But she needn’t have worried. When she finally got up enough courage to not only stare at the bed, but to sit on the edge, not a single memory was stirred. Not one. The bed was a sterile place for her.
How could that be? she wondered. She and Richard had been married for a month. Surely they must have spent the night together. Slept together. How could she not have memories of making love with her husband?
As Andrea explored the room further, she thought she’d found her answer. At least, it was the most plausible explanation she could come up with. The dressing room wedged between the huge master bathroom and the walk-in closet contained a cot. Andrea knew instinctively this was her bed. This was where she had slept.
But why?
What kind of relationship did she and Richard have?
Why did they sleep in separate beds?
As Andrea lay down on the cot, her eyes fluttered closed and she found herself wishing that this was all some horrible mistake. She wasn’t really married after all. Richard Malone wasn’t her husband. She didn’t have a husband. She was free to love another man.
She was free to go to Troy and tell him how she felt.
A powerful image swept over her then. Not a dream or a memory this time, but a fantasy. She and Troy, together in this tiny bed, arms and legs entwined, bodies pressed close. She could almost feel his lips at her throat, his hand skimming her thigh, his voice whispering in her ear exactly what he wanted to do to her. And her own heated reply, Yes. Oh, yes.
She snuggled deeper into the bed, not wanting to let go of the fantasy, but knowing all the while that it could never be anything more.
* * *
A LITTLE WHILE LATER, Andrea stood on the balcony off Richard’s bedroom, watching dark clouds gather in the distance. She shivered in the waiting calm. The storm was hours away, but the thought of thunder and lightning crashing all around made her uneasy. Was she afraid of storms? She didn’t think so, yet she couldn’t shake her disquiet. Bad weather meant trouble.
Feeling unsettled by the approaching storm and by her ominous thoughts, Andrea decided to join the others for dinner after all. Mayela’s little face lit when she saw her, and Andrea was glad she’d decided to come down.
But the child’s joy was short-lived. By the time they went in to dinner, Mayela’s shoulders were drooping and her eyes looked suspiciously bright.
“Don’t slump, Mayela,” Dorian scolded.
Mayela made a halfhearted attempt to straighten, then let her shoulders fall forward again.
“What’s the matter?” Robert asked. “Too much soccer today?”
Mayela shook her head. “When’s Daddy coming home?”
“You know very well he’s not coming home until next week,” Dorian said. “He’s away on business.”
“Why did he have to go away?” Mayela whined. “Why does he always have to go away?” She turned and gazed up at Andrea. Her eyes looked far too troubled for a seven-year-old. “He is coming home this time, isn’t he?”
Andrea’s heart quickened. It was almost as if the child knew something. “If he’s away on business,” she said carefully, “why wouldn’t he come home?”
“You know why,” Mayela said very softly. So softly that Andrea was certain Robert and Dorian hadn’t heard her. Mayela turned back to her plate and sighed, as if the conversation had taken far too much of her flagging energy. “I’m tired. May I be excused?”
“You haven’t eaten your dinner,” Dorian said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Very well.”
The child got up and stood beside Andrea’s chair. “Will you come tuck me in?”
“Of course.”
“Will you tell me a story?”
“If I can think of one.” Andrea excused herself and pushed back her chair.
Upstairs, she sat on the edge of the canopied bed while Mayela brushed her teeth and got into her pajamas. Then she came and crawled into bed, and Andrea tucked her in.
“Tell me one of the keyhole stories,” Mayela begged.
“I’m afraid I don’t remember them,” Andrea said. “Why don’t you tell me one?”
“There was this little girl,” Mayela began solemnly. “She was locked away in this dark room by her evil stepmother or somebody, and the only way she could see the outside world was through the keyhole in her door.”
Andrea began to feel uneasy. She wished Mayela would stop, but the child warmed to the story. “The keyhole was magic, see. Every time the little girl would look through it, she’d see something different. One time she saw a beautiful garden with roses and lilies and bright yellow butterflies. Another time she saw great big crystal snowflakes that sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight.”
“Sounds like a pretty neat keyhole,” Andrea murmured. She was drowning. A cold darkness closed in on her.
“Tell me what the little girl sees now, Andrea. Make up something really neat. Please.”
Blood, Andrea thought. She sees blood.
In her mind, she could see the little girl kneeling at the keyhole. But she couldn’t see what the little girl could see. Andrea wouldn’t let herself see beyond that door. She couldn’t. Not yet. She wasn’t ready.
Mayela waited impatiently. She tugged on Andrea’s hand. “What does she see?”
“She doesn’t see anything,” Andrea forced herself to say lightly. “Do you know why?”
Mayela shook her head.
“Because she’s sleeping. Just like you should be.”
“But I’m not tired.” Mayela smothered a yawn.
“You said you were downstairs,” Andrea argued.
“Yes, but I just said that so you’d come up here with me. I don’t like the way Dorian tucks me in, and she doesn’t know any good stories.”
“Why do you call her Dorian?”
Mayela shrugged. “She told me to. She doesn’t like to be called Grandmother or anything like that.”
“Is that why you called her Grandmother earlier?”
An impish smile tugged at the corners of the child’s mouth. Andrea couldn’t help smiling, too. She knew Mayela was probably a handful at times, but Andrea also knew that she loved the little girl dearly. She didn’t have to remember that. She felt it every time she looked at Mayela’s sweet little face. Andrea skimmed the back of her fingers along the child’s downy cheek.
Mayela turned serious again, her blue eyes gazing up at Andrea in earnest. “You won’t go away again, will you? Promise me you won’t.”
“I won’t. Not if I can help it.”
“Daddy said you’d always be here to take care of me. Even when he’s not.” Mayela hesitated. Her eyes clouded, and for a moment, she struggled with her emotions. “I’ll be brave,” she whispered, blinking furiously. “I promised Daddy.”
“Brave about what?”
But Mayela said nothing else. She turned her head away, so Andrea couldn’t see her tears. Andrea’s throat constricted. She felt like crying herself. Mayela seemed to know something was wrong, just as Andrea knew. But how did they know? Why were she and Mayela the only ones who knew that Richard wasn’t ever coming back?
Andrea gathered the little girl in her arms, and for a long moment, they rocked each other back and forth. Neither of them cried. Neither of them said anything.
But they both knew.
Mayela’s daddy wasn’t coming back.
Just as Andrea’s daddy hadn’t come back all those years ago.
* * *
ANDREA LAY IN THE DARK, her eyes wide, her heart hammering, as she listened for the noise that had awakened her. It came again, and for a moment, she thought someone was on the roof, trying to find a way to break in. Then she realized the storm had hit, and the sound she heard was tree limbs scraping against the shingles.
She got up and moved to the French doors that opened onto the balcony. The rain hadn’t started yet, but the wind was up, whipping the giant trees that surrounded the house into a frenzy. Jagged lightning bolts split the s
ky in two places, and thunder rattled the windows.
Andrea stood outside, letting the wind tear through her hair. She wasn’t frightened by the storm, but as earlier, an uncanny sense of unease plagued her. Something about the weather bothered her.
The rain came suddenly, in great sheets, and Andrea hurried inside and bolted the French doors. She stood watching the water drip down the glass as a torrent of memories buffeted her.
It had been raining that Sunday night. She remembered that now, and something urgent had driven her out into the weather. She closed her eyes, remembering the sound of the rain on her car roof, the almost frantic beat of the wiper blades against her windshield. She’d been running to someone, hadn’t she? Or had she been running away?
Andrea strained to remember. Why had she been out driving that Sunday night? And why had the police picked her up walking? What had happened to her in the time in between?
She turned away from the window, distressed by all the questions rumbling around inside her. As she moved toward her bed, a piercing scream stopped her in her tracks.
Andrea’s heart leapt to her throat. It was as though the scream had come from inside her, a manifestation of her troubled thoughts and her unnamed fears. But as she stood listening to the sounds of the storm, the scream came again and again.
Mayela!
The child was afraid of the storm. That was why Andrea had been so uneasy all evening. She knew the approaching storm would frighten Mayela.
Andrea flew across the room and threw open her door. Mayela’s room was in the east section of the house, across the bridge that connected the two wings. There was no light in the hallway, but Andrea didn’t take time to look for a switch.
As she rushed across the bridge at the top of the stairs, she felt something wet beneath her bare feet. Her feet slipped from under her. She fell heavily against the stair railing and clung to the banister to keep from falling.
As she righted herself, she could feel water dripping down on her. The skylight directly over her had been broken by a tree limb, and rain cascaded downward, creating a treacherous puddle on the marble.
As Andrea continued to look up, she heard a terrible cracking sound. Then, almost in slow motion, the window gave way, and large sections of glass arrowed toward the floor. Toward her.
She had no time to think, to even breathe. Automatically she stepped back. Into nothing but air. For a moment, for an eternity, Andrea hung suspended at the top of the stairs. She was still looking up, and just before she tumbled backward, she could have sworn she saw a face in the gaping hole left by the falling glass.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The drive to the hospital from Troy’s apartment normally took twenty-five minutes. He was aiming for closer to fifteen. He made almost all the lights, and the ones he didn’t make, he ran. An off-duty cop driving like a bat out of hell was a dangerous thing, and Troy told himself to slow down before he hurt some innocent bystander. His foot eased on the accelerator, but his heart pounded like a piston inside him. It had ever since Tim Seavers had called him from the emergency room to tell him that Andrea had been brought in a few minutes ago.
He hit the ER doors on the run, and the nurse at the desk told him where Andrea had been taken. He tried not to think about that first night, when he’d seen her in the hospital with blood all over her clothes. He tried not to remember the premonition he’d had then that a woman like her meant nothing but trouble for a man like him.
“Tim!”
Tim Seavers was coming out of one of the cubicles, and when he heard Troy call to him, he reversed course and came toward him. They stood in the hallway, oblivious to the noise and confusion around them.
“How bad is it?” Troy asked.
“Not as bad as it could have been.” Tim jotted a few notes on the chart he was holding, then looked up. “She has a few cuts and bruises, and she’ll be sore in the morning, but other than that, she’s one lucky woman.”
Troy breathed a sigh of relief. “What happened?”
“I don’t know all the details, but evidently she took a tumble down the stairs at her home. She managed to break the fall by grabbing hold of the banister. The EMTs said the place is a mess over there. Broken glass and water everywhere. You might want to talk to him.” He nodded toward the waiting room where Robert Malone paced nervously.
“I want to see Andrea first.”
“Would it do any good if I said no?”
“Not one damn bit.”
Tim sighed. “That’s what I figured. Go on, then, but just for a few minutes. I don’t want her upset.”
Troy had no intention of upsetting Andrea. He told himself as he stood looking at her through the curtains surrounding the cubicle that he would be gentle with her. He wouldn’t question her too harshly. But what he heard come out of his mouth when she opened her eyes and looked at him was a gruff “What the hell happened?”
“Troy.” There was a small bandage on her forehead, and another on the back of her hand. A faint bruise colored her right cheek, and her hair had been pushed back to reveal a deeper bruise at her temple.
Troy felt a curious sensation in the back of his throat that made it difficult to talk.
Andrea’s eyes were shadowed as she looked up at him. “Is Mayela all right?”
He cleared his throat. “Why wouldn’t she be? You’re the one who fell down the stairs.”
“I know, but—”
“But what?” He took her hand and held it in both of his. He could feel her trembling, and he wanted to gather her in his arms, hold her close, tell her everything was going to be all right. But how could he tell her that when he didn’t know what the hell had happened?
“Why are you so worried about Mayela?” he persisted.
“Because it could have been her here instead of me,” Andrea said softly. “She could have been the one to fall, and if it had been her—” She broke off on a wave of emotion, as if she couldn’t bear to think of the little girl’s being hurt in any way.
“Just tell me what happened.”
At first, Troy thought she would refuse. She withdrew her hand from his and turned her head to stare at the ceiling. Finally she said, “I heard Mayela scream. I knew she was afraid of storms so—”
“Wait a minute. How did you know she was afraid of storms?”
“I…remembered.”
Troy gazed down at her. What else had she remembered? What else had she not told him? “Go on.”
“I ran to her. Her room is on the opposite side of the house from…Richard’s. The skylight at the top of the stairs had been broken in the storm. There was water all over the floor. I slipped, and then I saw all that glass falling toward me. I stepped back without thinking and lost my balance. But I could have sworn I saw—”
“What?”
She bit her lip. “It all happened so fast. I was so scared.”
She was holding back again. Refusing to tell him the whole story. Frustrated, Troy ran his hand through his damp hair. “Why can’t you trust me?”
Her blue eyes shone like stardust. “You don’t know how much I want to.”
“Then do it, damn it. Let me help you.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Because it’s not just me I have to protect,” Andrea said desperately. “It’s Mayela. I’m all she has left.”
Something clenched in Troy’s stomach. He stared down at her. Hard. “What about her father? She has him, doesn’t she?”
A look of fear flashed in her eyes before she quickly turned away, so he couldn’t see her expression.
“What did you mean by that, Andrea? Have you remembered something else?”
She shook her head. “It’s…something Mayela said. I don’t think her father is home very much. I don’t think he spends much time with her.”
“I see.” More than she thought he did, Troy thought. She’d avoided using Richard’s name. She hadn’t called him her husband. Instead, she’d re
ferred to him as Mayela’s father. If that wasn’t significant to Andrea, it sure as hell was to Troy.
Hope springs eternal, he told himself in disgust.
“You still here?” Tim strode into the cubicle and gave Troy a stern look. “My patient needs her rest, Sergeant.”
“When can I go home?” Andrea asked anxiously.
“Tomorrow morning. I’m keeping you overnight for observation.”
“But I’m fine,” she protested. “I don’t need to stay here overnight. I have to get home to Mayela.”
“Who’s Mayela?” Tim asked.
“My stepdaughter,” Andrea said. “She needs me. I have to get home to her.”
“You have to do what the doctor says,” Troy said. “But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go by the house and make sure she’s all right.” He’d been planning to go over there anyway and take a look at the situation for himself.
Andrea’s eyes were still shadowed with worry. She grabbed Troy’s hand and clung to it. “Tell them—tell them you’re watching out for her.”
“Tell who?”
“Dorian and Robert. Make sure they know you’re watching them.”
“Robert’s in the waiting room now,” Troy said. “Did he drive you here?”
“No. He called the ambulance, and then I guess he followed in his car. Dorian stayed home with Mayela.”
“Do you want to see him?”
“No!”
Her vehemence startled Troy. He gazed down at her. “All right. I’ll go out and have a few words with him before I leave.”
Andrea clung to his hand for a moment. “Tell him what I said. Tell them both.”
But by the time Troy walked out to the waiting room, Robert had already gone.
What was going on here? Why was Andrea so afraid—not just for herself, but for Mayela?
He told himself on the drive to the Malone house that a broken skylight in a windstorm was not an unusual occurrence and not something anyone could have planned on. But when he walked into the house, saw the location of the window and the amount of broken glass on the marble floor, he had to agree with Tim Seavers. Andrea was indeed one lucky woman. He wondered if she had any idea how close she’d come to being killed tonight.
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