Shaye sighed. “I can’t. I have work to do. My boss is a slave driver.”
Rayne laughed. “You can always take a break. You might actually have fun.”
“Fun with Jackass Jared?” Shaye retorted. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Ooh, a swear word from my sweet friend!”
Shaye shrugged. “I tell myself that ‘ass’ is in the Bible, so I embellish with ‘jack.’”
Rayne laughed as she laid her hand on Shaye’s arm. “Seriously, Shaye, I’ll be back soon. I just need to blow off some steam.”
Shaye took a deep breath.
“Come on, Shaye-No-Lay, don’t be a prude,” Jared interrupted, using the name he called her in high school.
“God, Jared. Are you still twelve? Lay off,” Rayne snapped.
Shaye shook her head. “It’s fine. He’s stunted, Rayne.”
Jared snorted. “You wish I was stunted.”
“That was a really good comeback, Jared.” Shaye gave him two thumbs up. “Do you even know what stunted means?” She pulled her headset off and looped it around her neck, drawing Rayne aside, further out of Jared’s earshot. “I don’t trust him, Rayne.”
Rayne smiled. “He’s harmless, Butter. You know that. He’s a blowhard—always has been. Even in high school.”
Shaye frowned. “He’s been accused of some pretty major stuff, Reggie.”
“Come on.” Rayne glanced to Jared. “Who would believe a wimp like him would actually be able to hurt anyone?”
“I just don’t have a good feeling about this,” Shaye said.
“It’s all good, Butter. Seriously. I just want time away from the crowds, you know? Be with a familiar face for a few hours?”
Shaye’s head whipped up. “I’m a familiar face.”
“A familiar but not so familiar face.”
Shaye’s hand flew to her heart. “You’re sick of me already? It’s only been ten years!”
Rayne wrinkled her nose. “You know what I mean.”
“I know it gets old, Reg. But I also know you have a hard time with not-so-immediate gratification.” Shaye sighed as she pulled out a stick of gum and offered a piece to Rayne. “I just don’t want you to do anything stupid.”
“Me? I’ve never made a bad decision in my life.” Rayne popped the gum in her mouth.
Shaye laughed as she shrugged the backpack she’d been lugging around all night from her shoulders. “Okay. Here’s your bag with your cell phone and clothes. Go have fun. Just be careful.”
“Yes, Mom.” Rayne hugged Shaye and then let Jared lead her away from the crowd and into his car.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Jared started the car. “To a private place close by. You’ll love it.”
The farther Jared drove from the concert venue, the more uncomfortable Rayne grew.
Shaye was right, damn it.
“Are you taking me to your school?” Rayne asked with a nervous laugh. “Or your dorm?”
“No.” Jared changed the radio dial and then looked at her. “We’re going somewhere less public. Although, people might join us later.”
“What people?” Rayne glared at him. “Forget it, Jared. Just take me back to the hotel.”
“Chill.” Jared glanced at her. “Not really people, per se. Ghosts. The place is haunted.”
Letting go of the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, Rayne snapped, “Whatever!”
“No, it really is.”
“Where are we really going, Jared?”
He hit the turn signal and pulled off onto a side street. “My roommate, Kevin, had this friend from New Zealand—”
“Fascinating,” Rayne said sarcastically.
“If you’d let me finish!”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, Hannah was a law student at the university and taught dance on the side. She had a dance studio in an old building downtown. One day she went there to practice... and was never seen again.”
Rayne shrugged. “So?”
“So...her roommate, Victoria, disappeared like a month later.”
She rolled her eyes. “From where?”
“The same place.” Jared pushed in the lighter on his console. “She had a photography studio across the hall in the same building.”
“Seriously?” Rayne pulled the lighter out before it was finished.
“Yeah, the whole university was in an uproar. They condemned the building and boarded it up.”
Rayne narrowed her eyes at him. “No, I mean, are you seriously going to smoke right now?”
“Don’t tell me you’re turning into Shaye?” Jared pushed the lighter in again.
“You’re not going to smoke, Jared. I have a show tomorrow. Live with it.”
“Fine!” he snapped. “I’ll smoke when we get there.”
“And you’re taking me there, now?” Rayne asked, irritated. “To a condemned building where not one but two girls have disappeared?”
“Yes. But it’s cool. A bunch of us go there to drink sometimes.” Jared glanced at her. “Come on, Rayne. You were the one who wanted to get away from the crowd for a while. This is the perfect way.”
Rayne settled against the headrest. “Fine. But I have to be back at midnight.”
“When did you become such a prude? Shaye-No-Lay is rubbing off on you.”
Rayne glared at him. “Don’t call her that! She’s totally cool, and if you weren’t such an ass, you’d find that out.”
Jared pulled up to the curb next to a building that would be the perfect location for a horror movie. “Are you suggesting I get to know the ice queen?”
“You know what? Forget it. Just take me back.”
He turned off the ignition with a smirk. “We’re here. Come on, it’ll be really cool.” Jumping out of the car, he made his way around the front and lit a cigarette as he walked toward the side door, effectively ignoring his passenger.
Disgusted with herself for not listening to Shaye, Rayne eased out of the seat, grabbed her backpack, and followed Jared into the building. As they made their way down the hall, he pointed to a doorway. “Don’t go through this door. If you do, you’ll get stuck. It’s the stairwell, and in order to get out, you have to walk up and then cross to the opposite side.”
Her heart raced. “Okay.”
“This way.”
“Did you go to DePaul?” she asked.
Jared snorted. “Do I look like someone who’d go to DePaul University?”
“What about Kevin?”
“We lived off campus. His dad had a lot of money, so he totally let me slide on rent.”
“Lovely,” Rayne muttered.
He led her down a dark hallway and into what she assumed was the dance studio. There was a large set of mirrors with a bar on one side of the room and the floor was hardwood.
“Is this where the girl from New Zealand danced?” Rayne walked the room.
“Yep. Victoria’s photo studio is across the hall.”
“Doesn’t seem haunted.” Rayne unzipped her bag and peered inside.
“What are you looking for?”
She moved the contents around inside. “Water.”
“I’ve got something to drink.” Pulling out a thermos from his inside jacket pocket, Jared poured the contents into the cap and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked suspiciously
“Drink it.”
She pushed it away. “I don’t drink.”
“Since when?”
“On tour,” she clarified.
Jared shrugged and handed it to her again. “Right. Well, it’s just water.”
“Okay.” She peered inside. “Thanks.”
Taking a small sip, she was relieved to find it tasted just like water, but the way he watched her made her pause. She didn’t remember him being so intense in high school—he was always the class clown. Heavily pierced and tattooed, but harmless.
After a few minutes, Jared ran his hand down her arm. “I’
ve missed you.”
She shrugged him off. “Don’t be weird, Jared.” She stepped away to put distance between them. “You know we’re just friends.”
He dragged his lower lip ring into his mouth and smiled. “But I’ve always wanted you, Rayne. You were the goal.”
“The goal?”
He caught her and settled a hand on her hip. “Yes, the goal. Everyone wanted you. You must know that.”
“Like you’d ever have a chance.” Rayne blinked as the room began to swim. “I’m not feeling so hot.” The cup fell to the ground and the remaining contents spilled across the floor.
“Oh?” he said a little too innocently. “Sit down over here.”
Rayne rubbed her forehead. “What did you put in my drink?”
“Nothing.” He wrapped an arm around her waist. “I would never do that.”
“What did you slip me, Jared?”
“Shhh,” he crooned. “Baby, we’re all alone. I know you’ve dreamed about this for a while.”
Pushing her against the wall, he kissed her neck. Rayne was disgusted, but she was losing her ability to think. Pushing at him, she tried to pull her face away from him.
“Get off me,” she snapped.
“Please. You were always the biggest slut in school.” He slid his finger down her collarbone and slipped it into her cleavage. “Don’t go prudish on me now.” Moving his hand lower, he grabbed her breast and squeezed.
“Stop, Jared, you’re hurting me.”
He wrapped his hand around her throat and painfully forced her face up. A tear slipped down her cheek as she tried to get her emotions under control. “Shhh. Just let the stuff do its magic. You’ll love this.”
“No, Jared. Stop.”
He continued his assault, and even as she felt the drugs pulling her deeper and deeper into their power, she somehow found just the right opportunity and shot her knee between his legs as hard as she could.
“You bitch!” he screamed as he fell, doubled over in pain.
She ran with no idea where she was going, trying to stay upright as the world spun around her. She went through the first door that opened. The stairwell. The door closed with a loud click. She tried the handle—it was locked. “Shit!”
The stairwell was hot, humid, and smelled of old age, compounded with the heat outside. Through the fog of the drugs she vaguely likened it to Shaye’s grandmother’s house, only mustier.
She tripped several times walking up the stairs, her legs growing heavier with every step. At the top, she found herself facing a large room that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in a hundred years. It was a perfect replica of a Victorian Era parlor. She moved forward, running her fingers along the back of a deep-green horsehair sofa. A wave of dizziness overtook her and she grabbed the back of the sofa, its coarse texture rough against her palm. She attempted to dig her cell phone out of her pack, but with her vision blurring, coupled with confusion, she couldn’t manage even this simple task.
She stepped around the sofa, her legs feeling like hundred-pound lead weights being dragged through thick, sucking mud. It grew harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other, and when she made an attempt to sit down, the sofa disappeared and she was staring at a muddy road unfamiliar to her.
Shaking off her confusion, Rayne looked down. The rich oriental carpet swam before her, and as she went down hard, the floor was no longer the floor. Mud and dirt greeted her as everything went black.
CHAPTER TWO
Washington, D.C.
October 1864
SAMUEL POWELL SAT in his office at the prison, a stack of paperwork before him. As head of Special Prison Task Forces, he was responsible for approving the invoices on top of the stack. He couldn’t help but note that the captives in the Union prisons received the highest level of care and ate better than their own soldiers out on the field.
“Hell, they eat better than I do,” Sam grumbled out loud.
Despite his young age, only twenty-four, he was a highly respected lawman. One who had, in the past, apprehended some of the most dangerous criminals in the area. He specialized in the most difficult cases of missing persons and murder, the cases no one else wanted.
He had taken his current position as a favor to his friend, Christopher Butler, who worked in President Lincoln’s war cabinet. The war office needed someone they could trust to ensure the prisoners did not escape and to interrogate the ones coming in. Sam had decided settling down for a while might be a good idea, so he accepted the job.
He’d originally thought it would be more of a challenge. Christopher’s wife, Hannah, had commented several times on the slowness of his job, even going so far as to give his special assignment a new name, Babysitter of the Elite Accused of Treason – or B.E.A.T., as she had once joked, and the title stuck. He smiled at her strange term. Sitting back, he ran his hands through his hair with a deep sigh.
“Bad day?”
Looking up in surprise, Sam saw his friend, Laughing Crow. The tall Indian grinned as he leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his wide chest.
“Slow,” Sam grumbled.
“You should have told Christopher no.”
“I thought you were doing something useful with your weekend,” Sam smirked.
Crow chuckled as he pushed his large body away from the doorframe and moved into the office. “She bored me.”
Leaning back in his chair, Sam stretched his legs out onto his desk. “Quit choosing whores and you might find a woman who offers a challenge.”
“White women are never a challenge,” Crow grunted as he sat across from Sam’s desk. He’d left his long hair free and it slid over his shoulders as he shook his head.
“Why don’t you marry a Muskogee?”
“As I’ve said many times before, I will never marry.”
Sam stopped himself from rolling his eyes as he leaned forward. “Why don’t you join me this weekend?”
“For?”
“I have to head out to the farm.” Sam picked up his nib pen and signed a sheet of paper. “With the decision to free the slaves in Maryland, I need to make certain the Negroes are safe.”
“Do you think there will be trouble?”
Sam frowned. “I don’t know. It’s possible. There are southern sympathizers close enough to us to be concerned.”
Crow nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
“Thank you.” Sam dropped the pen on the desk. “Will you be joining us for Thanksgiving?”
“In Harrisburg?”
“No, in Virginia at the home of General and Mrs. Robert E. Lee.”
“I have not decided yet,” Crow said.
“What is there to decide?”
“Whether or not your friends will take issue with a half-breed in their home.”
Sam scowled. “Who’d take issue? They all know you.”
“No, they don’t, Sam, and you well know it.”
Sam did know it. Crow had endured prejudice his entire life. His Indian name was Laughing Crow, but when missionaries came through their village and discovered his mother was white, they gave him a Christian name. He was known from that point on as Douglas Smith. They cut his hair and made him wear white man’s clothing, but Crow did his best to hold onto his grandfather’s teachings, and as soon as he grew big enough not to be manhandled, he’d stopped the mandatory haircuts. His hair now hung halfway down his back.
Sam met Crow five years ago while working on a missing-child case. Crow tracked the little girl to a remote area in the mountains and they rescued her. But it was Sam, not Crow, who was given a hero’s welcome. Crow, however, was happy to stand in the back and let Sam take the glory. They formed a close friendship and because of it, Sam had lost a few friends and colleagues.
“You have over a month to decide, but in the meantime, the Butlers have invited us for dinner,” Sam said.
“Why?”
Standing, Crow raised an eyebrow at him.
“Look,” Sam pointed
out. “Hannah and Christopher like you. They don’t care that you’re a half-breed, and I have a feeling Victoria might take offense to that term.”
“Are you saying Quincy and Victoria will be at dinner?”
“Yes, they will.”
Crow shrugged. “I will attend.”
Sam laughed. “Victoria apparently made an impression.”
Crow didn’t say anything as he turned and walked out the door.
* * *
Something foul stung Rayne’s nose as she tried to force herself to wake up, but she was having difficulty opening her eyes. A cold breeze feathered her skin.
Funny... the room had been so humid.
“Ooh Eee! Look-y what we got here.”
Pounding footsteps and the sound of men’s voices pushed her to urgency, and she opened her eyes to find she was no longer alone. Just as suddenly, she realized she was lying in mud—and something entirely less pleasant.
“Ain’t never seen a whore look like that before.”
“What?” Rayne grasped her pounding head and sat up.
“Lyle! Get a load of this one!”
She found herself staring into the face of a ragged-looking man with pockmarked skin and rancid breath. “Ugh. Where am I?”
He leaned forward from his hunkered position, his thin lips puckering. “Ain’t you perty?”
Rayne pushed at his face. “Go away!”
“We’re gonna have a heap o’ fun. You ain’t never had someone like me before.”
“And I won’t now! Leave me alone.” Bile crept up her throat when she was hauled up and away from the foul-smelling man. Turning, she faced a large man with a heavy beard and scar down the left side of his face. He grasped her bicep, squeezing much harder than necessary, and shoved her against what she could only surmise to be a building of some form.
“Let me go,” she whimpered.
“Lyle!” the smaller man whined. “I found her first.”
Lyle narrowed his eyes. “Shut your mouth, Curtis.”
“But, Lyle—”
“I said, shut yer mouth! You kin have her when I’m done.”
“Done? No!” Rayne whispered. “Let me go!”
Lyle hauled her into the middle of the street. Rayne tried to fight him as her stomach heaved and her head pounded. She had to get away, but didn’t know where to go.
Letting her powerful lungs work for something other than singing, she screamed as loud as she could. Even though she received a slap from Lyle, she continued to scream.
The Rebel Bride (Civil War Brides Series, #5) Page 32
