by Hanna Peach
Later, I am woken up by a noise. When I peek over, Caden is climbing out of bed and creeping towards the door to his bedroom. He’s sneaking out. Where is he going?
He closes the door behind him with a click. I jump out of bed, grabbing the dressing gown that’s hanging over the back over the chair and tie it over my naked body.
Despite the advances Caden and I have made in our relationship over the last forty-eight hours, old habits die hard. I know he’s still keeping things from me. I want to know where he’s going at this time of the night.
I turn the handle and peek out of the door. I can see his silhouette striding down the hallway away from me. I slip out of his bedroom, leaving the door open a crack behind me. I slide along the wall, crouched over, barefoot and walking as lightly as I can on the hallway carpet, one eye on Caden’s retreating figure, one eye on the side tables and display cases along the hall waiting to trip me up. Up ahead he reaches the end of the corridor where it splits into two arms. As he turns the corner he turns his head back. I duck down behind a side table, holding my breath and hoping he didn’t see me.
After a few seconds I peer out but he’s already gone. I slip out from my hiding spot and run lightly to the end of the corridor. Everything in this large house is deathly quiet except for the thud of my heartbeat and my unsteady breathing.
At the corner, I peer round just in time to see him disappear into a room. It’s his office. He’s going into his office.
My curiosity tugs me along the hallway to his office door, a strip of light shining from underneath. I look down to the keyhole, but unfortunately it’s not one I can peek through. I settle for pressing my ear to the door. I hold my breath, straining to hear what Caden is doing inside.
The door opens and I fall through. Caden grabs me by the arm to stop me from falling. Or to stop me from running.
Shit. He’s staring down at me and I can’t read the expression on his face. Quick, say something. “Um, hi.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Following me?”
“I wasn’t following you I, um, was just passing by on my way to… water I was going to get water and…”
He doesn’t believe me. I can tell by the look on his face. He stares at me for a moment as if deciding what punishment should befit my crime. Then he sighs. “You going to come in or not?”
“Really?”
He gives me a half smile. “There are things about me I haven’t told you. Yet. But I don’t want to hide anything from you. Not anymore.”
He’s finally letting me in. I can’t help the smile on my face. “Okay. Let me come in.”
I frown when he doesn’t move from the door. “I just need to warn you.”
“Warn me about what?”
“I don’t want you to freak out.”
“Why would I freak out?”
He shrugs. “This is all related to Jacob and the Tyrells. You just need to be prepared, okay?”
“Okay.”
He gives me a dubious look.
I tsk with impatience. “I won’t freak out, I promise.”
He sighs again. Then he steps aside and I walk in.
My senses go into overload. There’s so much going on in here that I’m not sure where to look.
On the far wall are TV monitors, each of them showing a different section of the mansion. On the desk in front of the monitors are two large computer screens and a keyboard and mouse. The rest of the walls are covered in maps, grainy pictures of faces, cars, planes and buildings, and curling pieces of yellow notepaper. Tables line one wall, and across them are piles of papers and documents and folders. On a section of one wall is a large whiteboard covered in photos of men, connected by lines and surrounded by names and notes. I recognize Jacob and his father and brother near the top. Then there’s me. Photos of me similar to the ones I found in his room take up another section. On another section of wall it looks like a timeline that snakes down from the top left to the bottom right marked with various colored pens.
I am stunned into silence as I spin round and round looking at this room. Everything starts to blur and I feel dizzy and I realize I’m not breathing. I stop spinning and inhale loudly. “Oh my God. What the hell is this?”
“I knew you’d freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“Class A freaking out.”
“Okay fine. I’m freaking out.” I turn to him and take another breath to try to steady myself. “What…? How…?” God, I don’t even know what I want to ask. This thing that Caden has with Jacob and the Tyrells… it’s an obsession.
“It’s not like I put all this up overnight.”
“No, you’ve been hunting him for three years. Three long years.”
He turns me gently with his hands on my shoulders. His eyes probe mine, begging me to understand. “Before you came along, finding and killing Jacob Tyrell was my only purpose. I had nothing else to live for. Until you… you gave me another reason to live. And a reason to live even after I find him and kill him.”
“What did he do to you?”
He pauses just a second too long. “This is… was… is my job. To catch this evil bastard.”
I shake my head and gaze across the walls of his obsession. I walk up to a section and brush my fingers over the pieces of paper like irregular scales of a fish. There is great passion here, great hate. A deep and burning anger. This isn’t just a “job”.
“No.” I turn back to him to gauge his reaction. “This looks… feels… personal.”
Caden turns away from me. He doesn’t answer, but I can tell that I’ve hit a nerve from the tension in his shoulders.
A terrible thought strikes me. What if he never catches Jacob? Will I spend the rest of our time together always coming in second? Will I have to watch him sneak out of our bed to hide in this room every night?
Or what if he catches Jacob and Jacob wins?
My heart drops to my stomach and I feel sick. This obsession could tear us apart. I can see it now… this vendetta, his obsessive hatred splashed across these walls, this obsession will be the end of us. The real end of us. Either he’ll die or we will.
I turn away from Caden so he can’t read the emotions that I’m sure are flashing across my face.
My eyes come to rest upon a calendar on the wall. It reminds me of my calendar that I used to keep track of my nightmares in. Except this one has one red circle mark. I step closer. The red-marked day is not in the past. It’s in two days’ time. I freeze as I eye the date. There’s something… familiar about that date… I remember…
That is the anniversary of my escaping police custody. In two days I’ll have been on the run for exactly three years.
Is this when he started his hunt? Did I have something to do with it?
“You should go back to bed,” Caden says.
“Only if you come with me.” I need to get him out of here. If I let him stay here I’ll lose him for the rest of the night.
“I’ll just be a short while.”
“Then I can wait.”
“Kitten, it’s three in the morning.”
“Exactly, Caden. It’s three in the morning. All of this can wait ‘til tomorrow.” I curl my fingers around his hands and wrist and give him a little tug. I have no chance of making him move unless he wants to. “Please?” I pull again as he looks down to me.
“Okay. Let’s go to bed.”
I force a smile to my face. I’ve won for now. But for how long?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The next night I wake from a noise again. At first I think he is sneaking out of bed again. But I can still feel his warm body behind me. As I lay in the dark of Caden’s bedroom, it takes me a second to realize why I woke. Caden is mumbling something.
I turn to face him. “What’s wrong?”
But his eyes are closed. He’s asleep. I go to brush his hair from his forehead, but his cry causes me to halt. “No, please.”
He’s having a nightmare. Should I wake him? “
Caden?” He doesn’t answer me. I can see his features are screwed up even in the dim morning light.
“Not her. Please, not her.” He thrashes, cries out again and the sound goes right through my heart like a lance. He sounds scared, helpless.
I sit up and lean over him. “Caden, wake up.”
I touch his cheek with my hand. His hand snatches out to grab my wrist and his eyes snap open. For a second he looks disorientated. His gaze flies around the room then finally settles on my face.
“It was just a nightmare. You’re okay.”
He inhales sharply and nods. But the raw pain on his face doesn’t fall away and he doesn’t loosen his grip on my wrist. God, he looks so hurt. “What can I do?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything. He pulls me down to lie on him and buries his face in my neck, my torso and legs sprawled out along his giant body. He breathes in deeply. Then, slowly, he lets the breath out and I feel him start to relax. There’s nothing I can do but to clutch at his head and lie there.
We’ve never lain like this before. It’s always me with my back to him, or him on top of me. I like the feel of his hard body underneath me. I like that I’m the one comforting him.
“What did you dream?” I ask between pressing little kisses along his neck.
I feel him tense. He doesn’t say anything.
So I decide to talk. “I have nightmares, too. After I left Jacob it used to be almost every night. Then over the last few years it’s settled down to two or three times a month. In the dream I can never see him, but I hear his voice. Sometimes he shoots at me with a gun. Sometimes I die. Every time, there’s blood.” There’s a long pause. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“I…” he pauses to clear his throat. “I dream about my family… about losing them. About how I should have saved them. Sometimes I try to. Sometimes I can’t move. Every time… I fail. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
I pull back to look at him. But he won’t meet my eye. “What if we just ran away? You and I. We could find a little cabin somewhere in the mountains. You always loved the mountains. We could forget about Jacob and go where he’ll never find us.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No. I have to finish this.”
“What if it never gets finished? What if you never find him?”
“I’ll find him. I’m close.”
“What if you do and he kills you?”
“I won’t die.”
“You might. If you keep chasing him. I might lose you.”
“You won’t lose me.”
I may already be losing you. “Please, just think about it. We could be happy, we could build a life somewhere else. Another country. Somewhere fresh. A new start. God, Wylie can come with us if you really want him to. Please. Jacob has already done enough damage to us both.”
His face hardens. “You want to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders? Jumping at noises and scared of shadows, huh? Is that what you want?”
“No, of course not, but−”
“Because that’s what will happen if we walk away now.” He grabs my face between my hands and forces me to look at him. The intensity is his eyes almost makes him look insane. My stomach tightens. “Jacob will never stop looking for you. If I don’t kill him first, he’ll take you away from me. And he’s not taking another goddamn thing away from me.”
I suck in a breath. What did he do to you, Caden? What did Jacob do to you?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next day is beautiful. There are blue skies and not a cloud in sight. I wander the grounds on Caden’s mansion, which happen to be extensive. In a corner of the overrun back gardens I find a bunch of beautiful white wild lilies. I think about the number of empty vases I’ve seen in the house and decide to pick some of the flowers.
Later I find a vase on one of the side tables of the dining room and set about arranging the lilies in them.
“Good God.” Wylie’s voice from behind me alerts me to the fact that he just entered the room.
“Hi, Wylie,” I call over my shoulder.
“You need to get those flowers out of here.”
I snap my head around. “What?”
Wylie strides to my side. His face is startled, concerned, and he looks worried. “Immediately, madam. You have to get rid of those flowers.”
“Why?”
He grabs the vase and pulls. The water sloshes around. I pull back. “What are you doing?”
“Before the master gets here and sees it.”
“Sees what?” Caden’s voice cuts through the air.
Wylie freezes. Then turns around. He stands with his back to the vase as if he’s trying to hide the flowers. Why would he be hiding flowers? “I’m sorry, sir. She didn’t know.”
I turn too. Caden strides across the room, his face like stone. He pushes Wylie out of the way to reveal the lilies. His face pales. What is going on?
“Get them out of here.” Caden spins on his heel and storms out of the room, ignoring my calls for him to stop.
Wylie places a hand on my arm. “It’s best if you just let him alone, madam. He’ll be okay again in a few days.”
“What the hell was that about?”
He shakes his head as he gathers up the flowers. “This isn’t a good time of year for him.”
* * *
I don’t see Caden for the rest of the day. I eat dinner by myself in the large dining room, wondering if I should apologize. Wondering if I should ask him why he can’t stand the sight of lilies.
The worry grows when Caden doesn’t come to bed that night. I stay up waiting for him until I can’t keep my eyes open. I wake several times during the night, but his side of the bed remains cold. Every time, my heart sinks lower and lower.
By the morning he still hasn’t appeared. It’s barely dawn when I dress in jeans and a black shirt. I walk the hallway to his office. I knock but there’s no answer. I knock again. “Caden?” Again no answer. I test the door. Finding it unlocked I walk in. He’s not here.
I frown and step in further, hoping that there might be some answer or clue as to where he’s gone. Where do I even start? For some reason my eyes find the calendar on the wall. The red mark. It’s today. And is it a coincidence that he’s disappeared?
I check the dining room and the library. But he’s not there either. I call the number of his most recent burn phone. But no one answers. It just rings out.
Maybe he slept in another room last night? As I rush through the mansion my stomach sinks with each step and every room that I enter. He’s not here.
Oh my God. A horrifying realization dawns on me and my chest closes so tightly around my heart it almost brings me to my knees. He’s gone after Jacob. He’s gone after Jacob and he’s not coming back alive.
“Caden’s gone.”
I startle Wylie in the kitchen as he’s brewing coffee. He’s still wearing his slippers, clothed in a flannel striped bathrobe and matching pajama bottoms.
“Madam?”
“He didn’t come to bed last night and I can’t find him. I’ve searched everywhere. I’m terrified that he’s gone after…” I don’t know how much Wylie knows… “After someone bad. We have to stop him before he gets himself killed.”
“I don’t think he’s gone, madam.” Wylie’s face becomes serious. “He always lets me know before he leaves the house.”
“He’s not answering his phone. We have to find some way of tracking it. I know there has to be a way.” Maybe Mick can help?
Wylie shakes his head. “He hasn’t left the property I can assure you.”
“So where is he?”
“It’s the anniversary today… He’s never been here before during the anniversary…”
“Anniversary of what?”
“I’m sorry, but it’s not my place to say. Don’t worry about it, madam. I’ll take care of it. Just go back to your room and stay there until I tell you.”
; “But−”
“Just do it. You don’t need to see this.”
I frown, but Wylie won’t answer any more questions. He just shoos me out of the kitchen.
What anniversary? What’s going on? Whatever it is, Wylie knows. Like hell I’m staying in my room.
After I leave the kitchen I don’t go back to my room as I was instructed. I hide behind a nearby corner. I follow silently as Wylie abandons his coffee and returns to his room. He reappears several minutes later, dressed hurriedly, his shirt askew, and he doesn’t have his usual jacket on. He strides through the mansion. It isn’t lost on me that I’m following someone yet again. Surely I’m getting good at this.
Despite my thudding heart and my head burning with questions, I remain patient on the surface. I creep along without making a sound and I’m careful not to leave my hiding place until I’m sure Wylie won’t suddenly stop and turn to catch me. As he walks I mentally map out where we are in the mansion.
He climbs the stairs to the second floor. His stride is hurried and purposeful, on the border of breaking into a jog. He’s in a rush. I can feel the anxiety rolling off him as he hurries through the mansion and it infects me with its jittery tension. My shoulders tighten to my ears. Where is he going? Where is Caden? And what did Wylie mean when he said he’d “take care of it”?
I peer around the corner. Wylie is moving towards Caden’s room. But Caden’s not there. Then I remember all the secret passageways and hidden rooms of this house, most of which I don’t know about. Caden must be in one of those secret spaces. But where? And why?
When Wylie walks past Caden’s bedroom door I frown. He’s not going to Caden’s bedroom. Where is he going then?
He goes all the way down the hall and stops at a closed door. I recognize this door. This is the locked room. Oh my God.
My breath catches. The locked room. What is this room? And is Caden inside?
Wylie tests the door. It’s still locked. He slides a hand in his pants pocket and pulls out a key. My eyes widen and my breath catches as Wylie slides the key in the lock and turns it. The door opens and Wylie steps in. For a moment I see the pale blue of the inside wall before Wylie shuts the door. I don’t hear it lock.
