The Runaway

by Lisa Childs

  She could help more.

  Here. At the hall ...

  Maybe if she’d been here sooner, she could have saved...

  He pushed that thought from his mind, having learned long ago he couldn’t do anything about the past. He could only focus on the present and the future. The hall had to have a future. He’d invested too much into it—financially and emotionally. It could not fail. He could not fail.

  “Do you have any other questions for me?” Rosemary asked from where she sat in the chair across from his desk. Light filtered through the blinds at the tall window behind him, casting a glow to her porcelain skin. She was beautiful with her glossy black hair and bright blue eyes.

  Since the receptionist had shown her to his office, he’d treated her like any other job applicant, and she’d acted like any other job applicant. But they both knew why she was really here. Unfortunately . . .

  “Why are you wasting your time applying for this job when you already have one?” he asked.

  The slight smile she’d obviously been forcing slipped away. “Why are you wasting your time interviewing me if you have no intention of giving me a job?”

  “I would consider you for the position,” he replied, “if I thought you really wanted it.”

  She drew a shaky-sounding breath. “I would consider accepting the position,” she said, “if I knew that this facility has really changed from what it used to be.”

  “Halcyon Hall has been a treatment center,” he said.

  “Now,” she agreed. “But I know what it was when it was Bainesworth Manor.”

  He closed his eyes. Would he ever escape it? Would they?

  “It hasn’t been a psychiatric hospital for decades,” he told her. “People need to let go of the past.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “Of the past, not of people . . .”

  “That’s why you’re here,” he said. With a ragged sigh, he leaned back in his chair. “You’re really here about your sister.”

  “She’s not my sister,” she said.

  A curse slipped through his lips. “No wonder you’re not on the damn list. You’re not a relative at all.” What was she?

  A reporter?

  But she couldn’t be—not with Gordon Chase vouching for her as a psychologist and her credentials had all checked out, impressively so.

  “She’s my daughter,” Rosemary said.

  Skeptical of her latest attempt to see the teenager, he arched a brow. “Really? You can prove that?”

  Her porcelain skin flushed with color, but she didn’t sound embarrassed when she replied, “No. I can’t.” She sounded frustrated. “I was a teenager when I had Genevieve, so my mother—worried about a scandal—insisted on putting her name as mother on the birth certificate. She and my stepfather are listed as Genevieve’s parents. But they’re not. I am her mother.”

  “Your mother was worried about a scandal. . . .” he murmured. He understood that very well.

  “My mother worries about everything,” Rosemary said. “That’s probably why they put Genevieve in this place—to protect her from making the same mistakes I did.”

  He closed his eyes again, trying to hide his reaction—trying to hide the truth. But maybe it had been hidden long enough. Maybe it was time ...

  He pushed back his chair and abruptly stood up.

  She jumped up as well. “Dr. Cooke—”

  “Stay here,” he told her. Needlessly. He doubted she was going to go anywhere until she saw her daughter. Maybe it was her résumé and the recommendations he’d received regarding her. Or maybe it had been the emotion when she’d spoken of her, but he believed Genevieve was her child. As her mother, she deserved to know the truth—no matter how painful it might be to her.

  * * *

  Her vehicle with its crumpled rear bumper and scraped sides was parked in the visitor lot right in front of the damn hall with its many windows. Anybody could see what he was about to do . . . if they looked out.

  So he had to move fast.

  He couldn’t be seen.

  She couldn’t see what he was doing. Squeezing beneath her car and the snow-covered asphalt, he snipped the line leading to her brakes. If she saw what he’d done or noticed the fluid that dripped onto the snow-covered asphalt, she wouldn’t get back into the vehicle. She would call the sheriff’s department instead.

  He had to stop her from going to the police. Not just about the car but about Genevieve. Nobody was going to take anything else away from him. He had already been denied too much that should have been his. That, by birthright, was his.

  Like Bainesworth Manor ...

  But he would never get the chance to claim it, if they discovered what he’d done. If they locked him up, like those girls had been locked up all those years ago ...

  He was not going to get locked up. So he had to stop Rosemary Tulle from interfering anymore. He had to stop her like he’d tried on the bridge. But unlike that night, this time he could not fail.

  Rosemary Tulle had to die—before she ruined everything.

  Chapter Ten

  Once the door closed behind Dr. Elijah Cooke, Rosemary dropped back into the chair from which she’d sprung up. Her knees trembled. She was as shaken as she’d been when the truck had tried to run her off the bridge. Or worse yet, as shaken as when she had confronted Whit Lawrence. She’d survived those confrontations, though; she would survive this one, too. Not that it had felt much like a confrontation.

  It had felt like the job interview his secretary had claimed it was—until those last few minutes. Until he’d asked why she’d applied ...

  She couldn’t lie. Not anymore . . . She’d kept secrets for far too long.

  Did he believe her, though? That she was Genevieve’s mother?

  If he did, maybe he had left to get her daughter—to bring her to Rosemary.

  And if he didn’t . . .

  Had he gone to call the sheriff’s department? Or his own security team? What would they do to her, escort her off the premises? Or somewhere else?

  She hadn’t seen much of the estate—just the winding drive up to the huge building in front of which she’d parked. And of the building, she’d seen only the foyer and the director’s office, which had been right off the foyer. The only other person she’d met besides him was his secretary, and the young woman had seemed more like a mannequin than a human. Beautiful but devoid of emotion ...

  Dr. Elijah Cooke was the same. She had not expected him to be so young or so incredibly good-looking. He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome except for his eyes. Those were strangely pale—not blue like hers—but an odd silvery color like the ice on the roads or the fog that hung over the island. And totally unreadable. Or perhaps just devoid, like the secretary had seemed, completely devoid of emotion.

  The two of them were almost more like robots than humans. Maybe only robots could survive this place. Maybe that was why Genevieve wanted out so badly.

  The longer Rosemary waited in that office the more she wanted to leave. Her pulse began to quicken, and a heavy pressure settled on her chest, making it difficult to draw a deep breath into her lungs. Where had he gone?

  Why hadn’t he returned?

  She stood up on legs that trembled slightly beneath her weight. She was not going to be locked up in this place, not like Genevieve had been. She headed toward the door the receptionist had opened for her earlier, but when she closed her hand around the knob, it didn’t turn. He had locked her in ... just as she’d feared.

  She clasped the knob more tightly, but it didn’t budge. Where the hell was the lock? It must have been on the outside. Just as she loosened her grasp, it began to turn. Something clicked and the door opened, pushing her back against the wall behind her.

  Dr. Cooke’s strange silver eyes widened with surprise. She considered pushing past him and running from the room, from him. But would she be able to get out of the hall? Past the security the groundskeeper had warned her about? And did she want to—without Genev
ieve?

  No.

  “I wondered where you’d gone,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I needed to do something.”

  In the middle of an interview? Not that it had been only an interview as they’d both acknowledged.

  The phone on his desk buzzed, and he walked around her, letting the door swing shut behind him. Rosemary stared at it, at her chance of escape, but she let it snap closed in the jamb. Heard the lock click ...

  Expelling a shaky sigh of resignation, she turned and followed him back to his desk.

  He stood beside it and reached down for a button on the phone. The receptionist’s too perfect voice filled the office. “The call you had me place has been returned, Dr. Cooke,” she said. “They are on line three.”

  They?

  Was he checking her references now?

  Was he going to offer her a job?

  He pressed another button and spoke. “Thank you for returning my call, Mrs. Walcott.”

  Rosemary gasped. He’d called her mother.

  “Do you have any news?” she asked.

  “I have Rosemary in my office,” he said.

  “Rosemary?”

  “She’s told me that she’s Genevieve’s mother.”

  A pause so long ensued that Rosemary wondered if her mother had hung up. But finally she replied, “She can’t prove it.”

  Rosemary spoke up then. “DNA will prove it. Stop lying, Mother. Stop preventing me from seeing my daughter. Is that why you put her here? To keep her away from me?”

  “You are a bad influence on her,” Abigail said. “She already acts too much like you.”

  “Because she’s my daughter,” Rosemary maintained.

  “That’s why she’s there,” Abigail said. “Because she got into partying, too. She got suspended from school for it—”

  “So you shipped her off to avoid a scandal,” Rosemary said. “Or just to get her out of your—”

  “I haven’t called to mediate a family matter,” Dr. Cooke interrupted their tense exchange. “I’ve called for you to grant me permission to tell Rosemary the truth.”

  “You don’t want to do that, Dr. Cooke,” her mother warned him.

  “You don’t want to force me to contact the press,” Rosemary said. “I’ll tell anyone who will listen that Genevieve is my daughter, and that you stole her from me.”

  Her mother gasped now. “You liar!”

  “I won’t stop,” Rosemary warned her. “Not until somebody believes and helps me.”

  “I believe her,” Dr. Cooke said.

  Rosemary stared at him in shock.

  “I believe her, and I suspect the sheriff does, too,” Dr. Cooke continued. “It’s only a matter of time before he gets a warrant and forces the issue.”

  Her mother’s sigh crackled out of the phone speaker. “Very well then. You can tell her. But I warn you, Dr. Cooke, this will not be the end of it.”

  The line clicked and a dial tone buzzed. Dr. Cooke pressed a button on the phone, and silence reigned.

  From the speaker.

  Not from Rosemary. Her heart beat so loudly that surely he must have been able to hear it, too. “She gave you permission,” Rosemary said. “I can see Genevieve now.”

  He shook his head. “No, you can’t.”

  “But she said—”

  “She said I can tell you the truth,” he said. “And the truth is that you can’t see your daughter.”

  “Why not?” Rosemary’s head began to pound as intensely as her heart. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s gone.”

  Her heart felt as though it stopped beating altogether, and her breath froze in her lungs. Finally the shock receded, and she asked, “Are you saying that she’s dead?”

  “No, no,” he quickly replied.

  Maybe a little too quickly. A little too defensively.

  “She’s left the hall.”

  Rosemary released a shaky breath. “She got someone else to pick her up.” Of course. Genevieve had many friends. One of them must have driven out to the island before Rosemary had arrived.

  But why wasn’t Genevieve answering her phone? Why hadn’t she called to let Rosemary know she was okay?

  “I am sure that is the case,” Dr. Cooke replied.

  “Who?” Rosemary asked. “Who else was on the list to visit her?” Since Rosemary hadn’t been.

  He shook his head. “No one.”

  “Then how . . .”

  “I don’t know how she did it,” he admitted. “I just know that your sis—your daughter ran away.”

  Rosemary shook her head. “But why isn’t she answering calls? Did she leave her phone here?”

  “Nothing,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “She left nothing behind.”

  But if she had her phone and charger, she would have been able to make calls. She would have contacted Rosemary, especially after Rosemary had left her all those voicemails. She wouldn’t have let her worry about her.

  “I want to see her room,” she said.

  “Of course,” he complied. Too easily ...

  Was that where he’d gone? Had he cleaned it out and hidden her things, her phone, so that Rosemary would believe him? Moments later she stood in the doorway to an opulent suite. With thick luxurious carpeting and soft furnishings, it looked comfortable and empty.

  “This is where Miss Walcott had been staying,” he said.

  She shook her head. “Genevieve is a teenager. It wouldn’t have been left this neat.”

  “Of course, it’s been cleaned.”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  He shook his head. “Almost a week.”

  “What day?” she asked.

  “Last Tuesday.”

  The day after she’d called Rosemary. Why hadn’t she waited for her? Why hadn’t she trusted that Rosemary would come—would help her?

  She shook her head again. “No. She didn’t run away.” “She was furious with her parents for bringing her here for treatment,” he said. “She was furious with you for allowing it to happen.”

  She flinched as if he’d slapped her. Genevieve hadn’t sounded angry with her on the voicemail, though. She’d just sounded desperate and scared.

  “That’s why she ran away,” he said.

  Rosemary doubted that, but she had another question. “Why haven’t you reported her missing then?”

  “I asked your parents if they wanted to report her missing, but they said that she already threatened to declare herself an emancipated minor. And at nearly eighteen, she would be able to do that and check herself out of here.”

  “But she didn’t check herself out,” Rosemary said. “How did she get out of here? How did she do it?”

  * * *

  How?

  Elijah had been asking himself and his staff that question since Genevieve Walcott had disappeared a week ago. He’d been especially hard on his security advisor, his cousin Deputy Warren Cooke, but the man hadn’t been able to answer the question. How the hell had she escaped from the hall and the grounds?

  Not that the place was necessarily designed to keep people in—not like it used to be. Now it was designed to keep people out. Unwanted guests. Reporters.

  The security measures were to protect the guests. They hadn’t always proven successful, though. Not for Genevieve Walcott and not for . . .

  He shook off the wayward thought to focus on Rosemary. Through his window, he watched as she walked the grounds around the hall—as if she would find her daughter hiding among the trees. If Genevieve had been out there for the past week, she would have died already of hypothermia. The temperatures on the island often dipped below zero at night even though it was still November.

  Also whatever tracks she might have left behind as she’d walked away from the hall would have been obliterated long ago by the wind and snow. The only tracks Rosemary was likely to find were of coyotes, and those would give her no comfort.

  Knuckles rapped again
st wood, and he turned toward the door he’d left open—in case she returned with more questions for him.

  She wasn’t the one with questions, though.

  “Did you offer her the job?” Dr. Chase asked.

  “Why would I do that?” he asked.

  “Because she’s highly qualified, and she would have a better rapport with the female guests than either you or I have been able to form.”

  “I know,” he agreed. He’d surmised that just from reading her résumé. But when he’d met her ...

  “Then hire her,” the older man urged.

  “She doesn’t want a job,” Elijah said. “She wants her daughter.”

  “You mean sister,” Chase said.

  “No, her daughter.”

  Gordon snorted. “She told you that so you’d let her see Genevieve.”

  “It’s the truth,” he said. “I called Mrs. Walcott.”

  “And she confirmed it?” Gordon asked.

  “Not so much by what she said but by how she said it,” he explained. “And she let me tell Rosemary the truth.”

  “She knows Genevieve ran away?”

  He pointed out the window, and Gordon joined him. “What’s she doing out there? She’s going to freeze.”

  He shrugged. “She doesn’t believe she ran away.”

  “What does she think happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. But now he wished he hadn’t told her the truth—because she’d refused to accept it. Would she follow through on the threats she’d made to her mother? Would she talk to reporters? Would she press the issue?

  The hall couldn’t handle any bad publicity—not right now. And an investigation into Genevieve running away might open up another investigation ... into other things that had happened at the hall in the long ago and not so long ago past.

  “Offer her the job,” Gordon said. “She’ll take it. She’s not going to go far until she finds her child.”

  And maybe if she worked here, Elijah could make her understand that the hall could do so much good now that it could make up for all the bad ... if it was given the chance.

  If he was given a chance ...