by Rachel Woods
Pushing my head from beneath the cover, I looked over to the right. An inky outline of Icarus’s tall, muscular form standing in front of the dresser, his back to me, a cell phone pressed against his ear was all I could see.
“We’re going to meet at my aunt’s house in twenty minutes.”
Rolling over on my back, slowly, I pressed my head against the pillow and inched down until the duvet covered my nose. I turned my head to the left, the covers still obscuring most of my face. If Icarus looked over toward me, I could quickly close my eyes, and maybe he’d think I was asleep.
What the hell was I doing? Hiding halfway under the bed sheets, spying on Icarus? As if I was still suspicious of him? As if I still had doubts about his feelings for me? When we’d made love, Icarus had told me he was falling in love with me, and how was I repaying his sentiments? By resurrecting and revisiting those doubts I still couldn’t seem to bury.
Icarus turned and stared toward the bed. “Quinn? You awake? Quinn …”
Panicked, I lowered my head, squeezing my eyes shut, praying he didn’t see me, wondering why I was lying there as though I was guilty of something when I should have been confronting Icarus, demanding to know who the hell he’d been talking to, agreeing to meet at his aunt’s house at one o’clock in the morning.
I opened one eye.
Icarus walked to the door and left the bedroom, careful and quiet as he pulled the door closed behind him.
Questions and doubts scrambled in my head, fighting for my attention, and I rose up, letting the bed sheets fall to my waist, looking over toward the door. Without thinking, I pushed the covers away and jumped out of bed.
Heart hammering, I tiptoed to the bedroom door and grabbed the knob. After a moment’s hesitation, I opened the door, hoping Icarus wouldn’t be standing there, praying I wouldn’t have to explain why I’d jumped out of bed to follow him.
The hallway outside the bedroom was clear, but I wasn’t relieved. My blood pressure ratcheted to an unsafe level as I stepped outside the bedroom. Rigid, I listened, wondering if Icarus had left the house.
A door opened and then closed. The front door, I was sure. My heart kicked as I dashed down the hall. Hurrying through the living room, I went to the window and lifted one of the slats of the plantation shutters. Glancing between the slats, I stared out into the night, just able to discern Icarus’s tall, muscular form in the dark.
As he walked to the Jeep, his stride was quick and purposeful. Icarus opened the driver’s door, hopped in, and then slammed it close. Seconds later, the Jeep’s engine rumbled, and then the headlights sent a blast of bright illumination between the blinds. Startled, I gasped and lowered the slat just a bit, worried Icarus might have seen me in the window.
As the Jeep backed out of the driveway, all I wanted to know was who the hell had Icarus been talking to? Who was he going to meet at his aunt’s house? Who had sent him a text about the blackmail money, and why?
Closing the slats, I took a step back, my heart slamming.
There was only one thing I could do now, only one way to get the answers I needed.
Ten minutes later, I was standing on the porch when the cab pulled into the empty driveway in front of Icarus’s little yellow house.
Jogging down the porch steps, I ran to the idling cab, opened the passenger door and got in, immediately thanking the driver for his willingness to come out after midnight.
“It’s okay, miss,” he said, his island lilt attentive and yet weary. “Where you want to go?”
I gave the cab driver the address to Icarus’s aunt’s house.
“The Esperança estate?” The driver’s voice rose in surprise with a hint of suspicion. “Why you want to go there? Don’t nobody stay there.”
Opening my cross-body purse, I pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill and held it up. “Can you take me, or should I call another cab?”
Shifting into drive, the cab driver grabbed the money and said, “I know a shortcut. Get you there in fifteen minutes.”
Turning off the main road, heading between the ornate gates, the cab driver headed down a gravel lane cut between a thick tangle of trees.
“You can let me out here,” I said, looking toward the double doors of the mansion and taking a deep breath.
The driver steered the cab toward a palm tree, about thirty or so feet from the courtyard, where Icarus’s Jeep was parked under the portico. “Here you are, miss.”
“Thanks,” I said, distracted as I opened the passenger door.
“You sure you gonna be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said and then tried to give him a smile. “That’s my friend’s car.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Standing in the foyer of Esperança House, I glanced around. It was dark and gloomy, almost creepy. Earlier, when Icarus had given me a tour, I’d been entranced by the house, able to see the promise and potential in the large, cavernous rooms and soaring ceilings, but now …
I took a few cautious steps out of the foyer and down the main hall, dimly lit by wall sconces, casting eerie shadows. A few more tentative steps and I passed a set of paneled doors to my right. Pushed back into their pockets, the doors were opened, revealing the large great room. Stopping at the entrance, I peeked inside. The room was dark, and unable to really see anything, I continued down the hall, trying to remember the layout of the house. About ten feet ahead, to my left, double doors opened to a library, if I remembered correctly.
The mansion was a maze of hallways, some long and wide, others short and narrow, serving as connections between dozens of rooms. The library doors were open, and after a quick glance inside, I saw that nothing seemed to be stirring, but it was hard to tell. With the only light coming from the sconces, not much illumination traveled into the darkened rooms save for a weak glow that didn’t reach the far recesses, nooks, and crannies. The light didn’t reach the places where someone might be hiding and watching, waiting to … to what? What was I expecting? I was sneaking around this huge, musty old mansion to find Icarus and whomever he’d come here to meet. There was no need to scare myself for no reason, I thought as I continued down the hall. Nothing was going to jump out at me and—
A door slammed, the sound somewhere behind me.
My heart took off, punching against my chest, and I turned, peering in the direction I came from, trying to detect signs of movement in the dim hallway. What the hell was that? Was someone behind me, following me?
Turning, I decided to head back to the foyer. Listening for sounds, I hurried by the library, and then eventually walked past the closed paneled doors of the great room, wondering if—
Wait a minute. Panicked, I turned, facing the paneled doors. They’d been open when I walked past them a few minutes ago, hadn’t they? They were, I remembered. Why were the doors closed now? Had someone gone inside the room and closed them?
My pulse jumped and I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what the hell to do, but I figured I had two options: Get the hell out of the house, which I absolutely wanted to do; and check out what, if anything, was behind the paneled doors, which I absolutely did not want to do. And yet I had to know.
Before I changed my mind, I pushed the panels back and crossed the threshold. The room was as big as a hotel ballroom with a vaulted ceiling and thick, plush carpeting. A wall of long, wide windows dominated one side of the room, but gauzy curtains blocked the view outside. Feeble light came from the antique sconces on the walls in the hallway. Venturing into the room, I was just barely able to see what looked like the outline of a lamp, sitting on an end table next to a grouping of four large, upholstered divans in the center of the room. Making my way to the lamp, I reached beneath the shade and pulled the cord. Dim, cozy illumination extended just to the middle of the divans, but it was enough for me to see a light switch panel in the corner by the windows.
I glanced over my shoulder and walked across the room, heading toward the light switch. Inches away from the switch, I was starting to
regret my decision to investigate the room, starting to think—
A loud bump came from behind me.
Frozen, my heart in my throat, I managed to turn just in time to see the lamp falling to the floor, followed by some unidentifiable form that crashed down on the lamp, shattering it, dousing the light, and shrouding the room in darkness.
Chapter Forty-Six
Fingers trembling, I flipped all six of the light switches at the same time, flooding the great room with several megawatts, and then turned around, my heart pounding.
Standing behind one of the divans, maybe ten feet away, was a tall, well-built guy dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. A tall, muscular guy I recognized, a guy I knew too damn well. His back was to me and sprawled at his feet was a girl in shorts and a tank top. I couldn’t see her face, but she had long, dark hair. She wasn’t moving; her body was perfectly still, and it was covered in blood.
Splashes of blood on her body seemed to be the same blood on the large knife the tall guy with the muscles was holding as he looked down at the lifeless body.
Creeping closer, I struggled to find my voice, struggled to breathe, struggled to stay on my feet, but I was about pass out. “Icarus …” I whispered, trying to hear over the roaring in my head.
Icarus turned to face me, clutching the knife and staring at me.
Shocked and terrified, I stared at the knife, wet with blood. My gaze trailed to the body at Icarus’s feet and then to the blood stains on the rug and …
“Quinn?” Icarus looked confused. “What are you doing here?”
Staring at Icarus, I didn’t know what to think except that everyone had been right about him. Everyone had tried to warn me. Lisa had warned me. Stazia Zacheo had warned me. Sam Collins had warned me. They had all told me Icarus was the killer, but I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe it. But, I had been wrong about Icarus. I had been so damn wrong about him!
Screaming, I rushed out of the room, running as fast as I could, heading to the foyer. Once there, I hurried to the doors, grabbed the knobs, and yanked.
The doors wouldn’t open. What the hell was going on? What was happening? Crying, I yanked harder, but the doors wouldn’t budge, and I didn’t understand why. It didn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t the doors—
“Quinn!” Icarus’s booming baritone carried down the hallway. “Don’t run from me! Quinn!”
Panicked, I spun from the doors. The double staircase ascended majestically. I didn’t know if I should go upstairs, but I couldn’t stay in the foyer. I couldn’t just stand there and wait for Icarus to come and stab me to death like he’d stabbed the girl lying dead on the floor in the great room.
Dashing to the stairs, I ran up the steps. Stumbling, nearly tripping, I made it to the second-floor landing.
At the top of the staircase, I sprinted down a wide, expansive hallway until I came to the fork separating the two second-floor wings. I went left. Along the long hallway, which was narrower than the main hall I turned from, there were three closed doors, bedrooms probably, two on the left and one on the right.
My heart thundering, I veered right. Yanking the knob on the first door, I twisted it and then shoved the door open. Slamming the door, I closed myself inside the dark room and slapped a hand along the inside wall near the doorframe, feeling for a switch. My hand closed over a knob. A dimmer, maybe? Frantic, I turned the dimmer to the right. The room brightened and I spun around, trembling, trying to think as I surveyed the bedroom. Large and ornate, it was dominated by a huge, canopied bed. There was a sitting area, two loveseats with a coffee table in the middle, an alcove with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a desk, and a set of French doors leading out to a terrace.
Trembling, apprehension slamming through me, I started to unzip my cross-body purse, intent on pulling my cell phone out and calling—
The door burst open, banging against the opposite wall.
Gasping, I jumped and spun around. Icarus staggered into the room, clutching his stomach, blood spilling over his fingers.
“Quinn …” he whispered, lurching toward me and grimacing. “You have to … get out … of here! You …”
Icarus fell to the floor. Rushing to his side, I dropped to my knees next to him. “Icarus!” Slipping an arm behind his neck, I struggled to pull him up. “What happened?”
“Quinn …” he whispered, voice hoarse, eyes fluttering.
“Oh my God!” I stared at his face, splattered with blood. “Icarus, what happened to you? Can you hear me?”
Slowly his lids opened, and the whiskey-colored eyes focused on me. “Get out of here.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused, trying to swipe the speckles of blood away, smearing them across his cheek. “What happened?”
“Not safe here.” His eyes closed, and his Adam’s apple jerked as he swallowed.
“Icarus, please, tell me what happened to you!”
“Stabbed me …”
“What did you—”
And then I noticed the slashes on the front of his T-shirt and the blood soaked into the fabric. Carefully, my hand shaking, I lifted the hem of the T-shirt, wincing as he groaned. Shell-shocked, my stomach lurching, I stared at the bloody gash below his right pec. It was still bleeding, mixing with sweat rolling down the side of his heaving chest.
“Who did this?” I asked, my mind racing. What was going on? I didn’t understand anything! Downstairs, in the great room, Icarus had been holding that bloody knife, standing over the dead body of the girl, but now he was lying in my arms, bleeding from a stab wound. What was happening? Nothing made any sense!
“Get out of here,” Icarus whispered again, closing his eyes.
“We have to get you out of here,” I said, looking over at the bed linens, wondering if I could use them to make a bandage. “I’m going to try to stop the bleeding and then I’m calling an ambulance and—”
“Go … not safe,” Icarus said, eyes wide. “… stabbed me when I tried …”
“What?” I asked, terrified that he was about to die in my arms. “When you tried to what?”
“Tried to …” He trailed off and coughed, a thin, wheezing sound that made my heart drop, made me wonder if maybe his lung had been punctured. “I … to get … proof.”
“What proof?” I ask.
“You didn’t kill Henri,” he said, grimacing. “Stazia …”
“What about Stazia?”
Icarus grabbed my shirt, pulling himself closer to me. “Called … said … had proof, but …”
“But, what? Stazia lied to you? Is that who you were talking to?” I asked, my head in shambles. “You came here to meet Stazia and she stabbed you? Tell me who stabbed you! Icarus, did—”
“You have to leave,” he whispered. “You have to …”
“Icarus, who stabbed you?” I pleaded with him, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Did Stazia stab you?”
“Quinn …” Icarus coughed again, took a breath, and said, “You need … go! Now!”
“I’m not going to leave you!” I promised him, my panic increasing as his eyes fluttered and started to close. “I’m going to call an ambulance, but you have to stay with me, okay? Don’t close your—”
Abruptly, his eyes widened, and Icarus rasped, “Behind you …”
Chapter Forty-Seven
“Behind me?” Confused, I stared at Icarus, trying to understand. Behind me? What was behind me? What did he mean? What was he trying to—
“The light of the wicked shall be put out …”
Startled, I froze for a second, recognizing the lyrical St. Matean cadence, trying to recall where I’d heard it before. Just as quickly as my body froze, it thawed, and I whipped my head right, toward the door.
Doris stood just inside the bedroom, breathing deep, her eyes wide with an emotion I couldn’t quite identify but which unnerved me. Her tank top, arms, and face were smeared with what looked like dabs of blood. Her hair was unbound and wild, hanging in limp strands around
her shoulders.
“Doris? Oh my God!” I stared at her, my heart pounding fiercely. “What are you doing here? What happened to you? Icarus was stabbed! He was tricked into coming here! I think it was Stazia, but I don’t know. All I know is, there is a girl in the great room and she’s dead! Icarus was stabbed! Doris, we need to call the police! I think the killer is still in this house! We have to get out of here! We have to—”
“When Elijah killed the prophets of Baal, do you think that was murder?” Doris asked, a bizarre, incongruous question, posed rhetorically, as though she didn’t really expect an answer even though she was staring at me, a piercing gaze that seemed to bore through my soul. “No, it was not. It was God’s judgment on those wicked, evil idolaters.”
“Icarus needs help! I’m going to find something to stop the bleeding.” Puzzled by the spark of wildness in her dark gaze, I took a step back and then glanced at Icarus. Seeing his eyes closed, my heart slammed. “Can you call the police? I have a phone if you don’t.”
“Because the evil and wickedness was so great in Sodom and Gomorrah,” Doris said, her voice calm, almost circumspect, “the Lord sent angels to destroy that evil place.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I raged at her. “Icarus might die if we don’t—”
“And so he should die,” Doris said, a hint of hysteria seeping into her tone. “The Bible say, ‘his own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.’”
“What do you mean, Icarus should die?” I stared at her, feeling as though her hysteria was transferring to me.
“Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup! That is what the Bible says. The same thing that happened to Henri, and Sam, and Stazia, has to happen to Icarus.”
“What do you mean, the same thing that happened to Henri, Sam, and Stazia?” I asked, my pulse racing as chaotic revelations and realizations crowded into my mind. Henri and Sam had been killed. Was Doris saying Icarus should be killed? Stabbed to death? Why would she say that? Why would she think that—