by Adrianne Lee
Chris frowned, finally putting it together. “You think what we just saw was someone wearing this gown?”
“Well, obviously not this gown,” she spat out. “So, there must be another one.”
“Are you saying Dorothea is ‘haunting’ the mansion as another publicity stunt?”
Although Nikki had entertained that possibility, now she wondered. “Who would Dorothea hope to impress by doing that?”
The question brought his eyebrows down low. “How the hell should I know? Lorah. Mr. Sands. You.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “To justify the séance.
“I suppose it’s possible.” But it didn’t add up. She frowned at Chris. “It doesn’t explain that business with the actors.”
“What are you talking about? What business? I thought they were just delayed.”
“No.” She blew out a loud breath and cinched the belt of her robe tighter, drawing his attention to her waist. “Didn’t you hear? Someone claiming to be Dorothea called the actors’ agents and canceled this booking.”
“Dorothea wouldn’t do that.” He shook his head. “She and Liv have worked months on that skit.”
“Exactly.”
“Then who?” His handsome features twisted with disbelief. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” Nikki glanced toward the windows, having the sense that their two reflections were more real at this moment, in this unreal situation, than either Chris or herself. “It has to be someone with a reason we haven’t considered.”
“What kind of reason?”
“I’m not sure.” A possibility had been flitting through her mind most of the afternoon. She grabbed hold of it now. “You said something the night I arrived about someone sabotaging your grand opening. Is there actually someone who wants you and your sister to fail with this bed and breakfast?”
Chris laughed as though he thought the idea absurd.
“I know I said that, but—” He broke off. But what? He remembered the sensation that someone or something was causing all the mishaps, trying to sabotage the grand opening. But he had decided he was overreacting, letting his nerves about this risky new venture stir crazy ideas. Someone canceling the actors booked for Liv’s skit wasn’t his nerves. What the hell was going on? Did someone really want Olivia and him to fail? If so, why? And what might that do to Liv’s recovery? Her stability?
“Is there someone?” Nikki asked again.
He shook his head, but like a whirlwind lifting rocks to release the slimy, slithery vermin beneath, his mind churned, considering one possibility, then another. No one hated Olivia enough to destroy her. Not even his enemies would be that vindictive. “We all step on a few toes in our lives, but I can’t come up with one person in my past who’d be so incensed with either Liv or me that they’d sneak in here and screw with the plumbing and some of the wiring.”
“Or play ghost.” She had her hands on her hips, her sweet, lean hips.
He cleared his throat. “It suggests an inside job, doesn’t it?”
She nodded. “Maybe we won’t know why until we find out who.”
“Then who? Surely not Rameriz.”
“No, he wouldn’t have called the actors’ agents.”
He narrowed his eyes. “That eliminates Dorothea, too.”
“It has to.” Nikki concurred, accepting that fact. “She could have made a second wedding dress, and she might parade around the house as a ghost, but as you’ve pointed out, she wouldn’t risk her skit. Especially since she had no reason to believe you or I would step forward and fill in if she terminated the actors.”
“Damn straight.” He nodded and blew out a hard breath. “I don’t want anything to do with it. Don’t know why in hell I agreed...”
Her anger and her pride twisted together in one big knot in her chest. She squared her shoulders. “The only reason I offered to help was because I thought you’d never agree to it.”
His glance, warm and dark and richly brown, swept lazily over her, heating her from her toes to her cheeks and every intimate spot in between. Damn this man. She wrenched her gaze from his. “But mostly, I wanted to find out whether or not she dropped that damned chisel.”
She spun around and stared at the desk. Then attacked the drawers like a mad woman.
Chris watched her searching, but made no move to help. He couldn’t trust himself near her. “I know you said you prefer swimming at night, but why did you risk it tonight after the frights you’ve had today?”
“I told you before—I don’t scare easily.” She didn’t look up, just kept digging through the drawers. She found sewing accessories, a couple of People Weekly magazines, and an opened bottle of vodka. But no chisel. She banged the drawer shut, glanced at him and made a face. “It isn’t here.”
He hadn’t moved, still stood near the door. It struck her suddenly that he seemed to be keeping his distance on purpose. He said, “She could have taken it home.”
“I don’t think she dropped it.”
“Yeah, I agree.” He shoved at a wayward lock of his hair, still uncombed since his ride in the convertible. The windblown look gave him a rakish appeal. He shifted his weight to his other foot. “So, we’ve eliminated Rameriz and Dorothea Miller, and that leaves...?”
“The other household staff—” she gathered a steadying breath “—the guests, and us.”
“Us?” He glared at her. “Neither one of us just played ghost.”
He was right. They, too, were eliminated from suspicion. An awful thought sent a shiver through her. “If neither Dorothea nor Jorge dropped that chisel on me, then someone else did. Someone who meant to hurt me. Perhaps kill me.”
At the thought, Nikki’s knees buckled.
Chris did move then. He rushed to her and caught hold of her, gently gripping her arms, speaking low, with tenderness. “It’s imperative we find out who’s doing these things before there’s another attempt to harm you. Have you a history with any of our suspects?”
“I didn’t know any of you until I arrived here. But someone knew about me.”
His face grew instantly dark. “Are you implying Liv—”
“Oh, no.” She hastened to assure him. “I guess I have a confession to make.”
He sat her down in Dorothea’s chair, then hitched his hip onto the edge of the desk. “Confess away.”
She glanced at her clenched hands, then up into his warm chocolate eyes that darkened to coffee as she told him about receiving the anonymous note. “The ironic thing is that it’s what gave me the idea to do a book on bed and breakfasts.”
He tipped his head, his gaze intense. “What ‘answers’ are you seeking here?”
She swallowed hard. “I’m trying to find my father. I’ve been trying for many years, and have visited lots of places looking for clues to his identity. I had no idea what I’d find here, if anything. But I had to try.”
His eyes narrowed. “How would someone have known you were looking for your father?”
“It’s not a secret.” She crossed her legs, inadvertently hiking the robe higher on her bare thighs. She tugged the hem. The simple action snared his gaze, and he swallowed as though an orange were lodged against his Adam’s apple. She felt a knot in her own throat. “I may have mentioned it in an interview or two.”
Nikki had long held the belief that telling as many people as possible about her search might bring her the right lead to identifying her dad.
Chris sighed. “But the note doesn’t mention your father.”
“I didn’t think of that until after I was here.” She licked her lips. “I guess someone who’d seen Theresa’s portrait and a photograph of me sent the note.”
He ran his hand over his hair, mussing it worse. “Why would anyone care about you looking like Theresa?”
“I don’t know. Why would someone try to kill me? Like the ghost, I think we’re going to have to find out who before we discover why.”
THEY’D MADE A PACT—more like an uneasy pa
rtnership, if she were honest—to work together to unmask the culprit behind the note, the attempt on her life and the ghostly vision they’d seen. She could tell he hadn’t liked the thought of the extra time this meant they’d have to spend with each other any better than she did. But at the moment, this devil of a man was the only one she halfway trusted at Wedding House.
He had locked the ballroom, then gone down and put the Jaguar away. She’d headed upstairs, dried her hair and dropped into bed. But sleep wouldn’t come. Her nerves were still as tight as cornrow braids.
She’d listened to Chris in the shower, and resented the way the images of him climbed inside her mind, disrupting her attention to her goals, her resolve to find her family. She had no time for wasting romantic thoughts on a man who wanted to do nothing more than toy with her feelings and emotions.
Besides, she had bigger worries to contend with. Like someone wanting her dead.
Maybe they just wanted her to leave. She punched her pillow. A part of her feared her unknown nemesis enough to actually pack and go first thing in the morning. A larger part of her would be damned if someone was going to drive her away before she’d discovered the bride’s secret and what it meant to her own heritage.
MORNING CAME TOO QUICKLY, and with it, a nasty thunderstorm. Nikki settled for coffee and a piece of toast, eating in the TV room as she downloaded her e-mail. Two messages were from sources she’d been expecting. Her heart raced as she opened the first and read with speed, then disappointment. Jellybean, the Internet name used by her contact Jill Beane, was out of town and would do what she could with the information Nikki had sent yesterday and get back to her as soon as there was anything to report.
The second, Zeus the Moose, had found families with the surname of Aznar in Southern California, South Texas and Northern Arizona. Theresa was a common first name for the women in the family. He needed something more to help him narrow the field
She typed her responses, supplying both of her sources with a couple more details, then sent the messages, feeling encouraged, but still experiencing that edgy impatience.
As she ascended to the third floor, she heard Dorothea’s voice in the foyer decrying the pouring rain. A flash of lighting lit the sky near the window over Nikki’s head. She cringed. The day and the skit director had her wanting to retreat to her room and hide out. Hugging the wall so as not to be seen from the floor below, she sprinted upstairs and ducked into the library. She glanced at her watch. Dorothea would be in the ballroom within minutes. Then she could make it back to her room undetected.
Rain drove against the windows, clinking like a million tiny claws. She shook off the unpleasant image and wandered to the farthest wall. Standing with her laptop cradled in her arms, she absentmindedly scanned the bookshelf. Funny, she mused, the book spines facing her were mostly of the same width and height, as though someone had chosen them for that reason instead of for the contents of the books themselves. Luis De Vega’s idea of the well-stocked library?
She braced her hand on the molding that ran vertically down the side of the bookshelf. The molding gave beneath her palm. Nikki jerked, but couldn’t stop the piece of wood from moving. It slid to one side, revealing a narrow slot. Something was tucked inside the aperture. A thin book, the cover grayed as if from age. Gingerly she freed the book. Across the cover in faded gold lettering was the word “Diary.”
With her pulse leaping in her throat, she closed the hiding place, set her laptop on one of the tables, sank into a reading chair and flipped the book open.
On the inside cover someone had scrawled the name Theresa Delores Maria Aznar De Vega. More information for Zeus. Nikki’s heart kicked excitedly. And most important, she may have found the key to everything. She caught hold of the first page, the storm and her dread of Dorothea forgotten.
“Good morning, Ms. Navarro.” Diego Sands appeared in the library doorway.
Nikki flinched. Her head jerked up as though he’d yanked her hair. She closed the book, crossed her arms over her lap, hiding the diary from view as if she were a teenage boy caught reading pornography. She smiled self-consciously. “Good morning.”
He wore a soft gray suit that accentuated the silver at his temples and complemented his dark complexion, his jet black eyes. Although he wore no tie, the tiny red hankie in his breast pocket surprised Nikki. It said this man was not all business, as she’d assumed since meeting him.
Under other circumstances, she’d have been delighted at the chance to finally have Diego alone, to finally be able to question him. But why had he shown up just as she’d discovered Theresa’s diary? And what had he been doing before he appeared in the doorway? She’d swear he hadn’t come up the stairs, but down the hall from the direction of the master suite. Had he been looking at the portrait? Remembering an old friend?
Thunder rumbled nearby, raising goose bumps on her flesh.
“Am I interrupting your work?” he asked, hesitantly taking a step into the room.
“No.” She slid the book across her thighs and down the inside of the chair, poking it deep under the cushion. “I’m contemplating what I want to say about this charming room. How to describe its unique appeal and not make it sound like every other library in every other old house.”
“For your book?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure I’m including Wedding House in the book yet. It’s the first bed and breakfast I’ve visited of twenty possibilities.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, come now. You can’t possibly not realize your resemblance to the portrait is a great gimmick for selling a book.”
She smiled for real at this. “I’ll admit it crossed my mind.”
“Of course it has.” He smiled broadly and moved closer.
She wiped her damp hands on her pant legs. The rain grew softer. “Actually, I was hoping to have a chance to speak to you.”
“About?” His eyebrows lifted
“About Theresa Aznar. How you knew her. Where you knew her.”
He studied Nikki a long moment “Are you inquiring as a family member or simply from curiosity?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer. Or why he was being evasive. “I’m curious.”
Her response seemed to disappoint him. He gathered a breath that lifted his chest as though some heavy weight pressed it. “I guess you could say we had a past”
A romantic past? Before Luis and Theresa? “Here or somewhere else?”
“Here, there, what does it matter?” His strong features locked, and pain passed through his dark eyes. She’d obviously touched a nerve. One he didn’t want touched again. Why? After all, it had been twenty odd years, and he’d brought up the subject originally, not Nikki.
She decided on another tack. “What were you doing in the master suite just now?”
The question surprised him. She saw it in the slight lift of one brow, but he recovered with the ease of someone seldom caught off guard. “I was—”
He broke off and shifted toward the landing. Voices were rising from the staircase. Nikki followed his gaze, hearing first Lorah’s jangling charm bracelet, tinkling like a metal wind chime, then glimpsing Marti’s thick vanilla tresses and her signature purple outfit
She was surprised to see Marti with the psychic, after the way Lorah had upset her last night The two women quit conversing the moment they spotted Nikki and Diego. They all stared at one another like four leery big-city strangers boarding a late-night bus.
Marti clutched her mauve journal to her chest. She was the first to break the stilted silence. “Holy Joe, have we interrupted a serious tête-à-tête?”
“Don’t be silly,” Nikki protested. heat brushing her cheeks. She rose from the chair, shoving herself up by the armrests. She wanted nothing more than to snatch the diary from its hiding place and scurry off to her room to read it. She dared not even glance toward it. “I asked Mr. Sands whether he’d seen the books you donated to this library the other night I was hoping to read one of them, but haven’t been able to
find a single lavender book cover on these shelves.”
Nikki felt a zip of satisfaction at the color sprouting on the mystery writer’s face. So, Marti had lied about donating the books. Why? When looking for something to read was a much more logical, believable excuse for being in the library late at night? What had she been doing that evening? Nikki’s mouth dried. Had Marti been looking for Theresa’s diary?
The desperation to snatch it from its hiding place twisted Nikki’s stomach. She forced herself to keep a calm expression. She retrieved her laptop, hoping against hope that the diary would go undetected until she could return for it.
“No offense meant, Ms. Wolf,” Diego said. “But I told Ms. Navarro that I don’t read mysteries.”
Nikki was grateful that he’d gone along with her lie, but she’d known instinctively that he would. He hadn’t liked her questioning him about Theresa; he would appreciate less the conversation being repeated, perhaps dissected.
Lorah clapped her hands, a short, sharp, attention-grabbing gesture, punctuated by the jangle of charms. Everyone glanced at her, which was obviously what she’d intended.
“Ms. Wolf and I were chatting about the ghost,” Lorah stated haughtily, her translucent green eyes seeming to take them all in at once. “She was afoot last eve.”
The reminder of her encounter with the “ghost” spiked Nikki’s blood pressure. She gave a caustic laugh, striding past Diego to the two women. “Is that why you’ve come to the third floor—to try and rouse Theresa’s spirit?”
Marti hid a smile behind her hand, but couldn’t keep it from her shrewd hazel eyes. “Nope. We’re going to scope out the master suite.”
“I’d have thought by now you’d have ‘scoped’ it from top to bottom.” Nikki stepped into the hall.
Olivia trudged to the landing, dressed as usual in black, her hair swept severely off her face. Her dark eyes gleamed and color stood out on her normally pasty cheeks. From the climb, or expectation? Nikki couldn’t tell, but she detected an aura of anticipation issuing from Chris’s sister.
