Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series)

by Karin, Anya

"Well come out with it, we're in a hell of a hurry, Pete."

  "You said she found wherever Gadsen had his room full of cameras?"

  "That was the idea anyway. I think she did. I've got to have faith in her."

  "Do we have any clue where that room is? If she was in there finishing up when the lights came back on, maybe she's hiding out."

  "That's a good thought. Yeah," he said. "But I have to find-"

  "Sir? Maybe it's a better idea to find Alyssa. The company's not going anywhere. Especially if you find her and there's nothing Gadsen can fall back on to get her, or you, in trouble? Maybe, for once, it's better to think of something aside from the business?"

  Preston grimaced.

  "But all these years – the whole company could be in jeopardy if Gadsen manages whatever it is he's planning."

  "Does that really matter? I mean, really, really matter?"

  "I..."

  "Think about it sir. Just think about it. I know you don't have much time, and how important all this," he swept his hand around in a dramatic circle. "How important it is. It's your father's, after all. But think about what's really important. It's up to you of course, but that's my piece."

  Slowly, Preston nodded. "Thanks. I mean it. I've got an idea."

  "All ears. Oh, by the way, when I tried to stop in on Alyssa, I found this note on her table. She also had one of those scrapbooks full of your parents old love letters, so I think she was doing a little detective work on her own, without even knowing it."

  "What a girl," Preston grinned, "let me see it."

  Handing over a folded up square of paper, Peter asked what sort of plan Preston cooked up.

  "Oh," he said, opening the note and scanning it, "I think the best thing is..." His eyes both opened wide. Peter saw the one that wasn't covered by black cloth.

  "Something wrong?"

  "It seems that my mother and Gadsen might have...cavorted? While my dad was off in one of his trips to fabulous foreign lands, although I certainly could be reading this wrong."

  On the note he passed Peter, "4/12/45 – 5/24/54? M & G?" was scrawled.

  "What does this mean?"

  "I'm not sure, but if I remember my dad's stories, he stayed gone off to one war or another, while Gadsen and mom were here to keep the business going, until sometime in the 60s, right?"

  "Well," Peter squinted. "Yes and no. He was gone for a while to war, but then he ended up in some diplomatic job or something like that. It was very hush-hush. Couldn't ever get him to talk about it, not much anyway."

  "But the point is, he was gone, right?"

  "Yes sir, for a lot of that time."

  "And I was born in 1965..."

  "No, no, you've got it all wrong," Peter said, sweat beading in his temples. "Something's not right."

  "It makes perfect sense. The whole thing makes perfect sense." Preston's voice went cold, his eyes narrowed. "Wanting to remove my share of the trust, take the company from me. His bizarre insistence on keeping the circumstances around my mom's death a secret from me, it all comes together, Peter. Even the way he tortured me my whole life in this richly anointed prison. Gadsen wanted my mother. Maybe even had her for a time."

  "Sir, are you saying that Gadsen Cartwright killed your mother?"

  "I'm saying there are secrets in this house older than both of us, and I've got to find out what they are."

  "But sir, Alyssa needs you. All those secrets are fifty years in the ground. Why obsess over things what can't be changed?"

  "I just have to know, Peter. I can't rest until I know what happened to my mother, and why I was kept in a closet my whole life. Gadsen said it was the scars, but that's a giant load."

  Peter rubbed his fingertips along his hairline and scratched. "Right, sir." There was no point in the world to arguing with Preston Webb, not when he was in one of these moods. "What can I do?"

  "You're going to find Alyssa. If she didn't run at the first chance, and I don't think she did, then she's got to be somewhere in the house. God knows where that snake has her, but I promise he's the one that does. And, I'm willing to bet she's trapped somewhere on this first floor."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "It just makes sense. I've used that word a lot lately." Preston checked his watch. "We don't have long until Gadsen figures out the monitors have been tampered with. I've got to see what there is to see before then. The reason I know she's on the first floor is that if she's trapped in his nest, and I think you're right that she is, it has to be on this floor. We know – you know – how bad the wiring in the rest of the house is. Ancient, old stuff. Couldn't support anything as advanced as what I'm imagining the old man has built."

  "You're right," he said.

  "Alright, go. Whatever you find, don't wait for me."

  "Right, sir."

  "Oh, and Peter?"

  The big man turned and looked.

  "If you find her, tell Alyssa that I'm sorry for all this. And tell her..."

  "Tell her what, sir?"

  "Nothing. I'll tell her the second part when I see her next."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Trembling, shaking, teeth chattering, Alyssa tried to keep her panic level below the point where she'd start to scream and weep. Her arms ached, a dull, slow pain that crawled from her wrists to her shoulders and just got worse and worse the longer she was chained there with her arms above her head.

  The soaking-wet cloth tied tight around her head acting as a gag had dried her mouth and pushed her tongue back so that it, too, throbbed.

  "Where are you?" She pleaded in a dry, sore, muffled voice with the darkness. "Why aren't you here?"

  She twisted her hands as hard as she could. Squeezing her fists together, gritting her teeth and pulling until the metal in the handcuffs bit deep Alyssa cried out a pitiful whimper and collapsed back against the wall, with her arms still uselessly dangling above her head, wrists on fire with pain.

  Fantasies played out, one after another, as she sat there wondering if this was where she would die, wondering if there was no escape from this horrible viper's nest into which she walked. But no matter how much despair welled up inside Alyssa's mind, she couldn't stop herself from thinking about Preston, with his strong shoulders, his tall, lean shape. She imagined him kicking the door in and whisking her away.

  A whirring noise caught her attention. When she looked up, there was only a camera staring back. Small, very small, and black, it was almost impossible to see. If there were any noise at all aside from the hum of the televisions, and the camera's own movement, she never would have heard the thing. And if it wasn't completely black in the room, she wouldn't have noticed the pin-prick of red light underneath the lens.

  I wonder how many of these things he's got. I bet he's been watching every single thing I've done in my rooms, in the end of the house I was never supposed to be in. I bet he sat in here and watched while Preston played with me that first night.

  She shuddered at the thought of hook-nosed old Gadsen, in here, staring at her, watching what had happened, and what she wished for, more than anything, to happen again. Alyssa remembered what it felt like to have his hands on her body, stroking her breasts, and then between her legs, warming her from the inside out.

  Then, almost as though her mind was revolting against her, she thought of Gadsen creeping back in, into this secret room that may as well have been his own secret world, and ending it all. It'd be easier that way, she thought, he wouldn't have to do any explaining, no one would ever know. She'd just vanish into thin air.

  "Did you hear the one about Alyssa Barton?" A nameless girl would say to another kid, one day, years removed.

  "Alyssa? Isn't she the girl that vanished?"

  "Yeah. I heard that one day she was out here picking mushrooms, and then someone grabbed her and took her to the mansion. No one ever heard from her again. No one ever saw her again. She just vanished."

  Then both of the little girls would shiver, giggle, and pretend not to
be afraid when they crawled under the hole in the fence and started picking mushrooms, or exploring the mysterious woods surrounding the giant house that no one ever saw.

  What would happen to Preston after she was dead and gone? An eternity under Gadsen's thumb, doing whatever it was the butler and the board of Webb Oilworks wanted, she guessed, a lifetime of staying hidden, of being afraid to talk to anyone, or go outside. No matter how scared she was for herself, she couldn't stop thinking about him.

  Imagining his touch, she smiled, even with the darkness and the fear and the blazing pain in her wrists.

  Thinking of his isolation and his pain, she almost fell back into despair.

  When she heard the little camera whir again, she looked up at it, slid the handcuffs a little ways down the pipe to which she was bound, and pushed herself to her feet to relieve the pain in her shoulders.

  From one monitor to the next, she turned her head. In the kitchen, she saw a couple of cooks pushing chopped up food off a cutting board and onto a plate. Another of them opened one of the three ovens and slid a roast, it looked like, inside. Her stomach rumbled.

  In the foyer, not thirty feet from where she was, Alyssa saw two people standing and talking. Out front of the house, the tiny camera saw nothing, she knew. But what it looked like was just a lack of activity. And so with the rest of the monitors – either nothing happening, or life as usual carrying on without any clue that there was a girl locked underneath the stairs.

  Maids shuffled about, cleaning up a little spill in the study, and dusting books.

  In one of the garages, someone was waxing an old car, a Studebaker, and polishing the chrome.

  Life as normal, life in frames, she thought.

  The two men talking in the foyer parted ways in such a hurry that it caught her attention.

  Was that? It was him! He's right outside! And Peter! Both of them are right outside the stairs.

  She screamed as hard, and as long as she could, but the sound was barely audible. Alyssa rattled the living hell out of the pipe around which her handcuffs were secured. That horrible scraping would alert anyone listening wherever the pipe went through the walls, if they were listening closely.

  If they're looking for me though, maybe they are. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  Then, alone in the dark, longing for Preston, or for anyone, to find her, Alyssa Barton wept the sort of tears that only come when a person is right on the edge between hope and hopeless.

  The wind that boiled over from the distant storm braced Preston's face, tightening his skin and making his scar ache the instant he pushed open the front door and jogged to the house used by Gadsen.

  With absolutely no idea what he was looking for, and a mind full of dangerous thoughts, he turned back and looked to the house about fourteen times in the fifty feet between the two buildings.

  "One thing at a time," he said. "Keep your head straight. One foot in front of the other. Keep going."

  The guest house was covered in a dusty film that seemed years old, maybe more. But, there was one thing that caught Preston's eyes – a slim track running straight down the middle of the room that terminated at a half-empty bookcase.

  "Looks like somebody stood here," he said, putting his feet into the dust-less area and noticing that they fit almost perfectly. "Huh, that's strange."

  The books, he noticed, were all perfectly aligned. Not a single one out of place. All the spines right in a row, all of them placed precisely the same way on the shelf.

  "And, they're all the same book."

  Thirty-eight copies of Crime and Punishment, all lined up, on a single place on the rack. The other shelves were bare.

  "If that's not a strange reading habit, I don't know what is," he said, running his finger along the gold-leaf line on each spine that separated the title from the author name.

  He pulled one out, and half expected the whole thing to slide to one side revealing a massive secret passage, but instead, he just got a handful of Russian literature. He grinned as he opened a page and read the words "and that was all I could manage, just for the day, that was all I could do. Tired, taken with a fever and several days awake and on my feet, I collapsed thus, onto the spoiled sofa upon which I had rested most days since the damned event. Sleep overcame me, and I did not wake for days. When I did, my body rattled with illness, I was presented with a bowl of soup that I did not prepare, by a woman whose homely face was a welcome respite from my nightmares."

  He tapped the cover with his middle finger. His eyes dropped to the floor, followed the dust-free path back to the door and he looked outside, back at the house.

  Preston thought about what Peter said – that he should figure out what really matters. He closed his eyes and rubbed the side of his head with his palm.

  "What are you doing, Preston? What in the world are you doing? Does all this actually matter?"

  His hands dropped to his sides and he shook his head.

  A curious smile crawled across Preston's face, and he dropped the Dostoyevsky on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  Thoughts ran through his head, thoughts of his dad, of his mom and of Gadsen back before Preston had known what sort of a creature hid under the carefully manicured disguise the old man built up over the years. He thought about watching Alyssa wander around innocently on the edge of the forest.

  And then he saw his mom's face in that old black and white picture set. The only way he'd ever seen her. "What should I do? Why can't I make up my mind? I'm so close. I know it. I can feel it. I'm so close to the truth about you and dad and everything else, but I can't think of anything but Alyssa."

  Hand in his hands, Preston looked back at the book on the floor and thought about the little passage he read. Somehow, it didn't seem like chance.

  "Fever dreams and soup," he said. "I can't believe I'm doing this. I hope it is okay," he said under his breath, hoping that his mom heard him. "I hope you understand."

  Preston Webb decided, once and for all, what really mattered.

  Heavy feet shuffling on the stairs above her broke the dead silence surrounding Alyssa.

  "I'm here!" She shrieked until her voice hurt. "Down here!"

  Every word was muffled, but the rattling of her handcuffs on the pipe, was not. She knew if anyone was looking for her, the metal on metal sound was audible. Harder and harder Alyssa jerked her hands back and forth, and started to throw herself backwards, thumping her back against the wall.

  Any pain, any hurt, it didn't matter, she decided. If no one heard her, she was almost sure to lay here in this tiny, dark room until she starved.

  Thrashing back and forth, she managed to get herself worked into such frenzy that she was sure she'd rip the pipe out of the wall, even if no one managed to hear her. But there it was again, the sound of feet, the sound of what she thought to be heavy boots, with big, thick heels that clomped above her head.

  "Boots? It can't be Preston. Peter, maybe?"

  "Peter!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "I'm down here!"

  Again, back and forth, she thrashed her hands again, and then heard the unmistakable sound of knocking off to her left and above where she stood.

  Pushing her tongue as hard as she could against the silk in her mouth, Alyssa shouted, and jerked one last violent tug on the handcuffs, scraping it hard enough that the skin on her wrists burned deep. It reminded her a little bit of how she burned for Preston, warm and cold radiating from the inside of her outward.

  "Please hurry," she groaned, as she gave in to the pain, relaxing against the wall, and closed her eyes.

  "Alyssa? Was that you?"

  "Alyssa?"

  Another knock broke the silence and jarred her out of the pain and panic stupor.

  "It's hollow in there. I can hear it. Gotta be here."

  "P-Peter?" She half-grunted and half cried, knowing full well he couldn't hear her. But, another scrape of handcuffs on pipe made him react.

  "I can hear it. I hear scraping or something in
there. Alyssa, if you can hear me honey, I'm trying to find a way in."

  As loud as he was, Alyssa thought, it was only a matter of time before someone heard. But, looking at the monitors, there wasn't much activity anywhere in the house except the kitchen where three cooks toiled away, and a fourth man washed dishes.

  Suddenly, a crooked figure appeared on the second floor, in the room where she'd found the scrapbooks. She watched Gadsen move around the room, looking under and around everything, very obviously searching for something. Alyssa thought back, to when she was doing the same thing, and couldn't think of anything he might possibly be hunting for, because as far as she knew, the room was empty except for the letters, and those she had moved to her little room.

  "Alyssa? I think I've found something," Peter said, "but I can't make it do anything. If you can talk, if you're awake in there, try to help me get in."

  "Marissa!" she shouted, although of course he didn't hear. Then, she had a very strange thought.

  She scratched a long sound, followed by a short one, on the pipe. As soon as she did, Peter stopped moving.

  "Alyssa? Was that you?"

  Long, short, long, long.

  "Holy damn! You know Morse code? I don't know what you're doing down there, but talk to me. Tell me how to get in."

  Suddenly, there was hope.

  Four shorts, a short and a long, long short, and then a long with two shorts.

  "Hand? Hand rail?"

  She tapped out a "Y" and he got the message.

  "Okay, hand...Oh! I see. There's a little pad or something."

  Short, two longs, a short. Short then long. She got through the first "S" before he said "password, okay, got it. Do you know it?"

  Alyssa scraped out the first two letters of 'Marissa'.

  Her eyes moved back to the monitors. Gadsen was gone from the second floor. In the back of her mind, she wondered where he'd gone, but shook her head and banished the thought.

  "M...A... Hey, wait a minute. You can't be serious."

  Before she finished, he shouted "ah!" and the stairs swung open.

  The big man walking through that door, haloed in light that was dim, but still bright enough to burn her eyes, was the most wonderful sight Alyssa had seen for a long, long time.