The back porch resembled the front, wide stone columns, deep-cut steps, rotting boards. A brick border had been started, presumably for a flower bed to surround the house, but someone had stopped after laying little more than ten feet. Had they run out of bricks? Who were these people? What had happened to them? Why had Betty kept her sister’s body, telling no one she’d died? So many questions. Not a single answer.
Bern rounded the next corner. Livie followed, trailing her hand along the rock wall, feeling each individual stone beneath her fingers. At one time, the rock house would have been splendid. Now it was simply dead.
She found him standing by two corrugated tin doors set at an angle into the house.
“A storm cellar?” Like something out of The Wizard of Oz? Californians didn’t have storm cellars.
“Probably a root cellar,” he said, staring down at the padlocked doors. The lock was rusty but solid enough when he jiggled it. Bern stepped back. Then he shuddered with an unmistakable ripple along his shoulders and down his arms.
Livie put a hand on him, his muscles stiff beneath her touch. “What’s wrong?”
“Place gives me the creeps,” he said, still staring at the padlocked doors.
“Does it remind you of anything? Maybe something from a dream?” She thought of the bleed-through memories his sister had talked about after her regression.
He was silent a long moment, then shrugged her off. “I don’t know. Maybe. Hard to say.” He circled back to the front and when she turned the corner, she found him gazing up at the stone facade. His eyes were bleak when he turned to her. “Don’t you feel the evil?”
She took his hand. His skin was cold again. “Sadness, that’s all that comes to me. Do you want to see if we can get inside the house?” Though that could be dangerous if the floors were rotting. One of them could fall through, break a leg.
Bern pulled away, clenched his fists, all the while watching the house as if it were a living thing that might open its doors to swallow them. “Let’s get out of here.”
And Livie did feel something then. She shuddered just as Bern had. Something called to them. Wanted them. Something evil.
Chapter Twenty-two
Something wet rolled into his eyes, stinging him blind. Except that he was already blind in the darkness of this hellhole. His head pounded, and when he put his hand to it, his fingers came away sticky. The coppery stench of blood filled his nostrils. Bitch. She’d hit him hard, knocked him out. He didn’t know how long he’d lain on the dirt floor in the godforsaken hole. Stone walls surrounded him, so close he could barely move. He’d shouted himself hoarse, but no one heard.
He’d get away from her. They would both get away. She wouldn’t rule their lives anymore with her whining and her piety and her need for retribution. Yes, by God, they’d get away even if he had to kill the bitch.
He shoved against the walls with superhuman strength and beat his fists on the door until the pounding in his head drove him to his knees.
Then he heard it. A scrabbling just beyond the door. She was out there. Scrape, slap, smack, scrape, slap, smack.
“Let me out, you bitch.”
The scraping stopped. He heard her laugh, but she said nothing. The rhythm started again, scrape, slap, smack, scrape, slap, smack. Then he recognized the sound, brick slapping the metal door.
His blood froze in his veins. He knew what she was doing.
This time when he opened his mouth, he screamed.
“Wake up.” The voice came from very far away, and even as he thrashed wildly, it dragged him into reality.
Jesus. God. Livie. He smelled her, the sweetness of her, felt her touch on his cheeks. Livie. God, Livie, I don’t want to die. Not like that. Save me.
“You were having a nightmare,” she whispered.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, wanting only the feel of her against him, the cotton sheets beneath his back, the slightly lumpy mattress.
“Are you okay?”
Eyes still closed, he nodded. She kissed his forehead, smoothed a hand down his chest.
“What was it about?”
He couldn’t tell her. Just as he hadn’t been able to tell her what he felt standing by the cellar doors. Immobilized. Paralyzed. Terrified. The house filled him with a cold dread that stayed with him long after they’d returned to the car. He’d wanted to switch on the heater, but the chill came from deep within. It lasted through dinner with his family, the endless chatter. Only once he’d gotten Livie back to their room at Marchant’s and steeped himself in her heat had he felt the frost finally leeching from his bones.
Then he’d dreamed.
“It sounded as bad as one of my nightmares.” She tried to coax it out of him.
All he wanted to do was shut her up. Because he couldn’t talk about it, didn’t want to remember, wouldn’t. He didn’t want her to know.
He rolled her under him, crushing her beneath his weight, took her mouth with his. And shut her up. Shoving a knee between her legs, he parted her. She was still wet, and he lost himself in the slick, slippery, delicious feel of her. She stopped trying to push him away and moaned, her mouth fused to his. Her hunger rose, met his, fed on it, and turned him wild. He had to have her now, and he took what he wanted, thrusting deep into her giving depths.
“Bern, oh God, Bern.” She wrapped her arms round his neck, held him tight, rocked with him until his blood was singing.
“Baby, baby, baby,” he chanted. And thought of his words this afternoon in that bleak landscape, that evil house its backdrop. Mine, mine, mine. “You’re mine, you always have been, you always will be.”
If he could have gotten out of that place, he’d have run with her. But that was a dream.
He angled her hips, pounding deeper, relentlessly. “Come with me.” Make me whole.
Her hair was a wild tangle on the pillow. She dug her nails into his arms. Her body clenched around him, working him as she climaxed. And he dove headfirst into oblivion right along with her.
He held her tight long after her shudders faded away. He knew she’d ask again. Women always needed to help.
“How long have you had these nightmares?”
“It was just a dream,” he lied. “Not recurring. And it’s gone now. I don’t remember it.”
“Liar,” she said, kissing his chin. “You need a dose of your sister’s regression hypnosis.”
“It wasn’t like that.” But oh yes, it was. The woman had killed him. And he’d left the other one behind, not the one he’d married, but the one he loved. She’d never know what happened to him. She’d think he’d run away without her, deserted her.
“Bern.” Her voice broke through.
Dear God, even awake, he was starting to think like the man in that tiny prison.
He didn’t want Livie to know. He didn’t want to scare her. “I’m fine,” he said, stroking her hair. “I’m sorry if I was rough just now.” He’d taken her hard and fast, not an ounce of tenderness.
“You need to stop apologizing all the time. I loved it. It’s every girl’s fantasy to wake up in the middle of the night for something hard and fast and oh so good.”
Thank God. He’d distracted her. “Good. Now go to sleep.” He ran a hand down her flank to take away the terseness of his words.
But as he drifted back down into sleep, he couldn’t stop the thought that time was running out. They were no longer safe.
* * * * *
“So good to meet you. Come back anytime.” His mother clasped Livie’s hand in hers.
Mom was seeing wedding vows in his future, maybe even babies. They’d had a good weekend with the family, and he and Wade had nailed down the agenda for Gillespie on Wednesday.
But dammit, Bern hated that Livie was going to be alone.
While the women were handing over snacks for the drive home, leftovers, et cetera, Nana oversaw all, sipping lemonade and eating the last of Clare’s tarts. A breeze fluttered through the willow trees in the front yard, a
nd the tabby cat was chasing a few leaves. Bern stood aside with Wade and Jake. Jake had returned this morning. Bern figured he didn’t want to miss out on another of Clare’s home-cooked meals.
“I’ll be here no later than eight on Wednesday,” Bern told Wade. They’d have enough time to get up to Red Cliff by nine o’clock.
“I thought you were coming the night before,” Wade said. “There’s plenty of room.” The house was too damn big for Wade and Clare, even with Nana living there.
“Since we were here this weekend, I’m better with driving up in the morning,” he insisted. “I don’t want to be gone overnight.”
Wade shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
He’d have to leave by five to make it through the city before the morning commute, but he’d still have the Sacramento rush hour to deal with. Four o’clock would be better.
Livie edged down the steps, a bag of snacks in one hand, two plastic bowls balanced on the other. “We better go before she ends up with the rest of Nana’s tarts,” Bern said dryly.
Wade barked a laugh. “Try to take her tarts and you’ll lose a couple of fingers.” He broke away to give Livie a brotherly good-bye pat on the shoulder.
“Good to see you,” Jake said as he looked at Livie with something close to envy in his eyes.
Bern thought about telling his brother he no longer thought he was crazy, though that was a strong word. A little left of center better defined it. I believe you, man. And Nana’s right, Dorie will be back.
But if he said anything, he’d have to explain everything. He wasn’t ready for that. He might never be. So he said nothing at all.
The farewells dispensed, he and Livie were finally on their way. The leftovers sat on the floor in the back, out of the sun, and Livie had tossed the bag of snacks onto the backseat. Neither of them was hungry after another of Clare’s feasts.
“I like your family.” Livie tapped her fingers idly on the armrest.
“I wouldn’t disown them,” he said with a smile.
She shifted, stretching the seatbelt as she leaned close, her elbow on the console between them. “You are not going to believe this.”
He glanced at her before making a left turn. “Why does that frighten me?”
She laughed. “Because the last time I said that, I’d decided we had another past life together.”
“Don’t tell me you remembered one more.” He wasn’t sure he could handle another specific.
“No, this is even better.” She sat back with a cat-that-ate-the-cream smile. “Clare is volunteering with the county library. It’s part of the Northern California library system.”
“Wow, that sounds really interesting,” he mocked.
“It’s the county library,” she stressed. “And that includes Red Cliff.”
“I do know that Red Cliff is in the same county.”
She fidgeted in her seat and he could see she was terribly proud of her discovery. “They’ve been working on a huge project.”
“And?”
She really wanted to milk it for all it was worth. “They’ve been doing a lot of historical preservation work, scanning old documents, letters, periodicals, newspapers, stuff like that.”
He was starting to get it. “And Red Cliff has some old”—he raised a brow—“newspapers?”
The beam of her smile warmed him.
“Exactly.” She leaned close again, the seatbelt taut across her breasts. “She gave me her library password so I can look up whatever I want. Including the Red Cliff Gazette.”
He hit the freeway entrance ramp, and once he’d merged, he set the cruise control. Then he curled his fingers around the wheel. His knuckles went white, until he released, but the knot of tension in his gut was growing.
“Aren’t you going to say something?”
“That’s a pretty big coincidence.”
She gasped out her next words. “Of course it is.” Then she gave in to her nonstop flow of thoughts. “That’s my point. Everything is falling into place like we were meant to find out all this stuff. First Nana thinks I’m someone named Myra and that I knew you as some guy named George. When we get up to Red Cliff, we just happen to stumble into an old real estate office run by an elderly man who knows exactly who we’re talking about and tells us where to find that house. Now this, your sister-in-law just happens to be working on a project which will probably contain all the answers we’re looking for?” Her voice rose on a question, as if she expected him to endorse that it was a great miracle of coincidences.
“You know, if it was this easy to find out about your past lives, everyone would do it.”
She glared at him. “You’re being negative.”
But he simply remembered the nightmare and the sickening pitch of his stomach as he stood outside that house. He remembered the stench of its evil.
He didn’t know how to stop her, how to get her to see that she was tempting fate with her searching and her need to know. It was his fault. He was the one who’d started saying none of it was coincidence. Now she wouldn’t let go.
“It’s like someone up there is handing it all to us on a platter,” she said.
He clenched his teeth.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He knew what she was thinking: Said just like a man who doesn’t want to say anything.
“I thought you’d be excited.”
“I’m excited.” Not.
“You are not.”
“Look, it doesn’t prove anything even if we find out who they were or what happened to them. It doesn’t mean it’s us. And it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.” If she’d stop digging and he kept an eagle eye out for Toni, maybe he could keep them safe.
“But I thought you wanted to know.”
“I don’t care. I don’t like that house. I don’t need to know. Those people are all long-dead, and I’ve got you in the here and now. That’s all that matters.”
“But—”
He cut her off with a slash of his hand in the air. “Let’s pretend none of that ever happened. Let’s be normal.”
It was fear, plain and simple. He didn’t know how to protect her. Toni hadn’t bothered them all weekend, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t planning something. Maybe he should have called the police about the squirrel and the snake in Livie’s car. But he’d screwed up, and it was too late for that.
Beside him, Livie sat in hurt silence. Yeah, he knew; his reaction was coming out of the blue.
He should tell her about the nightmare. “Look,” he started. The car was heating up as he debated, and he turned the air conditioning on low.
So what exactly to tell her? That he’d been murdered. That Toni had done it in another incarnation. That she’d do it this time around, to one of them, both of them. If he told Livie about the carcass on his porch, she’d be pissed he hadn’t mentioned it before. If he ranted about her sister, she’d think he was paranoid. She’d leave him.
He’d be completely lost without her.
“What?” she prompted.
He stared at the long, straight road ahead. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what bug crawled up inside me. Let’s see what you find on the library site.”
“Okay.” Her excitement had fled. She didn’t trust his acquiescence.
And they rode in an uncomfortable silence.
Chapter Twenty-three
Livie could not understand Bern’s attitude. Yesterday he’d had that little tantrum in the car on the way home. Then last night, he’d seduced her into giving him her complete attention. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Okay, it was exceptionally good, but...
She was seated at his kitchen table because her back couldn’t take it when she was hunched over the computer on the couch. “Do you want to know what I found?” she asked.
From his easy chair in the family room, Bern looked at her over the rim of his reading glasses. They were pretty damn hot, though God only knew why.
She waited for him to show a little
enthusiasm. He didn’t. Okay, fine. “It’s an article about the younger sister’s death. Myra.” A chill raced down her spine. She hadn’t felt a thing when she read the article, but saying the name aloud to Bern, suddenly it was different. This was her. She was reading her own obituary.
“You couldn’t possibly have found it that quickly.” They’d sat down only an hour ago.
“I’m telling you there’s something cosmic going on because I did find it and it wasn’t all that hard. They’ve put together an awesome little program with an excellent search function. You can search on things through the different issues, so if you want to follow a particular news story over time, you can find every reference.” And yes, she did think that was some sort of divine intervention. If she’d had to go through each issue individually when she didn’t have a year or a date, only a decade, it could have taken months.
“All right. What’d you find?”
There was still that lack of enthusiasm, but she plunged ahead. “It wasn’t murder. She”—Livie didn’t want to say the name again—“died of cancer. She’d never been diagnosed, no doctors, nothing, and she died in the house. The sister Betty didn’t call anyone at all, and it was the mailman who reported a suspicious smell emanating from the mail slot in the front door.” It wasn’t until she read the article that she remembered the old-fashioned mail slot, its brass plate tarnished.
“I’m surprised the mailman went all the way up to the house. These days they’d make the family put a mailbox at the end of the road.”
She stared at him as he turned back to his report. “That’s all you have to say?”
“What year was it?”
“1966.” She’d died in 1966. It had been May. May was a lovely month with temperatures rising and flowers blooming. Maybe it was a good month to die.
“What did you find about the older sister?”
Twisted By Love, Reincarnation Tales, Book 1 Page 18