by Peggy Webb
Lily covered her mouth and nose at the smell. She didn’t remember it being this bad when she’d seen in on her first tour of the estate.
Had it only been a few short months ago? It seemed a lifetime.
Nearby was the shed where Stephen kept mulch, peat moss, root stimulator, a wide variety of rose fertilizer and chemicals used to combat aphids, black spot blight, and various other rose diseases and predators. Lily waved her flashlight around the interior. She had no idea what she was searching for. Anything that might give her a clue to Cee Cee’s whereabouts.
Something brushed against her back and she screamed.
“Lily?” It was Stephen, grabbing both shoulders then pulling her close. “What on earth are you doing out here?”
Relief flooded through her. “I couldn’t stop thinking about Cee Cee. I know your men looked but I had to search again.”
“In the dark, all by yourself? Oh, darling, I wish you’d called me first.”
“I should have. I’m rattled, that’s all. Stephen, I saw a woman in the garden out back.”
He stiffened. “What did she look like?” As Lily described her, he relaxed. “That sounds like Graden’s mother. She lives with him in the caretaker’s cottage.”
“That explains how she got in. But, Stephen, I’ve never seen her before.”
“She’s reclusive…and weird. Nobody sees her unless they spot her in the garden.”
“That’s not all. I heard screams coming from the locked east wing.”
“It was probably a loose shutter blowing in the wind.”
“It didn’t sound like that.”
“Old houses make all kinds of sounds, Lily. When I was a kid I used to imagine witches and monsters screeching about in the dark. The sound would always turn out to be something ordinary, like creaking floorboards or rusty door hinges, or one of the staff prowling around in the middle of the night.”
She shivered, and he hugged her closer. “Or you could have heard Graden. He goes into the east wing every evening at nine to do a security check.”
She hitched a deep breath, thinking it would take her months to learn all the schedules around Allistair Manor. “I panicked, that’s all.”
“Darling, you’re shaking. Let’s get you inside.”
He kept his arm around her all the way back to the house. The rain started just as they rounded the corner into the back yard. A flash of lightning illuminated the kitchen garden.
“Stephen, I chased Graden’s mother. I’m afraid I trampled your vegetables.”
“Good grief.” He hustled her inside, chuckling. “Darling, the grocery store is filled with vegetables. I don’t think we’ll starve.” He found a towel and tenderly dried her face and hair, then poured two glasses of brandy. “I think we could both use this.”
Something inside her settled down. Stephen knew her needs without being told. He was a man who took charge, who would always take charge. Everything was going to be okay. It had to be.
She took a deep sip and let the brandy warm her.
“Better now?” She nodded. “We’ll find Cee Cee, darling.”
Lily clung to his words. She wanted desperately to believe they were true.
Chapter Seven
Was that somebody crying?
She lay on her bunk, listening, but the sound didn’t come again. She was imagining things. Grasping at every little hope that she wasn’t alone in this gray prison, chained to the bed with the evil light in her ceiling that never turned off. Never.
An eternity crawled by. And then two. Time was filled with gruesome imaginings and a horrible fate.
Wait.
Sounds again.
Footsteps. Outside her door, getting closer and closer.
She cringed against the lumpy mattress then pulled the scratchy blanket over her head and bit her lower lip to keep from screaming.
A key turned in the lock and the door creaked open, the sound of it dragging along the concrete floor like witch fingernails scratching at your bedroom window.
“Come out.” The voice was harsh but whispery. “There is nowhere to hide.”
She didn’t want the owner of that voice coming any closer. Slowly, she lowered the covers.
The apparition standing beside her bed was tall, dressed entirely in black, with a face so misshapen it belonged in a horror movie where the actors were chased by machete-wielding monsters.
She screamed, then. It seemed she might never stop.
He stood there, not moving. Or was this horrible person female? The voice made it impossible to tell, but the size indicated her captor was a man.
“Stop screaming. It won’t help you.”
Her throat was raw, and her nose was running. She stopped screaming, but her insides didn’t stop shaking.
“That’s better.”
Was the monster there to kill her? Torture her? Her leg chain said his visit was not friendly.
Keep your wits. Hysterics won’t help.
She studied his hands. He was holding something small, but it didn’t look like a knife or a gun.
The hideous creature swung his head this way and that, searching the room.
Wait. There was a bit of dark hair peeking out from the awful red mess on his head. He was wearing a rubber mask over his head, one of those expensive Halloween masks that were so realistic you didn’t know they were fake until you’d already wet your pants being terrified.
Who was behind it?
“You didn’t touch your food. You have to eat. You have to remain strong.”
“For what?” Her voice croaked. She’d had only a few sips of water from the sink in the bathroom since she woke up in her prison. She was afraid the food on the table was poisoned.
His chuckle was evil.
“You’ll know in time. Stand up.”
She swayed when she stood, shaky and weak from terror and lack of food. He made no move toward her.
“Walk to the chair and sit down.”
Her chain clanked as she shuffled across the room and sank against the cushions.
“Eat the food, all of it. Now.”
“Are you trying to poison me?”
Another chuckle. “No.”
What was he? Some kind of madman with a warped sense of humor? He didn’t say a word as she picked up the cheese. She nibbled a few bites then gobbled it down along with the bread and the fruit. The milk was warm and no longer fresh, but she gulped it down, too. She’d be foolish to refuse food and get so weak she couldn’t figure out how to escape.
“Have you read the note?”
“No.”
“Pick it up and read.”
Her hands shook as she unfolded the single page of white paper. It was the kind you could get at any big box store. The note was printed on a computer, no tell-tale handwriting.
You are my guest. You will be well fed and well cared for as long as you do exactly as I say. Disobey me, and there will be consequences.
“Do you understand?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Good. I want you to sit in the chair very still and not move again until I leave this room. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly. I’m not dumb.”
“No, you’re not. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have chosen you.”
She didn’t have time to wonder what he meant by that. He was moving toward her now, and she was busy trying not to cringe. He’d said sit perfectly still, so she held herself upright by pretending she was a soldier, chosen for the most important battle in a galactic war to save the world.
Her imagination had saved her many, many times in the past, and she counted on it to save her now.
He draped a cape around her, bright red. She pretended it was a Superman cape. It would give her special powers. If she wanted to, she could fly right out of this prison.
As he put one hand on top of her head, she fought the urge to claw her way out of the chair, scream, run. But the consequences loomed in her mind, a vise that held her perfectly still wi
th her eyes wide open.
What came next horrified her. He was holding an electric razor, and he started shaving her head.
She cried silent tears as her hair fell onto the red cape. It was her one source of pride, a black mass of curls that proudly shouted her ethnicity, the one thing nobody could take away from her.
Except him. The man behind the mask.
When he finally turned off the razor, he ran his hand over her bald skull as gently as a mother soothing a baby.
“There now.” He carefully folded the cape around her hair and murmured, “Beautiful.”
Then he was gone.
Chapter Eight
The rain slashing against Lily’s windowpanes woke her up before dawn. There was no use trying to go back to sleep. Cee Cee’s disappearance and her own hopeless efforts felt like a rock on her chest.
Lily bathed and dressed then went downstairs. She needed a quiet cup of coffee. She needed to regroup.
Jack’s voice came to her unbidden. Lily, let’s go somewhere for a quiet cup of coffee and regroup. He’d said it when Griff walked out, when Lily told him there was no way she could go to college with a daughter to raise, when she thought her loan for Lily’s Designs wasn’t going to come through. And last spring after her mother’s funeral. In fact, Jack’s mantra wove through every crisis of her life.
She rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“You!” Toni said. She was huddled over her coffee cup, her hair a bedraggled mess and mascara streaking down her cheeks where she’d either been crying or had failed to remove her makeup before she went to bed. “I didn’t know I’d have an audience.” She wiped at her cheeks and only succeeded in smearing them more.
“Neither did I.” Lily grabbed a paper towel, dampened it under the faucet, and handed it to Toni.
The older woman swiped at her eyes then swabbed her whole face. She ended up going to the sink herself, wetting another paper towel and burying her face in its cooling depths. She seemed shrunken, reduced somehow from the woman Lily had first met.
Undecided whether to sit or keep standing, Lily finally poured herself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table.
“Toni, I’m sorry for those ugly things I said to you about the house. It’s your home, and I had no right to imply you were only a guest.”
Toni glanced over her shoulder, then sighed and moved back to her chair. “You’ve got spunk. I had it once.”
What did that even mean? In two days, Toni Allistair had shown more spunk than any six women Lily knew. Both of them sipped their coffee, occasionally sending a wary glance toward the other.
Finally Toni said, “I know you think I’m a monster for leaving my son for Clive to raise.”
“I could never leave Annabelle. But I didn’t walk in your shoes, so I don’t judge.”
Toni studied her so long, Lily began to feel uncomfortable. But she didn’t flinch. She wasn’t about to show any weakness in front of this fearsome woman.
Finally Toni said, “There might be more to you than meets the eye.”
What on earth do you say to that? Lily nodded and continued to sip her coffee.
“I’m sorry about the girl,” Toni added. “Clive told me she never came back from her morning run.”
There. They were now on equal footing. Relief washed through Lily.
“I’ve looked for her everywhere. I even searched the grounds of the manor again last night.”
“I wouldn’t do that. There’ve been lots of girls and young women who’ve gone missing along the Gulf coast. It’s not safe to go out alone at night anymore.”
Fear stabbed at Lily. Who was taking girls and why? Was Cee Cee in the clutches of a serial killer?
She calmed herself down by remembering Toni’s animosity toward her. Could her new-found concern be an act? It was possible Stephen’s mother was just trying to scare her into running off.
“The only scary thing I encountered last night was an owl in the grove—oh, and Graden’s mother in the garden.”
“Graden’s mother?”
“Yes. A large woman with silver hair and glasses.”
Toni stared into her coffee cup a moment or two as if she were in deep thought. Finally, she shrugged her shoulders and eyed Lily. “Graden’s mother has been dead six years.” Lily nearly spilled her coffee. “You saw crazy Glenda Jane Bates, without her ugly wig and her contacts.”
“Stephen’s assistant?”
“His albatross is more like it. Clive hired her a few months before Stephen was born, back when there was a little day care facility on the grounds for the children of employees. One Christmas day when Glenda Jane had come in to work with Clive for a few hours, it burned to the ground. The nanny and Glenda Jane’s little girl were the only two in there. They both died in the fire.”
“How tragic! I can’t imagine it.”
“The day care was right back there where the kitchen garden is now. Glenda Jane never got over it. Periodically, she still comes here all hours of the night, searching for her little girl. Especially around the holidays.”
Horror washed over Lily, for the terrible loss…and the terrible betrayal. Stephen had lied to her. Why?
“The poor woman. It sounds as if she needs some medical help.”
“Clive paid for her treatment at a psychiatric facility in Boston. After she came back, he promised she would always have a job here.”
“That was generous of him.”
“Don’t ever underestimate Clive. He always has an angle, and he likes to live on the edge. That includes risking the family fortune in games of chance. I could end up in poverty because of him.”
If what Toni said was true, Lily’s hope of building a better life for her daughter was in jeopardy. Stephen was more than a man who would be her husband. He represented Lily’s dream of the perfect family—financially secure and respected. After she met him, she’d been willing to put her own true happiness at risk so Annabelle would have a good father, a wonderful home, and absolute assurance she could study at any college she chose, even abroad if that’s what she wanted.
Still, she barely knew Toni. What if greed was her motive? What if Toni perceived her as competition for the Allistair fortune and wanted her out of the picture?
“I’m flabbergasted, Toni. I don’t even know what to say except that your son means far more to me than a bank account. I have my own business, and I plan to continue working after the wedding.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad.” Toni waved a hand in dismissal. “Exaggeration always makes a good story better. Clive’s too smart to ever throw away his fortune and his power at a gambling table. But he’s a selfish, strong-willed old man.” She paused to sip her coffee. “Glenda Jane is his perfect match. She’s almost a genius and does her job better than anybody he could hire today.”
“That sounds harmless enough.”
“She’s devious.”
“Devious enough to kidnap another girl near the Christmas holidays to replace her own?”
“Who knows? She’s tried it before.” Toni shoved back her coffee cup and stood up. “Watch your back.”
As Toni walked off, her cryptic warning played through Lily’s mind. Too much was happening too fast. Her confidence in Stephen—and her own judgment—was shaken.
But what if Toni was the one lying? Lily pulled out her cell phone and searched for the fire at Allistair Roses. There it was with all the gory details. The groan Lily heard was her own dismay and the sound of her future crumbling around her.
She had to get busy. She had to find Cee Cee. And then… Oh, then, what? Her stress level was off the charts. She couldn’t bear to think beyond finding her lost other daughter.
She went back upstairs to get her jacket and roust Annabelle out of bed. While her daughter dressed she called Graden and made arrangements for him to be sure the tile setters were taken promptly to Stephen’s bathroom when they arrived. Thankfully, the plumbers had done a good job without her supervision. She’d
have to count on the same thing from this work crew.
Cee Cee’s foster parents, Abe and Leola Johnson, lived on the north edge of town in a rambling white clapboard farmhouse with a barn out back and a large truck patch lying fallow beside it. Through the curtain of rain, Lily could see Abe in the barn with the three other foster children who lived with them, all boys ranging in age from ten to sixteen.
Cee Cee loved her foster brothers, but she had hated the work she was required to do around the small farm. She enjoyed sketching and reading, particularly fantasy and sci-fi. Her art work was good, and she often talked about studying at a great art institute someday. Lily had planned to help make the girl’s dreams come true.
Lily’s heart hurt as she parked her Jeep. With her fear for Cee Cee growing so huge it seemed impossible to contain and her trust in Stephen still shaken because he’d left for work before she could ask him about his lie, she sat there a while with the windshield wipers going and the heater on.
“Mom?” Annabelle was eager to go inside and see what they could find out. She hadn’t been happy about being awakened, but a shower and breakfast had turned her into an amateur detective. She’d spent the entire drive on her phone with her friends, tying to discover a lead.
“Okay.” Lily pushed aside the worry that had plagued her since her conversation with Toni, and braced herself for what would come next. “Let’s go inside and see if we can get a lead on Cee Cee.”
Leola came to the door in a chenille housecoat with an apron on top. She wore floppy houses shoes, and her hair looked as if it hadn’t been combed. She frowned at them standing on the other side of her screen door.
“I wondered who’d come calling at such an unholy hour without letting me know a thing about it first.”
The unholy hour was ten thirty, long past time when most people, even the woman’s husband and foster sons, were hard at work.
Lily had already girded herself for an unfriendly audience. Cee Cee didn’t tell her much about her home life, but she told Annabelle stories that broke Lily’s heart. There was nothing physical, nothing that could be reported, but there were a million other ways to break a young girl’s heart and her spirit. Sharp words and punishing silences, withheld approval and nasty looks.