbor who stood between the wall and the Dunescape boathouse. “That’s my decision to make,” he called. He’d never liked Norbert any more than his son Travis, and Bram doubted he would change his mind now.

  Norbert’s bushy white hair bristled. “Your decision? You don’t own this land.” The frayed collar of his starched white shirt quivered, and he nervously wiped his palms on his already shiny navy suit jacket as he plunged up the steps. “We’ll just see what Addy has to say about this.”

  Bram put out an arm to hold back the stooped man. “No need to bother my aunt, since I have control of all of her affairs, including this estate.”

  “You?” Norbert appeared shocked, as if he had a personal stake in the property himself. “You’re not planning to sell, are you?”

  “Why? Are you interested in buying?”

  “Buying? Buying? I don’t have that kind of money. Not yet,” he muttered. “The man’s hazel eyes were practically bugging out. “You can’t sell this place! You’ll have to wait a while longer!”

  “I didn’t know you were a lawyer,” Bram said wryly.

  “I’ll get a restraining order.” Norbert was mumbling to himself now. “That’s what I’ll do, get a restraining order.” He shuffled back down the steps and off toward his own property. “No one’s going to cheat me of what’s rightfully mine.”

  Bram waved at the workmen. “Sorry about the hassle, guys.”

  “Mr. Vanmatre,” the foreman said, “unloading the supply truck would take a lot of time, and then we might have to move some of the materials Monday, anyway. I thought we might leave it here over the weekend, if you don’t mind.”

  The Lakeside Construction pick-up parked in front of the boathouse was stacked with bags of concrete. “No problem.”

  Bram was wondering about Norbert’s last possessive statement. What made him think Dunescape Cottage was rightfully his? Or did he merely fear new developers moving in and razing the old manor so that they could build lakeside townhouses? The thought of the estate being destroyed gave Bram pause. A century old and part of his heritage, it deserved better. But as it was now, Dunescape Cottage wa
s a decrepit and very expensive albatross.

  His gaze swept over the building and locked onto the library window where a slight movement made his pulse accelerate. He had an odd feeling, had been having too many of these odd feelings since he’d arrived at the house. Almost as if he were never alone. Not a man subject to whimsy, he grimaced when the word “ghost” popped into his mind. Surely his father couldn’t really haunt the old estate, Bram told himself even while fighting a crawly sensation that was becoming all too familiar.

  Approaching the veranda, he realized his mother stood there, in the semi-dark, waiting for him. “Mother.”

  “Hello, darling. Where have you been off to for hours and hours?” she asked.

  “Town.” He climbed the stairs and stopped on the porch. “I was trying to find out exactly what happened here thirty years ago.”

  Since she would never talk about it. Even now, she appeared uncomfortable. Evening shadows accentuated her strained expression. “You mean your father’s accident?”

  “Among other things. If his drowning was an accident.”

  She wet her lips. “Of course it was. What else could it have been?”

  “Murder?”

  “You’ve been listening to Adrienne’s prattle. You know she’s senile. You can’t believe anything she says.”

  “I’m not so certain,” he said. “If we look hard enough, we might find a few truths buried among her imaginings.”

  That’s when he became aware of a movement around the side of the house, as if someone were listening. This gave him a different feel than he’d had before. More real. Chances were this was Aunt Addy herself, and Bram wasn’t into another confrontation, especially not with a woman who wasn’t responsible for herself, so he let it go.

  “Bram, darling, this is exactly what I was afraid of,” his mother said in her most motherly tone. “That you would get yourself all worked up for nothing.”

  “I’m not particularly worked up. And my father’s death wasn’t nothing.”

  “No, of course not. Donahue was a fine man, and his death a great personal loss to us both. It took me many years and a couple of mistakes in my other marriages before I was able to let go,” she admitted. “I wish you would do that, too. Get on with your life.”

  “I have gotten on.”

  “With a career, perhaps. But your personal life, my dear son, stinks. You are thirty-seven years old, remember, and not getting any younger.”

  “You would hardly let me forget.” For this wasn’t the first time she’d bugged him about his advanced age and his prospects for the future. “Mother, you would detest being called ‘Grandma.’”

  She gave him one of those looks intended to quell the faint of heart. “There are other titles more suitable to a woman of my youthful vibrancy.”

  “Nana?”

  Her expression turned horrified. “Grand’mere would do nicely.”

  “I’ll see what I can manage,” he said wryly.

  Echo’s clunky hatchback pulled up the drive as if on cue.

  Startled by the idea, he didn’t know if he should be amused or aggravated. The owner of a New Age shop was the last person in the world he should want to get involved with. Then he’d gone and asked for her help. Some unspoken covenant existed between them that he couldn’t explain. For an hour or so, he’d felt an unexpected bond with a woman he hardly knew and had from the first been determined to disrespect.

  Only he couldn’t.

  She wouldn’t let him.

  He didn’t know what it was about her, maybe something in her own past that reached out to him, something that made her feel protective about a relative he cared about, but he was drawn to her in a more real, down-to-earth way than he’d been with any of the women he’d had so-called relationships with.

  “We’re being invaded again,” came dry tones from behind him.

  “Mother, behave yourself. I realize you don’t normally get hands-on involved with your charities, but you can make an exception this one time. For me,” he coaxed. “Use your creativity for a good cause.”

  As Echo popped out of the hatchback and began issuing orders to her nephew and his friend, Bram was once more struck by her looks, which one could hardly describe as drop-dead beautiful. They were better. They were as unique as the colorful clothing that accentuated her flame red hair and her equally vibrant personality.

  No cover model, Echo was real. Earthy.

  Touchable.

  Bram narrowed his gaze. Though no stranger to women, he was unfamiliar with the gut-wrenching feelings shooting through him at the thought of touching her. Exploring every inch of her more closely. Uncomfortable, that’s what she made him, he realized. He’d found something he didn’t want to let slip through his fingers. Something that further complicated his life, when he’d come to Dunescape Cottage not only to set Aunt Addy’s affairs in order, but to find himself.

  He was certain someone didn’t want him to succeed, ergo the missing button. After their conversation, he considered his mother a prime suspect. He’d delve further into that with her later.

  For Bram was determined to penetrate the voids and half-truths he’d lived with all his life, no matter the consequences. He would work on breaking through the mental barriers he himself had set up as a child. Only then, only when he recognized and banished the ghosts of the past would he be able to “get on” with his life.

  The future beckoned, closer than it had ever been.

  For the moment, however, he would focus on the present. On the fathomless gray eyes staring into his own. Echo was coming up the steps, her complete attention centered on him.

  “We’re ready to get started,” she said. “You okay with that?”

  “I’m terrific with that.”

  Thinking he should introduce her to his mother, he glanced over his shoulder only to find her gone. Without his knowing it, his mother had slipped away into the shelter of a house of secrets.

  SECRETS.

  How many did Dunescape Cottage harbor? Staircases. Rooms. Truths.

  Echo was somewhat surprised that Bram could so easily put the speculation of the afternoon behind him. But here he was, helping to fabricate a maze more complex than the cellar already provided. The lower floor was almost finished.

  “If you want to spook your customers,” he was telling a group of enthralled teenagers, “try hanging black threads in every doorway. The people going through won’t be able to see anything, but the threads will brush their faces as they go from room to room.”

  “Creepy,” Yvette said.

  “Yeah,” Mark agreed. “Let’s do it!”

  Cheryl seemed equally enthusiastic. “So where’s the thread?”

  “I’ll see if I can find some,” Bram promised.

  Across the room, he glanced Echo’s way. A thrill shot through her, a decidedly uncomfortable sensation. Izzy had been right on about the man’s sex appeal. Even if he was wrong for her in every other way, he did make her pulse dance. He was a danger she did not need, however.

  Moving to the opposite doorway, Echo murmured, “And I’ll just check on things in general.”

  Aware that he headed for the main stairs, she moved in the other direction, wandering along the corridors, following the pattern set up for the customers. Everything seemed in order until she saw a movement down a darkened hall roped off from the path.

  “Hey, you’re not supposed to be there,” she called. “C’mon back.”

  No response. No further movement. But she knew she hadn’t imagined it. The skin on her arms crawled. Someone stood in the dark. Watching. She could feel the eyes staring out at her. Irritated that one of the teenagers was defying her authority, defying the common courtesy due Miss Addy, who had generously given them free run of three-quarters of the manor, Echo slipped under the rope and away from what she could see toward what she could not.

  “Hey, it’s almost time to go home and get dinner. Surely you’re hungry.” She forced herself to be reasonable and was
not really surprised when there was no response.

  Jason.

  The name came unbidden. She didn’t remember seeing her nephew for a while. It had to be him.

  Another “gotcha.”

  Past six, dark had fallen, so no help came through the ground-level windows to lighten the inky blackness. And this time, she had no flashlight. Her keychain was in her jacket which she’d stripped off in one of the rooms they’d been setting up. Only the muted glow behind her kept her from feeling as if she were blind. She cautiously advanced, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

  After a minute, though she couldn’t actually see clearly, Echo had the vague impression of doors just ahead on either side, one of which creaked slightly.

  Heart jagging despite the fact that she told herself she was in no danger, she whipped her head to the right and squinted. That door appeared to be open a tad. Finding the wall with her hand, she continued forward, aware of her pulse coursing through her fingertips. Silent, now, she drew closer. That was it. Nothing to get freaked over. No reason to feel this lump in her throat, preventing her from swallowing.

  Though when she got hold of Jason, she might freak him out a little.

  On tiptoe, she slid through the opening without making the door swing and creak. But if the hall had been dark, this space was without so much as a hint of light.

  Truly blind, she fought panic.

  Though she tried to breathe normally, the air rushing slowly through her parted lips sounded as loud as the wind blowing across the lake. Or so she imagined. She held her breath and listened, but had no clue as to where Jason could be hiding. Turning her head, she froze when a draft of air caressed the left side of her face and neck.

  As if there were a difference in pressure created by another opening, she thought.

  Another door?

  She slowly turned her head from one side to the other. The draft remained constant. Hands stretched out in front of her, she felt her way to its source. Fingers bumped wood whose hinges squealed with its movement.