Chapter 14
Did she believe him? She studied his expression, but all she saw was honesty. That made her suspicious. She lowered her gaze to the table and shook her head. “If you feel that way now, why the hell didn’t you feel that way before?”
“I had just come back into town. I hadn’t seen you since that lovely fight with my brother. And, throughout our association, I felt like you were holding things back—hiding things from me.” He lifted his coffee cup and took a sip. Then smiled. “Now this is real coffee.”
She gave him a sharp look but stayed quiet.
After another sip, he continued. “I wasn’t sure how much of that was because of your relationship with my brother or something else entirely. If you recall, you’re the one who shut me out.” He shrugged. “My boss sent me back east, assigned to a case. I thought at the time it was awfully convenient timing to be sent away. But maybe my bosses knew my personal life was a bit of a mess. I had deliberately not kept up with the news while I was gone. I was angry. I didn’t realize what the hell had happened. And, by then, the court case had been mounted against you. I didn’t add to it, but I found myself struggling to find something that would clear your name. There were always more rumors and lies.” He leaned forward. “Then you were acquitted, and you ran away. But the lies and rumors persisted.” His gaze locked on hers. “If you’d just told me the truth, all this wouldn’t have happened.”
She gave him a sad smile and said, “Of course it would have happened.”
He raised his hands in the air. “Really? What’s that supposed to mean? More of Stefan’s words about fate needing to happen in its own time?”
“I don’t have a clue what fate will do. It’s not that easy to open yourself up and become a public media circus. Some of those details are very difficult.” She turned her head and stared out somewhere behind his shoulder. “I didn’t want to go back to my childhood. My history. I hated my life. I spent all my adult years building a new life. Why the hell would I ruin that? Why would I want to go back and dissect my old life?”
“Do you mean my brother?”
She snorted. “Derek was an experiment.”
He stared at her. Shocked, but not for the first time.
“I was trying to have a normal life. A normal relationship. But I failed at that too.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “I should never have bothered.”
“And with me? What was I? A second experiment?”
“You? We didn’t have a relationship, remember? I hadn’t expected to find myself attracted to you. You rolled into my life, stole my heart.” She glared at him. “Then you were suddenly gone while I was being crucified. Your brother was leading the attack.”
He nodded. “And I’m really sorry for that.”
Once again, she was tired of it all. With a grunt, she said, “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all over with. All of it is part of my history. I have no intention of going back there.”
“And yet maybe this is all related to your history. The history you won’t talk about. The childhood you never mention. The parents who died, but you don’t talk about. Do you have any other close family?”
She shook her head. “No. Remember the letter from my aunt? That’s as close as my family gets.”
“Everybody has somebody.”
She stuck out her chin and glared at him. “Why the hell do you think I tried to have a relationship? Because I was tired of being alone. I was tired of not having anybody. I thought I could make it work. I thought, if I worked hard enough, cared enough, I could make it happen. Walking away was the best thing for me as it showed me that I didn’t need anybody. Why does anybody want a relationship? How do people ever trust one another? I don’t get it.”
He tried to answer.
She snorted. “Don’t bother. You can’t answer it because nobody can.” She got up, took her coffee cup to the sink and filled it with water. Then she turned around. “Get on with what you plan on doing here. I’m going to bed. One of us needs to get some sleep.”
She turned and headed up the stairs. Inside her mind was tumultuous, her heart churning. But there was also sadness. The world was not a nice place to live. Why had her parents tried so hard to keep her alive? Now for the first time she realized it was too bad they did that. Maybe she shouldn’t have survived.
She walked into the bathroom, sat on the side of the bathtub and turned on the tap. She couldn’t go to bed without washing her feet from her earlier escape. With just a little water in the tub, she quickly swished her feet around and grabbed a washcloth and soap. When done, she dried her feet with a towel and stood up, hating the aches and pains and soreness. It wasn’t just fatigue but the adrenaline panic from running across her yard, over her neighbor’s fence and across their lawn. She probably should have a hot bath, but it was now almost four o’clock in the morning. The last thing she wanted was to delay sleep. Looking in the mirror, she saw her bathrobe was no longer white. With a grimace, she hung it up on the back of the bathroom door and headed to bed. It just felt so strange. The French doors to the balcony were still open.
Realizing nobody had retrieved the sheet, she struggled to untie it. After she pulled it up, she dropped it in the laundry hamper and closed the French doors. She turned around, brushed her hair back off her face and froze.
A faint pale-mint haze was all over her bed. She turned, looked at the balcony doors, realizing they had been open even when Sutherland had been here the second time.
Had he reset the windows and the door security? Did that work if the door was open? They should’ve pulled up the sheet because otherwise her stalker might have climbed back into the house. Swallowing hard, her hands trembled, even knowing London was downstairs. She studied the green cloud, hating what it meant.
The trouble was, right now she couldn’t tell exactly what toxin was involved because it was so faint. Was there poison all over the bed? Did the intruder have poison in his system and lay on the bed? It should be her own energy here, but she hadn’t been on the bed in a couple hours. She’d bolted out of here when London had telephoned her. So why was that gray-green essence here now? She approached cautiously, turning on all the lights in the bedroom. A faint energy trail from the poison was at the window and the double doors that she had just closed.
She turned and opened the double doors leading to the balcony and stepped outside. In the darkness, the trail was much easier to see. Her intruder had gone from the back of the garden, over the neighbor’s fence and through the backyards. There were yards upon yards; it was easy enough to hop a fence and disappear into the neighborhood with a few jumps.
Hating to disturb him, but knowing she had to, she pulled out her phone and called Sutherland. “Did you reset the alert on the double French doors?
“Yes, I did.”
“But we left the sheet outside, correct?”
“Yes,” he answered slowly. “Was it inside when you went back to the room?”
“No, it was still hanging outside close to the ground, where anybody could’ve used it to climb back up, and the double glass doors were still open.”
“But he still would have had to cross the barrier to enter,” Sutherland said quietly.
She could hear his mental processes buzz as if trying to figure this out. “And yet there’s a cloud of poison over my bed,” she murmured. “As if he lay down or spread something over the top.”
“You’re the poison expert. Can you see anything?” he asked, his voice rising in alarm.
“No, that’s why I’m asking. It looks like he went through my backyard and over the neighbors’ fences.”
“Can you see his energy?”
“I don’t know that it’s his energy, but I can see the faint trail of poison.”
“Can you see if anything else is toxic? Damaged? Anything stolen? Do you trust there isn’t any poison on the bed?”
She shook her head. “I don’t trust anything or anyone. I’ll sleep in another room. I’ll remake my bed in the morning.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t even be in there. You’re tired and not thinking straight. It could be any number of poisons. I don’t want to think of you dying in the night while sleeping.”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I just wanted to check if he could’ve crossed the open door if you reset the alarm.”
“If he was inside at the time I reset it, it’s possible his energy was accepted.”
“But he left, and then you reset it.” She struggled to figure out how this worked. “Does that mean he’d always be welcome in my house now?” God help her if that was the case.
“I can change the vibration on that energy. He shouldn’t be allowed back in any more than anybody who you may have let in already.”
“You mean, like London?”
“Correct. Of course there’s a possibility this person has psychic abilities. In which case, he can be way harder to catch.”
“But, even if he does have psychic abilities, how does he cross an energy barrier like that?”
“Dammit, I don’t know. I’ll come back out and spend the night at your place. And then we’ll redo it from scratch. I’ll do a full cleansing and then reset it to my energy.”
“And what does that mean? Only you can then come back and forth?” she asked cautiously.
“It means nobody but who you allow in can come through without you opening the door.”
“Except when you reset it, I walked in and out several times as did you.”
“Yes, but he didn’t. He’d already left the house.”
They both froze.
“Or did he?”
“We saw his energy leave, but …” Sutherland swore deeply and fluently. “Look, you don’t need to be alone tonight. I don’t know what the hell’s going on. I’ll come and stand guard.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t need to. London’s downstairs. He’s standing guard. He was at the front door, and I brought him inside.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Get some sleep. I really could use your help tomorrow to figure this out. I don’t understand how he could’ve gotten back in or out after the second security fix.”
“Neither do I.” His voice was resigned. “The problem is the system will work with 99 percent of the people. And then you find one asshole who has a trick never seen before, and there is nothing you can do about it. It’s up to us to learn from it and move on.”
“When you get here tomorrow—which is today actually if you can still make it—you can learn from it,” she said drily.
“I can make some adjustments from here. I might not need to make a physical trip.”
She hung up and turned to stare at her bed. Folding up all the bedding in the center of the bed, she quickly bundled it up into one big package and carried it into the hallway to her washer and dryer. She dumped everything into the machine and set it for extralarge, extralong. When that cycle was done, she would redo it again in the morning.
As she returned to her bedroom, London called up the stairs, “You okay?”
“Yes.” Sure she was. She was always fine. Even if she was unnerved at the idea of someone being in her room.
“You need any help?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ll be fine.”
She walked back into the bedroom, closed the door and leaned against it. How could she possibly explain to any of them that no poison known to man could hurt her? But, if she had the wrong poison clinging to her, any man who came and gave her a hug could die. She dragged a blanket from the top shelf of her closet, lay it on the bed, then rolled up in it. As she closed her eyes, her last thought was, How the hell did my life get so messed up?
*
London realized he should have helped her make her bed earlier. They hadn’t even taken the sheet off the balcony. What did that say about him? The asshole could’ve just come right back into her room again.
And who’s to say he hadn’t?
Shit.
The asshole could easily be hiding inside again. And why not in the basement once more, where he’d successfully stayed the first time? London did a quick walk-through the main floor, then entered the basement.
As he turned on the lights and studied the room downstairs, he remembered something he’d seen earlier. A wall with a door inset but painted over so it was hardly visible.
He walked to the bathroom and checked it out. A small door was on the far side. Determined to get to the bottom of at least one mystery, he walked through the bathroom with the lights on to open the other door. It was stuck. He gave a hard shove. Cracks appeared in the painted-over corners. Something was distinctly off about this place. And his intuition was killing him. He needed to open this door to find out what the hell was going on. Find out what Fern was hiding … and why.
He pushed it open slightly, then stepped back as old stale air came wafting through. He stood in place for a long moment, wondering what the hell he had just found. Using his phone’s flashlight, he held it to the small opening. The door was only open a few inches.
As he pushed it farther open, he saw a massive piece of furniture, but it was hard to decipher what it was. He tried to push the door open even wider. That’s when a weird set of bells rang through the house. Not a nice sound. Not like wind chimes. More like an alarm. As if pushing this door had set off something.
He could hear footsteps as Fern raced down to the main floor and on to the basement. She bolted into the bathroom, shock and horror on her face, and came to a skidding stop.
“What are you doing?” she cried out. “That door can never be opened.”
He turned to study her, seeing the panic on her face. She clenched and unclenched her hands. Then, as if realizing what she was doing, wrapped them around herself, holding herself tight.
He stepped back ever-so-slightly. “I’m sorry, but it occurred to me, since we had left that sheet hanging, then the intruder could come back into the house, and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t here hiding still. I saw this door and thought I should check it out, just in case he’d returned.”
She gulped for air, and he realized this was no regular fear. He gently grabbed her arms, softly stroking up and down. “Take it easy. I don’t know what’s in there. I haven’t opened it very much.”
“Close the door. Close the door, please!”
As she wouldn’t stop pleading with him, nor would she calm down, he reached over and pulled the door shut tight. Even then her eyes were huge as saucers; horror still written all over her face. He saw the shaking take over her body.
Barefoot, barely enough clothing to cover her, she shivered with cold. He picked her up and carried her upstairs to the living room. There he sat on the couch and held her close.
When her shaking had stopped enough, he asked, “What’s in that room?”
She shook her head, not moving off his chest. Once again her voice was hysterical. “Nothing. I’m not telling you.”
And he realized this was the crux of the mystery behind who Fern was. He gently and slowly stroked her back. “This is one of the reasons why you can’t trust people. You must let go of whatever is inside that room. You need to let me in on that secret. I can help you deal with it.”
Her laughter was freakishly loud.
He winced, realizing just how badly injured she was inside. Whatever that room represented terrified her. “Easy. Just take it easy.”
She lay on his chest until her shakes and sobs slowed. When she finally calmed, she sat up. “Don’t ask me.”
He opened his mouth to do just that and snapped it shut. He searched her gaze. “How is it that room can cause such terror?”
She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her chest. “Please don’t ask me about that room.”
The investigator in him wouldn’t let it lie, he knew that. But obviously now wasn’t the time. “I’ll let you off the hook,” he said. “It’s obviously extremely traumatic. However, we have to know what’s in that room.”
She stared, the tears welling up. “No. There’s nothing in that room now or ever.”
“Whatever it is,” he challenged, “hurt you in the deepest and most fundamental way possible.”
Tears, great big fat ones, dripped down her cheeks. His heart broke as he realized just how much this meant to her. How damaging this was to her psyche. How absolutely tormenting it was for her. He shook his head. “You need to face it.”
And that seemed to snap her from tears to anger. “You think I haven’t tried? Do you think I haven’t lived with that for all my life? You have no idea what I went through down there.” Soft tendrils of hair clung to the tears on her face. “You have no idea how terrifying that space is for me.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Were you locked in there? Was it a punishment room?”
She stared at him and pinched her lips firmly together. And he realized she wouldn’t talk. Not now and, if she had her way, not ever.
In as gentle a voice as possible, he said, “To move forward, you have to let this go.”
Mute, she shook her head and then said, “You don’t know anything.” She got up off his lap and headed back upstairs.
When he heard her bedroom door slam and lock behind her, he sat back down again. “I might not know anything yet, but I will get to the bottom of this.”