Back to Travis. “For heaven’s sake, we live in the same town. I can hardly avoid him forever.”
“I meant alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone with him.”
“Good.”
She got back to work. While they placed Jack-o-lanterns around the foot of the stage, Bram told her about his talk with his mother.
“So she thinks your father committed suicide. Do you?”
“I don’t know. I should be angry or relieved or something. The explanation doesn’t wash for me.”
“You think she lied to you?”
“No, I think she really believes what she told me.”
“Then that clears her.”
“Of murder,” Bram conceded. “But she wanted to get away so badly. What if she didn’t have the money and stole the jewels to get it?”
Solving a thirty year old mystery. Hadn’t she thought it an impossible task from the first? “What if you never figure it all out?”
“Then I’ll be haunted by those voices until I die.”
A chill swept through her at the reference to death.
Lightning over the lake lit the ballroom with blue strobes. She stared out the terrace doors. Other than the faint glimmer of cracks in the dark, she couldn’t see further than a few feet. Added to the rain, she heard sharp pings that could only mean hail. Driving would be a nightmare.
“I think I’d better go before it gets bad.”
”You’re not going anywhere. You’ll stay here tonight.”
Here? Where the walls had eyes? “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Then I’ll go with you. I won’t let you leave alone after what happened last night. Alone, you’re a target.”
Her stomach lumped at the thought. “And in this house—”
”You would be safe. I had Lena freshen one of the guest rooms you haven’t already taken over. Lock your door and no one can get to you.”
So he’d had it all planned. “And where will you be?”
“Just down the hall. Within screaming distance.”
About to choke out a reply, Echo realized Bram was teasing her. A grin curled the corners of his sensual mouth. For some reason, the idea of not being absolutely alone made her feel better. And something stubborn in her wanted to prove she could do it. Face her fears and come out whole.
“Deal.”
Her room was on the second floor above the ballroom, the closest to the stairs and the connecting corridor to the main house. On the way, Bram indicated the door to his own bedroom, indeed, barely a scream away. Not having been in this particular room before, she was pleasantly surprised by the light colors and cherry-wood furniture, though it, too, had a four-poster with heavy drapes as did most of the others.
“Aunt Addy even volunteered to lend you some sleep wear.” Bram fingered the old-fashioned nightgown draped over the mattress.
A thrill whispered through Echo, as if he’d touched her skin. “So the whole household must know I’m staying.”
“News does spread fast here.” Without warning, he touched his lips softly to hers, making her heart thud. “Or you might be less alone yet.”
He was smiling at her in a way that softened the angular planes of his face and wormed its way to her heart. When he left the room with a final order to lock the door and keep it that way until morning, she felt his loss.
Dreamily, she showered in the private bathroom and slipped into the ankle-length white nightgown, wondering what Bram would think if he saw her now. Amused by her own reflection, she wandered around the bedroom, inspecting the old prints and framed photographs on the walls, admiring the silver-plated grooming tools and candle holders on the dresser. A fancy little clock told her it was after ten, normally too early for bed. But after what she’d been through the day before, she could hardly keep her eyes open.
Yawning, she turned out all but the bedside light and climbed into the four-poster, then lay back under the down quilt to listen to the storm. The steady beat drumming against the windows lulled her. Her eyes fluttered closed. She was floating. Her body light.
Her exhausted mind was shutting down.
Until a huge crash nearby turned it up again!
Heart hammering, Echo sat straight up in bed and stared into the dark. That noise. What could it have been? And what had happened to the bedside light? Certain she’d left it on, she carefully felt for the base and switch. Dead.
Slipping out of bed, she made her way to the door and felt for the wall switch. But on flipping it, nothing happened.
The flicker of lightning drew her to the windows. If anything, the storm had worsened. Wind slashed at the trees. Thunder rumbled in the distance. As hard as she looked, she could see no illumination from neighboring homes. Either the storm was too dense, or the electricity was down throughout the area. Maybe the crash of a tree going down on a line had awakened her.
Remembering the candle holders, she felt her way to the dresser and was relieved when she found not only them, but a pack of matches. The clock caught her eye. A few minutes before midnight. She had slept for almost two hours without realizing it. Leaving one lit candle on the dresser, she picked up the other to set on the night stand.
But as she passed the door, she paused.
Had she heard a furtive noise?
She could certainly hear the thud of her heart. The beat seemed to thunder in her ears. She pressed one to the wood panel and listened hard. Her limbs tingled with the rush of blood stirred up by fright.
No reason to be afraid, she told herself. Bram was right down the hall.
Within screaming distance.
Her sense of humor deserted her. She didn’t think it was funny any more.
Neither did she hear anything but light footsteps some distance down the hall in the direction of the main house. Cursing her own curiosity, she unlocked the door carefully and as silently as possible, opened it a crack, ready to throw her weight back on the panel should some unwanted person be on the other side.
The hall was dark and felt empty.
She peered around the jamb and was startled by several limpid pools of light— sconces holding candles near the stairs, along the corridor, and in the main house. Relief washed through her. She’d probably heard whoever had been seeing to the emergency.
About to close the door and get back in bed, she hesitated when she thought she saw a movement in the shadows near the stairs. A dark-clothed figure advanced to the landing. Though he was mostly in shadow, she could hardly fail to recognize the angular features and the dark hair uncharacteristically tumbling over his forehead. He was dressed the way he’d been the first time she’d seem him, in a full-sleeved black shirt, pants and boots.
“Bram!” she whispered.
He looked her way.
Looked right through her... and began to descend.
“Bram!” she called a bit more fiercely.
He didn’t even hesitate, but kept going as if in a trance. As if he were sleepwalking. Her stomach took a tumble. People got hurt walking in their sleep. What if Bram stumbled and fell down the stairs? He’d told her to stay in her room with the door locked. Indecision froze her to the spot for a moment.
Then, cursing the rampant storm and the failing electricity and her chilled bare feet, Echo groaned in frustration and went after him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HEART THUDDING in time with her feet, Echo flew to the head of the stairs, wondering if she should call out again. But to whom? As far as she could see, the stairwell was unoccupied.
How had Bram gotten away from her so fast?
Hanging onto her light with one hand, onto the railing with the other, she sped down the darkened stairs to the first floor, where several more strategically placed emergency candles offered a modicum of light.
“Bram?” she called softly, all senses on alert, a faint noise to her left the only response.
Whipping toward the ballroom just as a crash of lightning exploded through the t
errace doors, she caught a glimpse of Bram and immediately followed. The cavernous room was pitch black but for the candle she herself carried.
How could anyone navigate in this dark without one?
“Bram, where are you? What’s going on?”
She felt as if she were being watched. Lightning flickered, giving her a glimpse into the gloom. Dozens of hostile faces glowered at her from the decorative pumpkins around the room. She swallowed and took a deep breath but found it impossible to smile at her own imagination.
She spotted movement near the west wall.
Not bothering to call out again, Echo raced in that direction only to be disappointed. She was alone. Her sole light flickered and she sheltered it with a protective hand. About to turn away, she realized a draft was responsible for the dancing flame. She was across from the terrace doors. So where was the moving air coming from?
She knew before she could see. The imbalance of air pressure was familiar. Drawing closer to the wall, she spotted the crack in the fancy paneling. Heart in her throat, she turned in a circle, holding out the candle to make certain no one waited to overpower her. Still alone. Back at the wall, she pushed with her free hand. The paneling swung inward smoothly and silently, revealing a small landing and stairs leading down to the lower level.
Excitement shot through her. A hidden staircase in the ballroom. No wonder Priscilla Courtland’s jewels had vanished so quickly and thoroughly. While the lights were still out, the thief must have used this stairwell. Odd that the newspaper accounts hadn’t mentioned it. And she wondered why Bram hadn’t told her about it, either. Perhaps he had just discovered it for himself.
Suddenly afraid— for what if the villain who’d tried to run her down waited for Bram?— she knew she couldn’t leave him to fate. Quickly ripping the top off one of the pumpkins on a nearby table, she wedged the thick skin in the hinged side of the door to prevent it from locking behind her.
And down she plunged into a different kind of dark. Clammy. Spooky. Nearly airless.
At the bottom of the stairs, the cement was cold beneath her bare feet, but Echo was too busy taking in her surroundings to be concerned. She was standing in a wine cellar she had never before seen. No one had ever mentioned its existence, either. And as far as she could see, there was no conventional door.
One of the secret rooms...
Tingling with excitement, she held out her light to look around, but still no Bram. He had to be somewhere. He couldn’t have disappeared into thin air. Not like the time she’d followed him to the coal bin.
She fought the urge to panic, the desire to run right back up those stairs and not stop until she reached the safety of her own room.
She would be all right.
Afraid to make any noise, Echo remained silent and slipped between racks of bottles thick with years of dust. Everything looked abandoned, as if the racks had not been touched for decades. Three decades to be exact.
And then she reached the back wall and checked the racks, one edge of which seemed cleaner than the rest. She ran a hand along the vertical surface. Felt a change of air pressure. A tiny draft. An opening on the other side. She pushed. Pulled. Tugged. Finally, the rack slid on concealed tracks to reveal another opening.
Her stomach tightened and her breath caught in her chest at the thought of crossing that new and dangerous-looking threshold. Then, again, how could she not? She had to find Bram, and where else could he have gone? Her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow, her feet so cold they would hardly move. But move them toward the opening she did, all the while keeping a vigilant eye for anything else out of place.
No more nasty surprises for her.
The carpeting under the soles of her feet offered a welcome surprise, though, as she stepped inside off the icy cement. The room itself was nothing she might have expected. Her hand-held candle revealed a study patterned after the library upstairs. No fireplace or windows, of course. No matching high-backed leather chairs. But the shelves looked the same if less numerous and less filled with books, and the desk with its green glass and brass lamp seemed nearly identical.
Though she wondered how in the world Bram could have vanished on her again, that the room was empty and unthreatening steadied her pulse. That it was virtually dust free unlike the wine cellar told her someone must be using it on a regular basis. She set the candle down on the desk. Someone who lived in this house used it.
But who?
And to serve what purpose?
Distracted by her musings, she was oblivious of any danger until she heard the soft shush of wheels on well-oiled tracks. Spinning around, she faced a moving wall of books. The opening she’d come through was narrowing fast.
Her escape hatch!
“No!” she yelled, her hand knocking into the candle in her rush to save the opening. “Don’t!”
Too late. The wall whispered shut and the soft click of metal on metal had the ring of finality. A hiss and a sputter made her whip around to see the flame of her candle drown in a pool of melted wax.
She was well and truly trapped.
Turning back to the panel, she hammered the bookcase with the flat of her hands. “Let me out of here!”
No one would find her here, not even Bram, for he had never come across the blueprints. Undoubtedly only one person knew how to access this room. The one who’d trapped her. Not Bram. Not after he’d held her so tenderly the whole night long.
The inky blackness cloaked her, threatened to smother her as the certainty of being locked away for good hit home. Her head grew light and her stomach threatened to empty.
She knew what Mama must have felt like in her deepest, darkest moments of despair.
Echo had always known she was like her mother. Her whole life long she’d felt the connection, the bond of inherited genes that hadn’t been quite right, no matter what Izzy said. She’d been too close to Mama to escape her fate. That’s why she’d never gotten involved with anyone who could do this to her. Lock her away.
Because she’d known.
And the presence she’d felt several times in this house had confirmed her worst suspicions about herself.
The dark spun around her. Echo clung to awareness for all she was worth. But even as her anger grew, her conscious, rational mind slipped away from her, bit by bit. Fate was not merciful. No surprise there. The surprise was how she’d been able to avoid it for so long.
Giving into her rage, Echo vented her frustration with what she could not control into one, explosive, ear-piercing shriek of defiance.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
UNABLE TO AVOID doing so any longer, Bram opened the door. Having barely put a foot in the attic, he heard something odd, something akin to a distant if blood-curdling scream under the rumble of thunder. For a moment, he stood unmoving and listened intently. No repeat of the odd sound that had raised the flesh on his arms. He couldn’t even say if the cry had been real or remembered.
To remember. That’s why he was here.
Finally, he’d dared to broach the last bastion of Dunescape Cottage that might hold the key to his past. He’d been avoiding facing the attic. Yes, he’d been afraid, not only of what he might remember,. but of what he might not.
If this didn’t work, he had nothing left.
He flashed his battery-operated torch around the room, saw the useless bare bulb on a wire swaying with the drafts. A sensation along the back of his neck made him swipe his palm across the flesh. The same feeling plagued him as did in the library. That he wasn’t alone.
“If that’s you, Father, help me find the truth.”
The words were out of his mouth before he had time to think. Asking help from a ghost— he was getting as bad as Aunt Addy.
Or maybe as enlightened.
He took a better look at his surroundings. The attic was a single large room that from the outside, seem to balance precariously on barely a fourth of the main house below and added to the building’s oddly distinctive silhouette. He inspec
ted the room. Unchanged. All of it. He might have been cast back thirty years, for he could see no discernable differences.
Boxes stacked in neglected piles. Metal air-shafts half concealed by discarded furniture shrouded in sheets. A threadbare cot.
Voices had awakened him from his slumber in that cot...
What the hell are you doing here?
Bram started. Let the memory flow.
I would think that’s obvious.
Obvious that you’re a thief.
What do you propose to do about it?
Turn you in...
The voice faded. Bram closed his eyes and concentrated, but all he got for his increased effort was the start of a nasty headache.
“Damn!”
Gone. Even so, his hope was renewed. Usually his memories came in disjointed fragments. He hadn’t heard the thief bit before. If only he could distinguish voices. But he’d had them all confused at the age of seven, so they weren’t about to sort themselves out now.
“‘Obvious that you’re a thief,’” he murmured to himself.
A reference to the villain who’d stolen Priscilla Courtland’s jewels. So the thief had been caught. By whom? Bram had a preferred answer, of course. He wanted his father to be the good guy. If so, what had the thief done about it? Murder?
He had the oddest conviction that he’d hit on the correct answer. He felt encouraged, as if some unseen force approved and was compelling him to dig further.
Dodging furniture and a rolled up carpet, he criss-crossed to the window where the slatted shutter now sat crookedly on its hinges. When he swung it open, the wood collapsed further. No sense in leaving it this way. He tore what was left of the shutter free and threw it to the floor, then stared out the window directly onto the terrace.
A sweep to the left was in the direction of the Ferguson property now impossible to discern. And in between, the little he could see of the boathouse. For a second or two, ghostly figures seemed to dance around the entrance before vanishing completely.
Imagination or memory?
His head began to throb, but he ignored it for the moment. He hadn’t been able to see well that night, either. Insidious fog rather than rain had shrouded the area. That much he was certain of. He stared. Focused. Couldn’t get a fix on any specific image.
DANGEROUS, Collection #1 Page 36
