Chapter 14
Fear didn’t even begin to cover what Mira was feeling at that moment.
When Connor took the mobile from her hand and ended the call for her, she was almost certain that she was going to die. Suddenly, her entire world had shrunk until it consisted of nothing but her hammering heartbeat and Connor’s eyes. She was as stiff as a statue and trapped in this bizarre reality, which could cease to exist within just a few seconds. Suzanne had been right from the start, she thought defeated. Connor was a murderer. Her eyes burned as she imagined her sister’s face and how she would be standing as the last surviving Dumont in front of her family’s graves. This image was so intense inside Mira’s mind that she almost felt she could smell the flowers on the funeral wreaths as well as the moist soil. She wanted to disappear, to run away, but she didn’t have the strength to move at all. Instead, she just stood there, paralyzed on the spot — incapable of bringing the chaos inside her head under control.
“Mira,” Connor said carefully. And all she could think about was the fact that his voice was so very soft and soothing. “Calm down. I am right here with you. Nobody is going to hurt you. You are safe.” The balanced and almost relaxed tone in his voice definitely had an effect on her. Mira could breathe a little easier. Connor stretched out his hand without touching her. “I can see that you are paralyzed with fear, but I swear to you, I will not hurt you.” Her gaze fell onto his loosely stretched out fingers. He had calluses on the inside of his hands — where did they come from? He wasn’t exactly a farmer.
It was the absurdity of this small detail that brought her world crashing down. She released a sound that was half a whimper and half a moan. George was dead, her suite had been broken into, Suzanne kept trying to force her to seek revenge and to spy on Connor, Russell was telling her not to worry her pretty little head, and her mother, who hadn’t said a word in seventeen years, was dying. It was all too much for her. She hated it when her head was full of chaos.
She had to regain control over her life.
Suddenly, Connor was in front of her, holding her close, and just in time too because her legs gave way underneath her.
Somehow, it was exactly like that night long ago, but then again, it was absolutely different.
The feeling of being completely safe was the same. Connor, whom she had feared just a second ago, lifted Mira into his arms. She felt his chest moving up and down evenly with each breath. Back then, he had been able to balance her on his hip. Today, his right arm held her legs and his left arm carried her upper body. She suddenly realized how different her weight would be now compared to her as a child and she felt embarrassed, but before she was able to remove her arms from his neck and escape from his tight grip, he pulled her even closer to him. It seemed crazy just how much her heart trusted him, while her mind — or what was left of it — strongly protested against him.
Mira didn’t even recognize how seemingly easily he carried her out of that room. He set her back on her feet in the hallway. “Can you stand up?”
She nodded.
“Then please tell me right now, what has happened and why you were suddenly in such a huge panic.” He spoke very calmly, but as Mira looked into his eyes, she saw that he would definitely not accept any excuses.
“George is dead,” she said. “His wife answered the call. She said that George has died!” She almost screamed those last two words.
“Shh,” he replied. “I can imagine that this must be a huge shock for you, but you do need to calm down. I will only be able to help you if you can manage to keep the panic at bay. I know you can do that, Mira.”
The calm and almost cold tone of his voice revealed more about him than a thousand words could have done. Connor Carmichael could keep his nerves in check, even when the world seemed to be crumbling around him.
“You need to make a decision right now,” he explained. “You can take the official route and inform the police that someone has ransacked your hotel room and stolen something, which would also mean that we would have to disclose why you went to see Lacroix. Unfortunately, this will cost us valuable time, because we will then have to try and prove to the authorities that we had nothing to do with the death of this attorney.” He did not give her any time to think about what exactly his words meant. He frowned as he continued. “The alternative would be that you need to calm down right now — at least within the next ten to fifteen minutes — and tell the manager of this hotel, with my help, that you are okay. I will call an old friend of mine, who will be able to keep us out of the investigation for a while. I am pretty sure that they cannot trace my call, but I will make sure that it doesn’t last long.” He looked at his expensive watch. “This will give us some time to find your father’s murderer.”
“I can hear a very clear ‘but’,” Mira said as she tried to unwind herself from his hands. He gave her a quick smile, which calmed her down more than anything else. She could see the young boy from back then spark up in his features — adventurous, very suspicious about everything and everyone, and yet still ready to give his devotion unconditionally.
“The ‘but’, as you put it, would be my old friend. You would have to talk to him about your experiences that night. And I must warn you, he will smell a lie quicker than a vampire smells blood.”
She didn’t have much time. She had to make a decision there and then. As always, it came down to the age-old question as to whether she could actually trust Connor.
“Okay,” she then simply said. “Okay. Let’s do this. First…” we should close the door to my suite, she meant to say, but Connor was already doing that. He went in and came back out within seconds, with her coat and bag in his hand. He closed the door behind him, walked over to her and placed the coat gently over her shoulders. Mira took her bag and then linked arms with him.
“Ready?”
“Are you ready?” she asked and then wondered when she would start to regret her spontaneous decision. Her heart was racing, and she felt oddly upbeat about finally finding out who had killed her father. If it was necessary to meet Connor’s mysterious friend and to face his questioning, then she would do that. She couldn’t really trust Connor, even though her gut feeling told her otherwise, but if she went by that alone, then she wouldn’t be able to trust anybody. George had kept something from her and this had probably cost him his life. Russell and Suzanne had their own versions of the truth, which weren’t necessarily untrue or even a lie, but Mira couldn’t believe or trust anybody.
Right now, at that very moment, she realized just how much all of the intrigues and secrets and lies that had become such a big part of her life, had actually cost her. If she was ever to find her inner peace, she would have to fight the shadows by herself.
“Where are we going?”
“I haven’t told you? You will stay with me for a few days,” he replied.
Pling. The lift doors opened. Inside, just as Connor had predicted, stood a very worried looking hotel manager and two security guards.
Mira pulled back her shoulders. The game started now.