by Anne Stuart
She slept fitfully, tossing about on the mattress that lay on the polished black floor, and when she awoke, the room was in darkness. She reached out in search of a light, and then thought better of it. Her eyes could grow accustomed to the darkness—the quarter moon let in a faint glow through the bank of windows. Enough for her to make her way through the room, not enough to let Ethan watch her, if he was so inclined.
She didn’t think he was. Ever since her crazy moment in front of the camera three days ago, she sensed that he’d kept away from his monitors. He probably hadn’t really thought of himself as a voyeur. Until she’d turned him into one deliberately.
Well, she’d paid for that mistake, paid dearly. If she made it out safely, her body would remember forever.
The sliding glass door was locked. It took her a ridiculously long amount of time to come to that conclusion, but there was no moving it. Sometime while she slept, someone had come and locked it securely, keeping her prisoner once more.
She pounded against it, frustration and despair washing over her. Her fist simply bounced back. The glass was steel strong, one of the new forms used in construction. Of course, Ethan would use something like that in this patchwork of building styles that seemed to be his personal hobby.
She wasn’t going to be defeated so easily, she thought, summoning her anger to wash away the despair. She glanced around the room, looking for something she could throw through the window, but all the furniture was soft and modular. Nothing that could make a dent in tempered glass. The hardest thing in the room was her high-heeled shoe, and she didn’t even bother wasting her time trying it.
That left the other door. She might have more luck trying to pick the lock. After all, Ethan would have no reason to have fancy locks on all the doors, not unless he made a habit of abducting young women.
She stopped dead still at the sudden horrifying thought. What if she weren’t the first? What if she were simply one in a long line of prisoners kept here for Ethan’s enjoyment…?
It really was time for her to escape, she thought, shaking her head. Once her delusions got that extreme, there was no hope for her. Even Ethan’s worst enemies, the people of Oak Grove, hadn’t accused him of abducting young women. And she believed every word Joseph told her, though she couldn’t say why. If he said Ethan had only been involved with two women in his life, then that surely must be the case.
She was the first, the last, the only young woman to be imprisoned in this strange, rambling house. And she was about to make her move toward freedom, and the hell with Joseph’s warnings.
Finding something with which to work on the lock was a different matter. She wasn’t a Victorian virgin with hairpins; she wasn’t a television detective with her own set of lockpicks. For lack of anything better, she picked up the fork and began jabbing it at the keyhole.
The door opened at her touch, swinging wide. Whoever had locked the garden doors had unlocked this one, leaving the entrance to the darkened hall clear.
For a moment, Megan didn’t move. Her eyes were used to the darkness, and she could see the hallway stretching to either side. Left and right. What had Joseph said? Left if she wanted to escape, right if she wanted to find Ethan?
Or was it the other way around?
For the life of her, she couldn’t remember. Just as well, too, because she couldn’t decide. She was torn in two, half of her wanting to get the hell out of the house, out of Oak Grove, out of Arkansas, away from phantoms who captured and then bewitched stray travelers. Back to the hard edges of reality where she’d never long for adventure again. Maybe she’d find some safe, boring executive, settle down and be a housewife—raise children, join the PTA and forget all about this lost moment in her life.
“Lead me, Joseph,” she said softly, closing her eyes for a moment. She knew where he’d lead her. She opened her eyes again and slowly, deliberately turned to the left.
She walked forever through the darkness, always turning left. She went up ramps and down them, up stairs and down them. She was moving deeper and deeper into the house, and she knew she wasn’t going to end up in the night air in freedom and safety. She was going to face the phantom.
The last passage ended. The door was set deep in the stone wall. She could feel the chilly air around her, and she knew she was in the massive cellars of the old place. Ethan would be beyond that door.
She could turn around and head back. Keeping to the right, always to the right, she could make her escape and never have to hear that low, bewitching voice again, feel his breath against her skin, his hands dance across her flesh. She’d be free.
She reached out her hand and turned the knob, opening the door into the room.
The door was more brightly lit than she’d expected. Candles were burning in wall sconces, throwing fitful shadows around the large, cavernous room, and it took her eyes a moment to adjust after her long journey through the darkened hallways.
He was standing at a table, his back to the door. “You’re back early, Sal,” he said, without turning.
He was tall, but she knew that. A lean, strong back, with black hair growing long, to his shoulders. He was wearing black, tight-fitting pants and a loose-flowing white shirt, and as the silence grew, she saw the tension sweep through his body, the knowledge that it wasn’t Sal who’d opened the door.
And then there was a resignation in his strong shoulders, mixed with anger. And slowly, deliberately, he turned to face her.
Chapter Eleven
Meg wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Lon Chaney with his skeletal face in The Phantom of the Opera. Freddy Krueger, dripping blood. As Ethan Winslowe turned slowly to face her, she was ready to see almost anything. Except what she did see.
The left half of his face came into view, and she drew a deep, shocked breath. He was astonishingly, almost unnaturally beautiful. White-gold skin, his eye dark and mesmerizing, his mouth wide and delicate, yet still masculine, his cheekbone high and well defined against the sweep of long black hair. It was the face she’d seen illuminated by lightning, one she’d thought was part of a fever dream, the stuff dreams were made of. And then he turned the rest of the way, and she could see the other half of his face. The nightmare side.
The mark bisected his face, spreading down his neck, disappearing into his loose white shirt, a livid purple-and-red stain that covered him. His other eyelid drooped slightly over his eye, and his mouth pulled upward, giving him a faintly satanic expression. It was a face to scare little children, and the contrast between the beauty of the other side of his face made it even more devastating.
There was no expression whatsoever on either side of his face. He simply watched her, waiting for her reaction, and for a moment, she wondered whether his face was capable of showing emotion.
She was absolutely terrified. Not of his face, not of his anger. She was afraid that she might say or do the wrong thing.
She cleared her throat, the noise loud and grating in the absolute stillness of the cavernous room, and then she squared her shoulders. “So what am I supposed to do?” she asked in her most matter-of-fact voice. “Scream and faint?”
There was just the faintest glint in his eye. He took a step toward her, the movement slow, graceful and threatening. Definitely threatening.
“Others have,” he said.
She held her ground, determined not to back away from him. “I don’t see why. You have a birthmark—”
“Is that what you’d call it?” he interrupted, a savage note in his deep voice. “Why don’t you come up with all sorts of helpful advice? Tell me about the wonders of laser surgery. Or tell me I shouldn’t be so vain. Why don’t you—” he was very close now “—tell me how much worse off other people are and that I should pull myself together and ignore it.” There was real rage in him, an anger that was both ancient and new. An anger directed at her.
She stared up into his face with helpless fascination, caught and transfixed by the contrast, the unearthly beauty, the sorrow and pa
in in his eyes. “I wouldn’t do that,” she said. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
He was so close, too close, not close enough. “You’re supposed to focus on a point past my left shoulder,” he said bitterly. “You’re not supposed to look at my face.”
“So I won’t go mad or blind?” She wanted to touch him. God help her, she wanted to reach up and touch his face, soothe the anger and helpless pain. She wanted to kiss his mouth now that she could see it.
“Don’t try to convince me you’re not disgusted by my face. You’re trembling.”
“You have that effect on me.”
The tension running through him was at fever pitch—she could feel it thrumming in the still air—and he wouldn’t listen to her, couldn’t see that she was neither horrified nor disgusted.
“You’re lying,” he said bitterly. “I know revulsion when I see it.”
“Do you?” She stopped thinking. He was tall; she was barefoot and tiny. She reached up, cupping his face with her hands, both sides of his face, and pulled him down to her, kissing him full on the mouth.
For a moment, he froze, and she could feel the shock trembling through his body. Stillness washed over them, a silent eternity.
And then he pulled her against him, hard, slanting his mouth across hers, kissing her back with a passion that was devouring, frightening, filled with such longing that she felt as if she were going to be sucked up into a vortex of emotion.
And the worst part of it was, she wanted it. She wanted to melt into him, to lose herself in the darkness and delight he promised her. Except that if she did, there’d be nothing left of her. She’d simply cease to exist, and the thought terrified her.
She wrenched herself away, falling back, away from him, and his face reflected the uncontrolled savagery of his kiss. He’d done it on purpose, she realized dizzily. Let loose the tight rein he kept on himself in an effort to frighten her. To test her.
“You see,” he said with a mirthless laugh. “You’re scared to death of me.”
She shook her head, her silken hair falling in her face. “No,” she said. “I’m scared of myself.”
And then she ran.
She half expected him to follow her out into the darkened hallway, but there was no sound of pursuit. She crashed into a wall in her headlong pace, having temporarily lost her night vision, and then she started moving again, her breath coming in strangled rasps, as if she’d been running for miles, her skin hot and cold and shivery, her nerves screaming out. She’d taken left turns to find him in the center of his spider’s web, she’d have to take right turns to escape.
It seemed hours that she struggled in the darkness, and then suddenly, she was back at her own corridor. Light poured out of her open door, a light she hadn’t turned on when she left, and she paused in the doorway, staring.
She could keep going. Except that she could barely walk another step. The small light at the far end of the room provided just enough light to keep monsters at bay. Except that Ethan Winslowe was no monster, no monster at all.
She closed the door behind her, glancing up at the camera. Moving over, she sank down in the corner beneath it, well out of range of its vigilant eye. She drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them and sank her face down. And slowly, achingly, she began to cry.
THIS TIME WHEN ETHAN heard the door open, he knew without a doubt that it was Salvatore. He was sitting in the computer room, tipped back in a chair, his feet up on the wide teak counter, his eyes shut. There was nothing to see. The television monitors were all blank, turned off. The few candles that lit the room were sporadically placed and already guttering.
“What’s wrong?” Sal demanded immediately, and Ethan found himself smiling in the darkness, a small, wry smile. Sal knew him too well, could read the very air around him.
He opened his eyes and sat up, turning the chair to look at his old friend. “She found me.”
“Hell and damnation. I locked the witch in—”
“Don’t call her that.”
Sal took a deep breath. “All right. I locked her in, I made doubly sure of it. She was asking me to help her escape—I would have thought if she’d been able to get out, she would have headed outside.”
“Maybe she got lost. This place isn’t designed for easy access.” Ethan knew he sounded no more than casually interested. He also knew that Sal wasn’t fooled.
“Maybe,” Sal said. “So what happened?”
“You mean did she scream and faint? Not exactly.” He leaned back again, remembering her expression. Wary, startled. But not revolted, even though he’d looked for that reaction. If anything, she’d looked momentarily…entranced.
He shook his head, cursing his suddenly romantic nature. “She’s a strong-minded woman, you know that,” he said. “She just took it in her stride.” Again, not the truth. He remembered the sudden, shocking feel of her hands on his face, her mouth pressed against his with something akin to desperation. He’d let his iron control slip then, just to see how far he could push her. It wasn’t until that moment that he’d really frightened her. And he suspected that if he’d caught her again, kissed her again, she would have lost that momentary terror.
“You need to let her go,” Sal said, the stubborn plaint almost boring by its repetition.
“Perhaps,” Ethan said. “But I need to keep her here even more.”
“She’s going to bring you down. The police will start looking for her sooner or later, and Reese Carey will send them straight to you. It’s only been a question of luck that he hasn’t put them on to you. He’s going to want some revenge, and he has nothing to gain by keeping quiet.”
“The moment he starts asking where his daughter is, he’ll lose his only ace in the hole. He has nothing else, no cards left to play. I’ve got the majority of the evidence against him, and he knows it. He also knows that I haven’t given everything to the district attorney. He’ll keep his mouth shut for a while longer.”
“Even though his daughter’s missing?”
Ethan’s smile wasn’t pleasant. “Have we ever had the delusion that Reese Carey was a decent man? He’ll look after himself first and gladly sacrifice his daughter to do so. He’s probably got himself convinced that I’m some sort of reclusive Prince Charming and the two of us are having a passionate affair.”
“Are you?”
Ethan jerked his head around. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with your eyesight, Sally.”
“Let her go, Ethan. We could go back to the island. We’ve been happy there, you know we have. You have friends, people who accept you as you are. You can live a normal life there, away from this sick, crazy town. Away from her. She’ll break your heart, Ethan. She’ll destroy you.”
“Don’t you think I’m too tough for that?”
“No,” Sal said flatly. “I think she’ll kill you. Let her go.”
He considered it for one brief moment. Considered the safety of his seclusion, the safety she was tearing down with her huge blue eyes and soft mouth, with her irresistible body and fierce spirit. “Not yet,” he said.
“It’ll be too late, Ethan.”
“Not yet, Sal,” he said again. Even though he knew that Sal was absolutely right.
THE DOOR TO HER ROOM slammed open, bouncing against the wall. Megan lifted her head from the softness of the mattress, staring up blearily across the sunlit room. “You got a visitor,” Sal announced in a hostile voice.
For a moment, Megan simply stared blankly. It had been a long time before she slept, before she could muster the energy to crawl from her spot in the corner and collapse onto the mattress. For hours, she lay there awake, staring into the darkness, but when sleep had finally come, it had come with a heavy, drugged vengeance, with no dreams to haunt her mind or torment her body.
She struggled to a sitting position, blinking. “What?”
“You heard me. You’ve got a visitor. You want to see him or not?”
He knows I found Ethan, she thought. And he
’s furious. “Him?” she said aloud. “I don’t think I care to go another round with Pastor Lincoln. The man’s insane.”
“I won’t argue with that. But it’s not the good pastor. It’s an old friend of yours. Says his name is Robert Palmer.”
“Rob? Rob’s here?” Her mind couldn’t comprehend it. For five weeks last summer, she’d thought she was madly in love with Rob Palmer. It had been a foolish mistake brought about by her twenty-seventh birthday and a handsome man’s lies, and she’d ended it the moment she found she wasn’t the only recipient of his attentions. Still, they’d managed to keep on being friends as well as co-workers, despite his occasional attempts to rekindle their abortive affair.
“So he says. You want to see him?”
“You mean you’ll let me?”
“Yes,” said Sal.
“Does Ethan know?”
“Ethan knows everything.”
This must be a trap, a trick. “What does he want?”
“I imagine he wants to rescue you,” Sal said, his voice clearly bored.
“And I imagine I’m not going to be allowed to go.”
“Imagine all you want. I think it’ll be up to you.”
“Give me a minute to change.”
“Don’t you want to pack?” Sal asked.
Meg halted by the closet. “But…”
“Even if he hasn’t come to take you back, he’s bound to if you ask him. You want me to pack your things?”
“Is this a trick?” she asked, wary.
“Nope. If you want to leave with your ex-lover, then Ethan says you can go.”
She glared at him. Of course, he knew Rob had briefly been her lover. It wasn’t only Ethan who knew everything. Salvatore probably found the information for him in the first place.
“I’ll be ready in five minutes.”