The Kingdom tgqs-2

by Amanda Stevens

  Thane walked over to the window and stood over him. “You had my mother and then Harper murdered because they dared interfere with your grand plan.”

  Pell gave a dismissive wave. “Gutter trash, the pair of them.”

  Thane’s jaw clenched. “You dare say that to me?”

  Pell’s head jerked up. “How dare you take that tone with me? You’d be out on the streets if not for my kindness.”

  “Kindness? You killed my mother and my fiancée and you call it a kindness?”

  “Edward was better off without her. She kept him from his home and family for years. She made him hate me.”

  Thane’s expression was passive now, as if the old man’s rage had somehow calmed him. “That wasn’t her doing. That was all on you.” He leaned in, twisting the knife. “You should have heard the way Edward spoke your name… I’ve never heard such loathing.”

  “Shut up!” Pell screamed. “You shut your mouth, boy. What I give I can just as easily take away.”

  Thane straightened. “And you never let me forget it, did you? But if I was so inconsequential, so beneath the Asher name, why take Harper from me? Why did you care who I married?”

  Another indifferent wave. “That girl was nothing but trouble. She would have made your life miserable.”

  “So you had her killed?”

  Pell Asher paused, something sly fleeting across his face. “I never said that, did I? The girl’s still alive.”

  My gaze shifted to Thane and I saw his disbelief a split second before an explosion of white-hot fury made me take a step toward him. Before I could reach him, he jerked the wheelchair around so that Pell had to face him. “What are you talking about? Answer me!”

  “You heard what I said. Harper Sweeney is still alive.”

  Thane reeled back as though he’d been struck. “You’re lying. Her body was identified. There was an autopsy, a funeral. She can’t be alive. Not after all this time. I would have known.”

  “You know nothing,” Pell said in disgust. “You accepted everything I told you without question. A real Asher would have insisted on seeing the body for himself.”

  Thane gazed down at his grandfather, breathing hard, hands balled into fists at his sides. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe any of this. You had her killed and now you’re trying to cover your tracks.”

  “She was no use to me dead, but alive…” Pell’s gaze slid to me.

  “You could use her for leverage,” I said.

  His eyes glinted approvingly.

  “Leverage for what?” Thane demanded.

  “To make you do whatever he wanted.” I stared down at my grandfather. “Isn’t that right?”

  His smile made my skin crawl.

  “We’re not your possessions,” I said angrily. “You can’t control what we do or how we think or who we choose to be with.”

  “I already have,” he said.

  “If she’s still alive, then where is she?” Thane asked quietly. The hush in his voice worried me more than his temper.

  “Someplace where you’ll never find her,” Pell said.

  “Where is she?” Before I could stop him, Thane lunged and grabbed his grandfather by the neck. Catrice screamed and I heard Hugh swear. He was suddenly at my side, trying to help me pry Thane from the old man’s throat.

  “Thane, stop it! Let him go!” I cried.

  It took a moment for my voice to penetrate, but then Thane’s hands dropped and he staggered back. His eyes were wild, almost demented.

  “Get him out of here!” Pell shouted, his hands clutching the arms of his wheelchair. “Leave now, all of you! I need a moment alone with my granddaughter.”

  “Like hell you do,” Thane said. He was gradually starting to regain control. “I’m getting Amelia out of here. This whole place is about to slide down the mountain.”

  “Asher House has stood on this land for over two hundred years,” Pell said imperiously. “And it’ll be here long after you and I are dead and gone. Now get out.”

  “It’s okay,” I said to Thane. “Let me talk to him.”

  After the others had gone, I stood in front of his chair. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of kneeling.

  “Where is she? You can’t keep him from her. You have to tell him,” I pleaded.

  “Are you that anxious to send him into the arms of another woman?”

  “I care about him. I want him to be happy.”

  He sneered. “How noble.”

  “Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve taken everything from him. Even his peace of mind. He’ll never stop looking for her.”

  “He won’t find her.”

  “Then why tell him at all? Just to torment him?”

  Pell reached for a book on the table beside him. It was the leather-bound volume he’d been holding the first night I met him. He traced the emblem on the cover with his fingertip. “I’ve watched the two of you together. The attraction is palpable. But you won’t let it happen, because you can’t let go of the past. You can’t forget about that Charleston cop.”

  I gasped. “How do you know about him?”

  “I know everything about you, my dear. I’ve kept track of your every move for years.” He handed me the book. “Take a look.”

  I thumbed through the pages in horror. He hadn’t been kidding. Every stage of my life had been meticulously photographed and cataloged. I saw pictures of me in Rosehill Cemetery. Pictures of me with Papa. Pictures of me with Devlin. I looked up, trembling.

  “You’re the last of the Ashers,” he said. “The bloodline depends on you.”

  “What does that have to do with Harper?”

  “You hold the key to her freedom.”

  I clutched the book. “What do you mean?”

  “On the day you produce my first grandchild, Harper Sweeney will be set free. Not a moment sooner.”

  I said on a ragged breath, “You make it sound as if you’re holding her somewhere, but I don’t believe you. You’re bluffing. Even you can’t be that unspeakably cruel.”

  “You said yourself that you care about Thane. You want only his happiness. Or were those words empty?” he taunted.

  “You think you can play God with people’s lives, but you’re wrong.”

  “We’re Ashers,” he said. “Here, we are God. We’ve always been one with this land. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve felt it. It’s already there inside you. Accept it.”

  “Like you did? Like Luna did?”

  “Luna.” He all but spat her name. “Good riddance, I say. The other two parasites can meet her in hell for all I care. But you…” His hand reached out to grip my arm. I tried to move away, but his grasp tightened until I could feel the pressure of his bony fingers through my wet sleeve. “You have more power than the lot of them. You have the chance to start a new dynasty.”

  I wrenched away. “No, thanks.”

  His eyes hardened. “The legacy won’t end with you, girl. Your children and your grandchildren will be Ashers. They’ll be drawn to this place just as you are. They’ll be connected by blood and by land just as you are. They’ll feel it in the wind as Ashers have for generations. And one of them will embrace it.”

  I shivered. “And if I don’t have children?”

  “You must, for Thane’s sake and for Harper’s. And for your own. It’s your destiny.”

  Thane appeared in the doorway. “We have to go.”

  I looked down at Pell Asher.

  Silently, he turned back to the window.

  * * *

  Thane brought around the four-wheel drive, and I climbed in beside him. We both turned to stare at the façade of the house, and my gaze lifted to the upper balcony where I had seen Pell Asher staring down at us the night Thane kissed me. He had known who I was even then. He must have been so pleased that his plan appeared to be working.

  I clutched the book to my chest. “What about the others?” I asked.

  “It’s their choice,” he said. �
��Stay here or face the police.”

  “That’s not much of a choice.”

  “It’s more than they deserve.”

  And no sooner had he said the words than the power line running into the house snapped, and the live wire danced across the wet pavement in front of us. A moment later, the windows in the house exploded.

  The hillside gave way beneath us. The truck shifted sideways, and I gripped the seat in terror as Thane fought the wheel and we thundered down the drive. I glanced back just as the house separated from the foundation and started to slide.

  “Thane…”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. “I see it.”

  “Can you go faster?”

  I knew we could outrun the house. That wasn’t the problem. It was the idea of that house—of Pell Asher—pursuing us down the hill.

  “Hold on!” Thane yelled a split second before we slammed into a boulder that had landed in the road in front of us. I flew toward the windshield only to be yanked back painfully by the seat belt.

  Thane reached for the ignition and tried to restart the vehicle. It wouldn’t turn over.

  The house loomed behind us.

  “Oh, God…”

  “Jump!”

  We bolted from the vehicle and scrambled across the wet hillside. By the time we reached the creek, the rushing water had flooded the footbridge. The flimsy structure swayed and creaked, and the water sucked at our feet. I clung to the guardrail—and Grandfather’s book—and didn’t draw a breath until we were all the way across.

  And then we turned in unison to watch Asher House collapse at the bottom of the hill.

  Thirty-Nine

  Hours later, Thane, Tilly and I stepped from police headquarters into a glistening, deserted town. We’d been there for hours answering questions and giving statements to the two state police detectives who had commandeered Wayne Van Zandt’s office. Wayne had gone off to join the search-and-rescue team, but not before I’d noted a satisfied gleam in his eyes when he’d heard about Luna. I wondered if we’d ever know the truth about what had happened to him at the falls. Maybe his amnesia was a blessing.

  Thane had been questioned first, and while Tilly and I waited, she cleaned up my scratches and doctored the superficial cut on my back with antiseptic she’d plundered from a first-aid kit. I asked her about my mother as she worked. She reminisced softly, and I could see Freya clearly in my mind, so lonely and tragic and desperate to fit in. A girl who had once found solace in a graveyard.

  “What about Edward?” I asked.

  “I won’t talk about him,” Tilly said.

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe he didn’t have a hand in what happened to my girl, but he didn’t do anything to help her, either.”

  “I think he must have been a weak man,” I said. “And probably terrified of his father.” And of the evil, perhaps.

  “That don’t make it right.”

  “I know.” But a part of me wanted to believe there’d been some good in my birth father. I didn’t want to think of Pell as my only Asher legacy.

  Tilly put her gloved hand on my shoulder. “Don’t dwell, girl.”

  “I won’t.”

  But, of course, I would. How could I not?

  “Did you know that Luna was the killer?” I asked Tilly.

  “I knew they were all involved, but she’s the only one I dreamed about.”

  “But you kept it to yourself. All these years you knew…”

  “I had no proof. And besides…I didn’t want anyone finding out about you.”

  “You burned your hands to keep me safe.”

  “I did what I had to do.” She closed the first-aid kit and set it aside. “I’ll give you some remedy when we get home,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  She sat down beside me.

  “Why did you take the necklace off Luna’s body?” I asked.

  “It had a drude’s foot on the back,” she said. “I meant to destroy it.”

  “Like the one on the cliff?” I asked anxiously. “It had an open point?”

  She nodded.

  “There’s another one at the library. Sidra showed it to me.”

  “Tell me where it is.”

  I glanced at her suspiciously. “Why?”

  She clasped her gloved hands in her lap. “You ask too many questions.”

  * * *

  After we dropped Tilly at her house, Thane and I sat out on the back steps of the Covey house for a while. It was a quiet night now that the rain had stopped. There was no mist to speak of. No hovering ghosts. Just moonlight dancing on the lake and sparkling from the wet treetops.

  “How can the night be so beautiful after everything that’s happened?” I asked in wonder.

  “Maybe it’s over,” Thane said. “Grandfather is dead. Luna’s dead. Hugh, Catrice, Bryn…they’re all gone. Maybe they took the evil with them.”

  I very much wanted to believe that, but living with ghosts had made me cautious.

  Still, the air had a lightness I hadn’t noticed before. The breeze felt different, too. Soft and cool and fragrant.

  A shadow intruded. “I’m worried about Sidra. She shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

  “She’s with Ivy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “One of the detectives mentioned it.”

  “Because you were worried about her, too,” I said.

  He shrugged. “She’s just a kid. It’s hard losing your mother.”

  Even a mother who had been dead when you were born, I thought. But I was lucky because I still had Mama.

  “What will you do now?” I asked Thane. “You don’t even have a house to go home to.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll make do.”

  “You can always sleep here if you need to.”

  He stared down at me for a moment, and I wondered what he was thinking. “Thanks.”

  I looked up at the mountains, where starlight glittered over the peaks. Something unspoken lay between us. We hadn’t yet had a chance to talk about Pell’s revelation. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

  “About Harper? I don’t know. I’m almost afraid to believe.”

  “He can’t be holding her somewhere against her will,” I said. “Not after all this time. Even Pell Asher couldn’t get away with that.”

  “There’s an alternative. It’s possible she left on her own.” He paused. “Whatever the reason, if she is alive, I have to find her.”

  “I know.”

  “But it doesn’t change how I feel about you,” he said quietly.

  “It will, though. Eventually, it would have to.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t even know where to start looking. Asher House is gone and with it whatever clues Grandfather might have kept there.”

  I took his hand in mine. “Then sift through the rubble. Do whatever you have to do, Thane. Just find her.”

  I thought of everything Pell had told me earlier, but I wasn’t yet ready to share that conversation with Thane. Pell’s machinations only complicated matters.

  “Someone else must know,” I said. “He didn’t engineer that accident alone. He paid people off…the cops, the coroner, maybe even his attorney. You have the Asher fortune behind you now. You can make them talk.”

  Thane shrugged. “Who knows what provisions Grandfather made in his will? Besides, you’re the true Asher. You have a legal claim to the estate.”

  “It’s yours. I don’t want any part of it. This place…” I trailed off on a shiver. “Better you have Pell’s legacy than me.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Maybe you can do some good here.”

  I saw the ghost of a smile. “Restore it, you mean.”

  I looked out over the lake where a mist had started to rise. “If it’s not too late.”

  “It’s never too late,” he said, and kissed me.

  * * *

  I didn’t expect to rest at all that night, but it wa
s one of those times when the body ignored the mind and I drifted off quickly. Thane had left some time ago to join the search-and-rescue team. I’d made him promise to come back when he needed to sleep, though.

  I don’t know how long I’d been out when I heard Angus get up and trot into the hallway. I had no idea of the time, but moonlight still shimmered through the bedroom window. I lay very still, listening to the quiet, until Angus whined to go out.

  “Seriously? This time of night?” I muttered.

  He whimpered again, and I dragged myself out of bed, slipping a sweater over my nightgown as I padded down the darkened hallway and into the kitchen where he stood waiting at the back door.

  I peeked out the window. There was mist on the lake, but no ghosts.

  Pulling my sweater around me, I crossed the porch and pushed open the screen door, then followed Angus down the steps. He ran to the edge of the woods and barked excitedly as if he’d treed something in the shadows.

  “What’s out there?” I asked with a shiver.

  He ignored me, but I knew he hadn’t gone far. I could still hear him barking. Then I could have sworn I heard a voice and a moment later Angus fell silent.

  Alarmed, I started toward the woods only to freeze when I saw a shadow emerge. I thought it was Sidra at first. She wore a dark hoodie pulled low over her face and I called out to her before I realized that the silhouette was too tall for Sidra.

  “Ivy?”

  She pushed back the hood and let her dark hair fall around her shoulders as she crossed the yard to the porch.

  Instinctively, I backed toward the steps even though I had no reason to fear her. “Where’s Sidra?”

  “How should I know?” she said sullenly, but there was an edge of excitement in her voice that worried me.

  “Isn’t she spending the night with you?”

  “Then I guess she’s home asleep.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked in confusion.

  “I came to see Thane.”

  Now I felt a trickle of real fear between my shoulder blades as she moved in closer and everything Thane had said about her came rushing back. There’ve been some incidents.

  “He’s not here,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

  “I know. I watched him leave.”