I remembered that Rufus had a background in Special Forces operations.
“So you think Lavery murdered the gardener? Why?” Lucas shook his head. I noticed his arm was round Dahlia, who looked fragile and on the verge of tears.
“I know why,” I said. “It happened when Sebastian ordered my room to be filled with daisies.”
They all stared at me.
“It’s, uh… it’s a personal thing only I’d understand.”
Dahlia let out a quick “Oh, what a sweetie!”, then fell silent again.
“Go on,” Rufus nodded.
“So daisies are wild flowers, right? So I guess Sebastian arranged for the hotel gardeners to gather them. Instead of a professional florist, I mean. You can only really find them in the wild. I mean, they probably just picked them from the roadside, or the hotel grounds, or whatever. And when Lavery appeared, he was dressed in green overalls. The same clothes the gardening team wears. So that’s who I thought he was. The hotel gardener who laid out all those daisies. And that’s who he was pretending to be, to gain access.”
“So he murdered the real gardener and wore his clothes,” Isabel said. “He really has no human decency at all, does he?”
“None whatsoever,” said Rufus, his forehead indented with concentration. “And now we’re really up against the clock, because sooner or later, they’re going to work out that billionaire Sebastian Chase booked the whole top floor and is now nowhere to be found. And once the police open a file, it’ll make life extremely difficult for us. For a start, we’re all witnesses. Especially you, Finola. We’d be hauled in for questioning faster than you can blink. We don’t have time for that. Not if we want to get to Sebastian before five o’clock.”
“Also…” Dahlia coughed. “Also, you couldn’t really tell the police about the magic part, could you? I mean, how do you tell them they’re dealing with shifters?” Her mouth fell open at the next thought that occurred to her. “Unless they know about them already?”
“Some know about the magical community. Only the higher ranks. Generally, though, no. They don’t know. And yes, Dahlia, you’re quite right. There would be no easy way to explain to the police that we’re dealing with magical beings here. So that’s even more reason why we need to get the hell out of here and keep a low profile while we figure out where Sebastian is.”
Isabel nodded. “So now what, Rufus?”
“I held the cops back for a short time by riding on my previous connections. I assured them that we are just grabbing personal belongings for a pregnant lady. But they’re expecting us to reappear soon. The hotel will be sealed off by now, while they investigate the crime scene. So we need to get out some other way. They aren’t expecting us to make trouble, so hopefully they won’t have posted anyone outside to catch us. Then we can leave discreetly through the fire exit.”
We sprinted for our rooms once the elevator doors opened.
I ignored the wave of nausea undulating from my stomach. This was no time to get sick.
It was lucky I hadn’t fully emptied the bag Sebastian’s assistant Dennis had packed for me. I grabbed it by its long strap.
The bag rustled. What was that?
The letter from my birth mother. It was in the zip pouch at the front. It almost felt like it was drawing my attention to itself.
I told myself not to be so silly, but it was awesome how easily I found it.
The envelope was still sealed. I hadn’t opened it when Dad gave it to me, because I was too freaked out. But maybe… Maybe I’d open it as soon as we got out of here.
Back in the corridor, the others stood fidgeting with their bags. We were ready to make our escape.
Lucas beckoned us all to a service staircase. It seemed to be all clear.
“Guys, make your way down there while I keep watch,” he said. “I just checked this stairwell. It leads to the fire exit, as well as the laundry room, by the look of it. When I know you all made it, I’ll run down too. It’ll only take me a few seconds. These beanstalk legs have to be good for something.”
Dahlia looked terrified.
“Come on,” I said, linking hands with her. “Let’s do what the man says.”
We all headed down the staircase, praying we wouldn’t run into any police on the way. If they stopped us getting to Sebastian to save him… Damn. I didn’t even want to think about what the consequences would be.
As we filed through the stairwell, I felt a sudden thump to my head. I turned round to see what had hit me.
“Hey,” I said, to empty space. Nobody was behind me.
The thumping feeling started up again. I gripped my skull with both hands.
It felt exactly like a migraine, only with none of the usual build-up. This was just bam, straight into the pain and suffering part.
“Are you all right?” came Dahlia’s voice from the next stair down.
“I…” I couldn’t answer, because I actually couldn’t see her any more. In place of the stairwell, I found myself in the same underground chamber I always hallucinated.
Damp air and semi-darkness filled my senses. It was just as it always had been, in my dreams and my imagination. The place felt so familiar now.
Only this time there was one extra detail.
Sebastian’s voice echoing round that too-familiar underground cave, calling my name.
Sebastian was in there.
36
By the time I came round, I was being carried down the stairs by Lucas, while the others jogged briskly behind us.
Lucas installed me in the back of the SUV, lying across the seat.
The ceiling of the car was a sort of off-white color, covered in a pattern made up of hundreds of tiny pinpricks. When I finally opened my eyes, it was all I saw. I stared at the dots until they swam before my eyes.
Blinking furiously, I made myself look in another direction.
“She’s awake,” came Dahlia’s voice. I hadn’t noticed her sitting right in front of me. She passed me a bottle of water and I sipped it gratefully.
“It’s time to open the letter,” Isabel said. She pulled my hair back off my face. “Are you ready?”
“No,” I croaked. “But I’ll do it anyway.”
Isabel passed the letter over the back of the seat in front. “Finola, I’m going to sit up front with Rufus and do the driving. Lucas will be back here with you and Dahlia, okay? We’re going to just keep moving until we work out how to get to this underground cave thing you keep seeing.”
Fear crept up me from my feet to my neck, in icy pinches.
“It’s where I’m going to die,” I whispered. “Remember?”
Dahlia and Lucas shouted “No!” in unison.
Rufus called out from the front seat. “Remember what I said, Fin. Visions don’t come with a schedule. You can rely on nothing but the present moment. Don’t forget that.”
I sat up and carefully tore threw the envelope. My birth mother had filled two cream-colored, gossamer-thin sheets of paper with her handwriting. It was less messy than mine, but there was a definite flourish to the I and the C that made me think of my own writing. If I used a fountain pen with real ink and wrote carefully, I bet the words would come out looking a lot like hers.
Behind the letter was another large sealed envelope, containing what felt like a thick bunch of papers. I decided to read the letter before opening that part.
Dahlia turned away, to give me some privacy. I scanned the pages for a second, my heart pounding. Then I started reading properly.
My dear Finola,
If you are reading this, it means I have already departed this life for the next. It happens to us all. You will probably not grieve, because I have been no mother to you.
But if you think of me at all, please try to keep in mind that I love you with all my heart. I always did and I always will, in this and all other worlds.
It is important that you understand I didn’t leave you because I wanted to. My heart and my head were permanently at w
ar. This was true right until the end (I expect. Although I don’t know how I will die, I imagine the illness I currently bear will see me off sooner or later).
You may already know that I am a witch. I don’t mean in the Wicca play-acting sense. Being a witch is an ancient calling. Both my parents were from witch heritage and I naturally followed in my mother’s footsteps, studying the craft.
It wasn’t until my late teens that I found the one true God through the church of Cranialism, and I realized how evil magic is. At that stage, I immediately renounced my witch identity.
Not long after that, I entered into a short relationship and I fell pregnant with you. He left before I had a chance to tell him about you. I’m so sorry you never knew either of us. It was for the best though. It probably doesn’t feel like that to you, but you have to trust me on that.
I left you with the Catholic Church because I knew you’d be taken care of by good people. Kind people. People who don’t have evil magic coursing through their veins. The Church does not know the true teachings of Cranialists, but they have connections to social services and I knew you’d be placed somewhere warm and dry and safe within the week. The Cranialist community is too small to have left you on a doorstep without my secret being discovered.
If you’d stayed with me, your magical abilities would have developed right from birth. I couldn’t risk that. You needed the chance to grow up as a normal girl. It was a chance I never had. I wanted that for you.
When you came to find me recently, it sent me into a tailspin. I wanted nothing more than to get to know you. My beautiful, confident, adventurous daughter. How I wished I had your poise and self-assurance when I was your age.
But you clearly knew nothing of your magical blood and I knew being around me would trigger the Awakening, sometime in your early twenties. That was not in the plan. You needed to stay safe with your Plainfolk family.
Even though I rejected my witch side long ago, I never threw away my Journal of Charms. That is what we call the books into which we write our most valued notes, observations and magical practices. (Please never refer to it as a Book of Shadows. That term is for television witches and weekend Wiccans only.)
I enclose my Journal of Charms and ask you to take this gift in the spirit in which it is meant. While I would not wish you to enter into any magical lifestyle as a result of what you find in there, I am content that this is very unlikely after a lifetime of being happily normal. Please take the book as one of the two treasured possessions I have to offer.
Inside the cover I have taped the pendant I wore all my adult life until today. The brown stone inside is called tiger’s eye. This stone offers protection against curses and ill wishes. It will magnify whatever courage and self-belief you already possess. This is your other gift. Wear it well, my child.
I have nothing of material value to leave you so I hope you will take the book and necklace with my love.
Please also accept my very best wishes and sincerest hope for a happy future,
Vannida,
your mother.
37
Hot, fat tears splashed onto the bottom of the page. I moved the semi-transparent paper on to the seat next to me, to avoid causing the ink to run.
My mother. She loved me?
Dahlia threw her arms around me and I sobbed into her hooded sweatshirt.
So my birth mother Vannida was just too wrapped up in some kooky religion to see that bonding with her kid was a hell of a lot more important than anything else.
And too steeped in self-loathing and fear to understand that you can’t hate who you are.
I knew there was no way I’d ever treat a child of mine like that. My hand flew to my belly and I patted it, absent-mindedly.
But she hadn’t left me because she didn’t care. In her own mixed-up way, she thought she was doing the right thing.
The letter brought me a slew of tears, but there was also a sense of closure. I felt lighter for reading her words.
It wasn’t that I agreed with her decision. I thought she was batshit to give me up. But I still felt better knowing the truth.
“What is Cranialism?” I asked the others.
“Home to a tub-thumping troupe of crackpots and halfwits,” called Rufus from the front seat.
“They’re kind of a cult, Dahlia,” said Lucas. “Best to steer clear. Why do you ask?”
Dahlia looked adoringly at him. Wow. She had it bad. It was really sweet to see it.
“I think my mum was one of them,” I said.
“Shit. Sorry, Fin.” He had the decency to look mortified.
“Yes, apologies,” said Rufus. “Please don’t listen to us. We’re on the outside. I’m sure they-“
I interrupted them. “It’s ok, guys. No offense taken. They convinced her to dump her only child on a church doorstep. I’m sure they aren’t the sanest bunch.”
The other envelope was sitting on my lap. I slit the top open with my thumbnail and reached carefully inside.
Out came a hardback book with a crackled purple lacquer cover. Inside were hundreds of thin pages, made of the same sort of paper as my birth mother’s letter.
Flicking through the pages, I saw diagrams, sketches and hundreds of paragraphs of text. It would take weeks to go through all this.
Just as I was about to close the book, I noticed the necklace, threaded through a little loop inside the cover. It was a gold chain with an amber-and-brown teardrop-shaped stone hanging from it.
What had my mother called this silky, shimmering stone?
Oh yes. “Tiger’s eye”.
My fingers shook so much, I had to ask Dahlia to fasten it round my neck. As I traced the outline of the smooth stone, they stopped shaking.
It was probably my imagination. Or it was the peace of mind caused by hearing my mother’s side of the story at long last. Either way, I felt somehow more capable.
Then it came to me. Like a flash from nowhere, two images came to mind at the same time.
One image was the passionate outdoor sex Sebastian and I had the other day after my visit to my parents’ house. That was in the grounds of the prehistoric monument Newgrange. With a blush, I remembered our wild embraces right up against an ancient standing stone.
The other image was the underground terror chamber that featured in my nightmares and migraine visions.
What had Sebastian said about the place where we had our outdoor encounter?
His face and voice replayed in my mind like a perfect video clip:
“This is an extraordinarily magical place, Finola. I can feel it. The ancient magic still runs through here like a river.”
It was the place where he told me he loved me.
It was the place where I used to play as a child.
And the place I’d been suddenly compelled to visit after reuniting with my true family, the ones who adopted me.
I knew there and then what it meant. It was the place he was being held now, and the place where my visions said I would die.
I recalled something else Sebastian said to me that day:
“You’re my other half. Fate sent you to me and me to you.”
Fate sent him to me and me to him. Fate had its own ways and fate would never be denied.
“I know where Sebastian is,” I said, in a voice that was eerily calm.
Isabel swerved to the side of the road and braked with a screech.
“Where? Finola, where?”
Dahlia and Lucas grabbed one of my hands each. Rufus swiveled round in the passenger seat, his eyes wide.
“Did you have a vision?” Lucas said.
I shook my head.
“Kind of. Well, not properly. But I know where he is.”
“Where?” they all yelled.
“He’s at Newgrange. He’s in the ancient burial chamber, inside the temple itself. And it’s not his time to die. It’s mine.”
“No!” Dahlia wailed. I patted her hand.
“It’s okay, D,” I said.
I was so serene, it was kind of odd.
Lucas held Dahlia close against his chest. They looked sweet together.
I sighed, still blithely accepting of it all.
“None of us can avoid our fate. Let’s go and get our man back. I just hope he can hold me one more time before I die. The poor guy will lose me and his baby all at once. Please take good care of him afterwards. That’s all I ask.”
Rufus punched our destination into the GPS and Isabel squealed the car back onto the road at high speed.
Dahlia cried and Lucas hugged her, kissing the top of her head when he thought I wasn’t looking.
I just sat looking out of the window, waiting to meet fate head-on. My mother’s pendant was cool and smooth between my fingers.
The time for being scared was over.
38
It was four-thirty by the time we reached the road running down the side of Newgrange.
The Visitor Centre for Newgrange was right on the other side of the river Boyne. That was where people were meant to show up when they came to the ancient site. You were supposed to wait for your allotted time slot. Then you were meant to ride an official bus across the bridge to the monument site.
But we didn’t waste time doing things the official way. We just dumped the SUV on the roadside and headed over the grass on foot. Besides, we weren’t there to go sightseeing.
The whole place seemed deserted. Even the farm a little way down the road seemed still and shut. No vehicles were parked outside at all.
“How did Lavery manage to clear all the visitors out?” said Lucas. “This is a big national heritage site, isn’t it? It’s not even tea-time yet. The place must still be open.”
Rufus nodded. “You’d think.”
As we hurried towards the main monument, we found a sign tethered to a metal spike stuck in the grass.
Tiger Billionaire: The Whole Story (BBW Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance Box Set) Page 24