She hesitated only a second before admitting, “Miss Adrienne did, afterward.”
Bram couldn’t help but wonder if Aunt Addy could have been making up such a story to account for her twin’s distraction, to cover the fact that he might have been involved in the theft.
“I don’t think she meant to,” Lena was going on. “But she was so distraught. We both were.”
He could believe that. Lena’s devotion to his father had been very clear just as had her antagonism toward his mother.
“So the intended divorce came as a complete surprise to everyone?” Echo asked.
Lena turned a hostile expression on Echo. “Everyone knew Mr. Donahue never should have married Miss Katherine in the first place.”
Making Bram wonder if Lena’s relationship with his father had gone deeper than mere devotion. An affair? He’d already mentally accused his mother of the perfidy. But what if his father had been the one?
Head suddenly aching as it did when he concentrated on lost memories, Bram refused to chew on the situation further.
“That’s all.”
”One more thing,” Echo interrupted. “Before the jewel theft, you found Grover Courtland and brought him to the telephone.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Who called?”
“A woman.” While she addressed Echo when she added, “She did not leave her name, Miss,” she was staring at Bram, her expression enigmatic once more. “If that is all, may I be excused?”
Bram nodded and waved her away. “Thank you, Lena.”
He stood there frozen, still trying to digest this newest twist in a decades-old story. How could his mother have kept an intended divorce from him? How could she have kept up the charade that she loved his father and grieved for him?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ECHO STARED at Bram, who looked as if he were carved out of granite. He seemed to have forgotten her presence. She only wished she could say something to make him feel better. He wore an expression she could only describe as “betrayed.”
“You look like you could use a drink.”
He started and focused on her. “Have one with me?”
A moment later they were in the library and she was wandering toward the fireplace. “Mm, the blaze feels good.” She stopped suddenly when she grew uncomfortable. She spun around, checked the corners and the shadows. All seemingly empty. Her heart beat swiftly.
“Are there any secret panels in here leading to one of your infamous hidden rooms or staircases?”
At the liquor cart tucked against some shelving, Bram said, “I wish I remembered. If I ever knew.” His voice was tight. “My father discouraged my explorations, especially after I got myself in trouble.”
Echo noted his visage darkened at the mention of his father.
Donahue Vanmatre. Murdered. Why did his spirit wander through the darkened recesses of Dunescape Cottage. Because he was unable to find rest since his killer hadn’t been brought to justice? For despite her determination to remain clear-headed and as unlike Mama as she could be about this particular issue, part of her believed. Something had gotten her out of that stairwell whole and sane. And now she was experiencing that same sensation. She could almost feel a comforting hand touching her.
Unafraid, she leaned against the high back of a leather chair, closed her eyes and concentrated.
“Maybe this brandy isn’t such a good idea,” came Bram’s voice.
Her eyes flashed open. “Why not?”
“I don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel.”
“I’m not that tired.” Echo took the bulbous glass splashed with amber liquid, flushing when Bram’s fingers touched hers. She couldn’t forget his kiss. “I was merely soaking up the atmosphere.” With all its nuances.
“Do it properly, then.” He indicated a chair and took the other himself. Once settled, he lifted his drink. “To the truth,” he said, his tone ironic.
Echo touched her glass to his and wondered if the truth might not destroy him. His reaction to the news about the divorce had been intense. He hadn’t known. Her heart had gone out to him then.
“So, what is the truth, Echo, about what went on at Priscilla Courtland’s?”
Having known he would get back to the maid issue, Echo chose to tell a half-truth, omitting the part about being trapped in the stairwell. “I saw a pouch like the one that slipped out of her beaded bag earlier today. It belonged to Sibyl, whose Grandmama Tisa was born in Haiti.”
His expression was surprised yet skeptical. “Coincidence?”
“If you believe in that sort of thing.”
“Are you suggesting Sibyl has some ulterior motive in taking care of Aunt Addy?”
“I don’t know. I’m only speculating. How did you hire her? A recommendation from a service?”
He frowned. “Come to think of it, she did approach me when the nurse I originally hired took sick suddenly.”
“Took sick or was made sick?” Echo remembered Priscilla’s statement about being cursed. The pouch given to her by her maid had contained shards of bone and certainly had not looked like a good luck charm. “What if Letitia and Tisa are one and the same. What if she had something to do with the robbery?”
“I was wondering about Grover myself,” Bram said. “First the jewels stolen, then his father’s company lost. The theft could have been an insurance scam. And he could have hoped to save the company with the payoff.”
“He would have needed an accomplice,” Echo said, thinking Grover had looked familiar. “Letitia was here that night.”
“And what if this is all a clever fabrication? What’s Sibyl’s interest? What if Tisa and Letitia aren’t the same woman?”
More questions than answers. But Echo’s instincts told her that the two women were one and the same, and that Sibyl hadn’t shown up by pure luck.
Bram said, “Let’s not forget Lena found Grover and told him about the supposed phone call.”
“And it looks like Norbert Ferguson was someplace he shouldn’t have been.” She remembered the son spying on them. “Travis. He knows something. Maybe I should find out what.”
“Stay away from the man. He’s bad news.”
“I consider myself warned.” Though Echo made no promises.
But Bram seemed satisfied. “I’d certainly rather believe that any of them were responsible for the theft than my own father.”
Bram stared into the fire, suddenly seeming lost in his thoughts. Dark thoughts. His angular face appeared hard. Unapproachable. The flicker of firelight licked his clenched jaw and furrowed brow. The throbbing scar was a dead give-away. He was ready to explode with emotion. Her body stirred, responding to the very darkness that she feared.
Echo strangled her glass with two hands, then realizing this, loosened her grip. Despite her better judgment— she was afraid of getting too close to a man with such strength, so used to controlling people and events— she reached across the gulf between their chairs and slipped her hand over his clenched fist.
“Sometimes our families aren’t everything we want them to be,” she said. “That doesn’t mean they don’t love us or that we shouldn’t love them.”
His hand still balled tight beneath her fingers, he stared at her. “How do you know where the lies stop?” he demanded. “What someone you love might be hiding?”
Echo sensed his father’s possible involvement wasn’t the only thing bothering Bram. Had Lena raised some awful suspicions about his mother, as well?
“You can never be sure. No one is guaranteed happiness. You have to have faith.”
“Who taught you that? Your mother?”
“Life. My mother was a very unusual person. She believed in things other people don’t choose to face. She was spiritual.”
“You mean religious.”
“No. I mean a little removed from reality.” A lump in her throat made it difficult to continue. But the fist softening under her hand urged her on. “Her own parents didn’t understa
nd her innocent open view of life. When she joined a commune with her boyfriend, my grandparents threatened to disown her. My parents were the kindest, most well-intentioned people I knew. We were all so happy— Mama and Daddy and Izzy and me. Our parents taught my sister and me to be worthwhile human beings by example.”
A sigh whispered through her lips and she could feel his eyes on her face. Caressing her. Making her uncomfortable. As if he discovered the anguish she always kept tucked away in a secret part of herself, he softened, turned her hand and wove his fingers through hers. As if they were friends.
“So what went wrong with this paradise?” he asked softly.
Bram was perceptive. She would have to give him that. Echo had never told another soul about the horror she had lived through, but suddenly the story came pouring out.
“Mama always swore she was connected to another world beyond this earth.” As a child, Echo had accepted this without thought. “Mama might have heard voices, but she wasn’t crazy. She was happy with the simple things. And then Daddy died.” A dark, dark interval. “He didn’t get medical treatment in time. Mama couldn’t bear his loss. She went over the edge a little more, swore Daddy wasn’t gone, that she saw and spoke to him.”
Bram squeezed her fingers comfortingly. “She needed professional help.”
A wave of warmth swept over her. From Bram? The fire? Or something less tangible?
“She needed loving and understanding from someone who could get through her grief. Izzy and I were scared and confused. We didn’t know what to do, and someone mistakenly called my grandparents.” Her laugh was bitter. “I think they actually rejoiced in our loss. They saw Daddy’s death as a way to get back something they never had in the first place— a daughter who fit into their conventional idea of what a perfect child should be. They had her committed to a private sanitarium and got legal custody of Izzy and me.”
She expected a reaction, not the silence that forced her to look at Bram. If she had seen pity, she would have run from the room. Instead, she read anger. For her. She was inordinately pleased.
“Your mother,” he said, squeezing her hand, “she’s still institutionalized?”
Echo shook her head. “She was released eventually. After the druggings and the padded rooms and the electric shocks. She didn’t hear voices and talk to Daddy any more. She didn’t say much. She was never the same. Ironic, but my grandparents still weren’t satisfied. They wouldn’t even let her see her own daughters unsupervised. As if Mama would ever hurt us.”
Bram swore under his breath. “What misguided fools.”
“She was harmless then just as she had always been.” She deliberately added, “Just as Miss Addy is.” When he didn’t respond, she forced the issue. “You do agree your aunt is harmless?”
“For the most part.”
His careful answer made her uneasy. “You can see how wrong it would be to take her away from here and lock her away from what she knows and loves.”
“I live in Chicago,” Bram pointed out. “She doesn’t have anyone else. She’s alone here.”
“Not in her mind.”
“Nevertheless, she can’t take care of herself anymore.”
“She has a nurse.” Remembering the conclusions she’d drawn about Sibyl Wilde, she added, “And you can hire someone else, someone you trust.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be enough.”
Bram’s words pierced her heart. Echo twisted her hand from his grasp. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” she accused, ignoring the something that was attempting to calm her inside.
“I haven’t decided anything.”
She didn’t believe him. “How could you think about locking Miss Addy away after what I just told you?”
“If I were to find a... a home for Aunt Addy, she would be treated kindly. No padded rooms. No electric shocks. Their situations are different.”
Only on the surface. “You’ll kill her,” Echo choked out.
His tight voice and expression distanced him. “She would be well taken care of.”
“You’ll kill her spirit. You’ll strip her of who she is, and there won’t be anything left.” Popping out of her chair, she felt an invisible aura trying to smother her.
“You’re overwrought.”
“Maybe I am. I have every reason to be.”
Blindly, she ran from the room, fighting off the presence that, rather than comforting her this time, now frightened her. Mama had been connected to another world, too, and look what had happened to her.
“Echo, wait. Please.”
No, she would be all right, Echo assured herself.
Even if she was like Mama, no one could do anything to her. No one could lock her away. Izzy never would, and she’d made certain no one else had that kind of control.
“Echo!”
Emotions flooded her as she grabbed her jacket from the hall chair and struggled into it while racing to the night and making for the sanctuary of her car. She had to get away from Dunescape Cottage. Fast.
If only she never had to come back...
But getting out wasn’t as easy as she had hoped. The engine wouldn’t start. Frustrated, she slapped the steering wheel with the flat of her hand over and over, as if that would make the old hatchback behave. She tried again. The engine still refused to turn over. Her battery was dead
What now?
She couldn’t go back into that house and face Bram. Not when her emotions were so off kilter. Not ever, if she had her choice. While spilling her guts, she’d imagined a real connection between them. Now she simply felt humiliated. Resolving to walk the mile home, she grabbed her flashlight from the glove compartment and threw herself out of the vehicle. She searched her pockets for her cell phone but didn’t find it. Damn! She was always misplacing the thing. Undoubtedly it was sitting on her kitchen table and she would find it when she got home.
She’d have the service station come out and get the old junker running in the morning.
By morning, she would be back in control.
Storm clouds completely blotted out the moon and the wind had picked up, soughing through the dune grass and the trees that fingered the ridge overlooking the lake. The air was heavy with unshed rain. Clinging. Smothering. Or maybe it was the house itself. Quickly leaving the soft glow of room lights behind, Echo raced down the drive, remembering to flip on the flashlight when she was halfway to the property entrance.
The bulb flickered and immediately grew dim. Great!
More bad batteries!
She switched it off to save what power was left. There would be areas where she would really need some light. Going east, Water’s Edge Road twisted and tacked away from the lake. The cross streets were few and hilly and angled, turning the area into an outdoor maze.
An unlit maze.
One she hadn’t taken this far west on foot, and certainly never in the dark. If she weren’t careful, she’d end up in a drainage ditch with a twisted ankle. Or worse.
Once off the property, she checked the road, then stuck the flashlight back into her pocket. Fighting the chilly, ominous wind, she sprinted up a hill. Her skin crawled and she rubbed her arms through the jacket.
She would be all right. She would be all right. She would be all right. She repeated the words like a litany until the noise behind her drove them from her head.
An engine. Vehicle approaching.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the lights crest the hill behind and ride high above the pavement. A four-wheeler or a truck. She waved so the driver would be certain to see her. The brights flicked on, blinding her.
Squinting against them, she stumbled and caught herself before her hands hit the ground. Startled, it took her a second to think clearly. To realize the vehicle wasn’t slowing. To cut over to the other side of the road to let it pass.
That’s when the lights swerved and came straight for her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ECHO FELT LIKE a deer must when surprised b
y an oncoming car in the dark.
She froze.
Stood rooted to the spot looking into the face of death. Disbelieving. Horrified. Adrenaline shooting through her like a bullet.
At the last possible second, she flew out of the vehicle’s path and rolled into the thicket of growth at the side of the road. Close. So close that she’d felt seared by the heat of the engine and caught in the pull of the draft as the vehicle sped by without slowing.
She lay there stunned for a moment. Her heart was pounding and she was gasping for air. If only the incident hadn’t happened so fast, she might have been able to identify the vehicle for the authorities.
“Damn drunk drivers,” she muttered, getting to her feet and brushing the sandy soil and dried weeds from her clothing. Nothing a cleaning wouldn’t fix.
She was bandy-legged and would probably have a few bruises in the morning, but she felt of one piece. Testing herself, she took a few steps. Then a few more. Difficult walking against the wind that seemed to pick up with every pace, but she managed it.
No serious harm done, thank God.
Lucky, that’s what she was. She could have been killed, and all because the battery in her wretched hatchback had refused to start. Setting off again, she cursed the occasional fat drop of rain that splashed her face and prayed that she would beat the storm home. She never should have agreed to that drink. Odd how fate sometimes conspired against a person.
First the battery dying...
...then almost being hit...
...and now the threat of being soaked as the drops of rain grew more frequent.
Her mind went back to the first two. The battery. The near-miss. She attempted to shake off the sudden suspicion that niggled at her. One that didn’t make sense.
Still, she was uneasy.
Rounding a curve in the road, Echo heard another engine nearby. A vehicle coming toward her this time. She strained to listen. Did the engine really sound familiar or was her imagination playing tricks on her?
Not!
She was certain the moment she caught sight of the lights, too high off the ground to belong to a car. The same high-riding vehicle!
DANGEROUS, Collection #1 Page 32
