by Gow, Kailin
Pulling away from Brax, I sat up. “Don’t Moore. Please stay.”
Ignoring my plea, he opened the door and left.
“Let him go,” Brax said, his gentle hand on my elbow, urging me to return to his arms. “I want a moment alone with you. It’s been so long; so unbelievably long. And you… I’m sorry I just left you like that, without a word. I shut you out and this past month must have been difficult for you as well.”
“It has, but I understand your desire to escape all that’s happened to you.”
He gazed down at the working of his flicking fingers against his knee, his voice soft and regretful as he spoke. “I think you guys might be right. I’ve been ignoring the signs, pushing them aside and refusing to accept them, but these dreams I keep having… Always so dark, so disturbing. I’ve had nightmares before, but never anything like this. I wake up feeling as though I’ve been visited by… something. The kids in the rooms around me already think I’m some kind of freak. In the past month I’ve awaken five times screaming at the top of my lungs.”
“It’s understandable, your fear, but you can’t keep hiding. You have to fight it.”
He nodded and got to his feet, heading to the nearby window. “Have you seen the view from here?”
I went to stand beside him and marveled at the scenery.
“I have a beautiful and clear view of the river. The grounds are spectacular and when the sun comes out… that river sparkles and the greenery comes to life. But all that is lost on me. Everything beautiful around me means nothing. In the past week, the shadows that loom over me at night have begun to follow me around during the day. I see them everywhere, and even on the sunniest day, everything seems dark and ugly.”
“Let’s stop wasting time then.” I stood.
“I can’t just leave like that. I have to notify someone.”
“Who? Family?”
“No, not really. The distant relatives I have here couldn’t care less about me. They simply put in a good word to have me enrolled here and left it at that. I’ll just go leave word with the headmaster that I have to return to the states.”
“Good,” I said, brushing my fingers through his hair. “Do what you have to do, and Moore and I will wait for you out by the car.”
Walking out of the room I was dismayed to see Moore was gone.
I’d let him down, I knew. He’d made such efforts to help me, all while remaining so charming and gallant, and I’d turned my back on him at the first chance. He needed me, too.
For all my eagerness to find Brax, I now felt empty and hollow.
Chapter 7
Though the first class seats on the commercial flight back to San Francisco were comfortable, it lacked the ease and luxury of the private flight in with Moore. He’d abandoned us, leaving Cambridge without a word and leaving us to find our way back to Heathrow on our own.
We were lucky enough to get two tickets to San Francisco, though on a red-eye flight with a connecting flight in Vancouver. Then we were questioned at length by customs. Apparently my lack of luggage and the short time spent in England seemed suspicious to them.
“At least you had the good sense to keep your passport on you,” Brax had said.
It was little consolation. I felt humiliated by the questions and increasingly angry at Moore.
Now, as I roamed the halls of St. James hoping to have lunch with Brax, I was both angry at Moore and concerned for him.
Leaving us stranded was unacceptable, but with everything he’d done for me, I could understand how betrayed he felt on seeing me with Brax.
He’d not been in class all day Monday and I’d not yet seen him that morning.
I walked outside, my gaze sweeping across the parking lot looking for any sign of him. I knew I had to find Brax, talk to him about the estate and what was being done, but my eyes seemed intent on finding Moore instead.
“Hey, what are you doing out here?”
I turned to Brax, handsome in his St. James uniform.
“Does that mean they accepted you back?”
“Not only that… the fact that Cambridge accepted me opened their eyes and mine to just how advanced I was.”
“Hmmm,” I mused as we strolled down the path that winded around the parking lot. “So I guess you're smarter than you thought.”
He chuckled, still humble despite everything. “I’ll get extra credits. Getting into the college of my choice will be that much easier.”
“Lucky.” My gaze darted to every moving vehicle, every pedestrian, hoping to see Moore. “I don’t even know if I’ll finish at all this year.”
“Sure you will. You're a little disorganized with your time, but you're smart.”
“Yeah.” I glanced up at him with a wry grin. “Flying out to England for the weekend tends to put a dent in my study time.”
“Did I thank you?”
“Not enough.” I laughed softly. He’d thanked me all the way across the Atlantic.
He stopped and took my hands in his. “I needed you to come get me. On my own I would have remained hidden. The need to forget everything here was overwhelming, but the moment I opened that door, the moment I saw you, I knew. I belong here, with you. I can’t say I’m thrilled about the demons that lurk here, but I felt a bounce in my step this morning, something I’d not felt since leaving, and believe me, it wasn’t my meeting with Ms. Bright that was responsible for it. It was you.”
I was pleased, though I knew my face didn’t show it. Consumed by guilt, my thoughts continually reverted to Moore and the heartfelt apology I owed him.
“You know, now that I’m back here, it’s actually pretty nice.” We resumed our stroll, my hand in his. “People have been really understanding and sympathetic. I’d never realized how many people my uncle touched. He was really well-liked.”
I nodded. “My father always spoke highly of him and misses him a lot.”
“Did I tell you I was named trustee?”
“Really?”
“I guess they want to keep it in the family.”
We reached the shade of a huge oak tree and sat down.
“You're a smart guy with a world of potential, and I’m really happy you're back.”
His gaze was quizzical. Was I being too platonic? Did my preoccupation with Moore show?
“After school I was hoping to find information about my parents,” he said. “Care to give me a hand?”
A black motion streaked across the other end of the parking lot and my heart willed it to be Moore.
“You okay?”
“Sure.” I gazed at him with a tired smile. “This jetlag is murder. It’s better than yesterday, but I still can’t seem to concentrate much. But, yeah, I’ll give you a hand. I’m eager to get to the bottom of this. The more we know about your past and that of your family the easier it’ll be to figure out what our next move should be.”
After school we drove to his estate, roaming freely throughout the halls that’d once belonged to his uncle.
“I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that all this is mine. It’s incredible.”
Hoping to find anything that could clue us into his past, we headed for the library. While it contained books on virtually every subject, we could find nothing of a personal nature.
“Maybe we’ll have more luck in the study.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
The study held documents regarding the many projects and properties Dr. Kingsley was interested in. Deeds, contracts, prospectus and bank statements filled the filing cabinets that lined the right wall.
“Your uncle certainly liked to shop big; apartment buildings, malls, arenas.” I held up a purchase offer. “Did he really want to buy a baseball team?”
Brax chuckled. “He didn’t know the first thing about baseball, but if he intended to buy a team, it was most certainly because it would be profitable.”
“Hey,” I said, holding up the first interesting bill I’d found. “This is from Layton, Bergdorf and
Hoffman Investigations.”
Brax came to read over my shoulders then reached for the bill. “Let me see that.”
I handed him the document and searched for more like it. “There are six other bills here.”
Taking them all he flipped through the bills. “The first one is dated two days after I arrived.” He glanced at his watch, then reached for the phone.
I stared at the series of bills and listened to him as he left a message. He hung up and we looked at each other expectantly.
“Hopefully someone will call me back before the day is out.”
“You know,” I said. “Your uncle was really organized.” My gaze swept over the tidy desk with the neat stacks of paper and the wall of filing cabinets, all with meticulously filed documents. “These are just the bills, but surely he received reports now and then. Maybe he filed them somewhere else.”
He smiled. “Layton, Bergdorf and Hoffman.”
We hurried to the “L” drawer and rummaged through, but there was no file under the Layton name.
“Maybe he was working with one investigator in particular.”
We covered all the bases, rifling through “B” and “H”. We even went through “I” for investigation.
Nothing.
“Could he have filed it under the name of the one he was investigating?” I said.
“Braxton Kingsley.”
There he was, under “K”. Seeing the file brought an eerie chill across my shoulders. This was Braxton’s life, perhaps filled with secrets…
With the file in hand we turned to the desk and were both startled as we came face to face with the butler.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “I just stopped in to drop off the day’s mail and paper. I do apologize for the delay, sir.”
He retreated as quickly as he’d entered.
“I think he’s a little miffed that I’m back,” Brax said. “Apparently the staff has been taking it rather easy since… well, you know.”
“With everything that happened that night with your uncle, it’s understandable. It’s a huge adjustment to make and…”
My voice caught in my throat as I saw the headline of the newspaper. “No.”
“What is it?”
I picked it up in horrified disbelief. “Mummified corpse found near Lincoln Park.”
Despite my desire to believe in Moore, to trust his sincerity, I immediately wanted to question him. He’d not been in school, giving him plenty of time to… Damn it. I hated myself for letting him go. I hated the negative thoughts that so quickly took over. And I hated the guilt that accompanied it all. Perhaps the whole episode in England had left him bitter, allowing the demons to take over.
“We have to go see this for ourselves,” I muttered.
“What? Are you nuts?” Brax sounded horrified at the notion.
“Look, it says here that the body hasn’t yet been identified. We can go to the morgue, take a look at the body and try to find out what happened.”
Though reluctant, Brax drove me to the morgue and accompanied me inside. The moment I saw the cadaver, I knew the soul have been drained. It had that horrified expression I’d seen too many times in my life.
“Young male, approximately twenty-two,” the young attendant told Brax. “Most likely a very fit young man; six foot-two, muscular build. From what we can tell, he put up a good fight. This guy did not want to die.”
Overcome with guilt, I reached out to touch the dry, stiff forearm of the young man, tears welling in my eyes.
“Is this your brother?” the attendant asked.
We’d had to lie to get access to the body, telling him we feared our brother was the victim.
“No,” I muttered. “My brother was only five foot eleven.”
He covered the face of the unfortunate young man.
“You ready to go?” Brax said, his gentle hand on my elbow.
I nodded and followed him out. In the hall, a middle aged couple stood clinging to each other, the fear of what they’d find clearly defined in their eyes. I offered a sympathetic nod and a faint smile, knowing it could do nothing to alleviate the pain to come.
Chapter 8
For a long, silent and tortured hour I stood at my bedroom window weighing my options. I could rush to the Hatchett estate and slay them both. I could bide my time, catch them at school and take care of them there.
The third option was the one my heart favored; calling Moore, questioning him and praying he’d had nothing to do with this whole thing.
It had to be Shayne, the little voice at the back of my head insisted.
But Moore hadn’t come to school, while Shayne had been visible the whole time. Then again, the time of death was undetermined. She’d had the weekend to herself, unsupervised by her brother.
Before I could go nuts with suppositions and hypotheses, I grabbed my phone and called Moore.
“Yeah,” he answered, his voice already hard and cold.
“You said you needed me.”
Silence.
“Did you mean it?”
The silence lingered and I expected him to hang up at any moment.
“Yes,” he finally whispered, a glimmer of hope hanging on the word.
“Can I see you? I missed you at school.”
“Yeah, I’ve been kinda busy. I should be back in class tomorrow.”
“Do you want to wait to see each other then?”
“Lux.” Emotions weighed heavily on my name.
“I need to talk to you. I have so much to say. I feel….” It was hard knowing what I felt. “The trip, the whole weekend… it was really so…” I felt increasingly silly as emotions gushed forth faster than I could process them. “You swept me off my feet. I don’t know if it was just the romance of the castle or the fresh country air, or… or the way you made me feel so important, so…” Choked up, I stopped, searching for the right word.
“Loved,” he finally finished for me.
I grunted a vague concession. “I think I might feel something for you, but… I just… I don’t know if I can… if we can… you know. You're what you are and I’m what I am, and I don’t think we can…”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he cut in. “We’ll go somewhere.”
“Right.” Setting the phone on my dresser I felt a wave of relief.
He was prepared to talk to me. That was a start. I threw on a pair of snug jeans and a warm sweater. I had just enough time to hurry downstairs and run out to meet him.
“That was a quick ten minutes.”
“Blame it on my eagerness to see you.” His voice was soft and lacked the humor it usually carried. I even noticed the sad tug on his forced smile as I got in.
“Where to?” He offered me a lackluster wink.
“Anywhere we can talk… be alone.”
In silence we traveled the streets of San Francisco, much as we had in England, only now tension filled the little black Saab where romance and adventure had filled the Maserati. When he pulled up to a quiet pier, I knew he’d found the perfect spot.
“So,” he said as we got out and turned to the deserted pier. “What did you want to talk about?”
“You left us so quickly.” I didn’t want to be argumentative, to sound bitter and resentful, but controlling my emotions proved difficult. “You just abandoned us there.”
“Sorry. Guess I’m not used to being the third wheel. I knew it was a chance to take, leading you to him, but… seeing you guys together, all cuddled up on the sofa as if no one else existed. How much do you expect me to endure, Lux?”
“Brax was happy to see me. We just got caught up in the emotions of it all.”
“How nice for you.” With his hands shoved petulantly in the pockets of his jacket, he approached the railing and looked down at the gently rolling waves.
“I’m here now, Moore, with you, not with Brax.”
He turned to me, cynicism filling his eyes. “Should I be grateful that you found the time to squeeze me in?”
“Why are you being so… difficult?”
His lips pressed into a tight, belligerent smile. “Is this what we came out here for?”
Caught off guard by the persistent cold shoulder, I stammered as I searched for something to say. “You haven’t been in school.”
“Told you.” He returned his gaze to the bay, his hands leaving the refuge of his pockets to come out onto the railing. Stiff and tight, his fingers showed the degree of anger he so artfully hid. “I was busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“Being the nosy, clingy girlfr… girl isn’t really your style, Lux. What is it you really want to know?”
Setting my elbow on the railing, I leaned over until I caught his gaze. I inhaled deeply, my eyes on his, ready for the slightest flicker of guilt. “A body was found by Lincoln Park.”
“Okay.” Not a flicker, not a flinch.
“It was mummified.”
A cynical grin crept across his face. “Okay, now I see where this is going. You think I had something to do with it.”
“I haven’t seen you since England and you refuse to tell me what you’ve been up to.”
He snorted, letting his chin fall to his chest. “Well, I am the incorrigible monster who can’t control his evil urges.”
Panic surged through my veins. Was he just being sarcastic? Was this an admission?
“No,” I said, refusing to accept his words. “Please tell me you didn’t do this.”
“Why?” He glanced at me and cocked a sinister brow. “Since the very first day we met, you’ve sought only to crucify me.”
“Did you do this, Moore?”
He turned to me, his lips in a grimace and his eyes hollow. “No, I didn’t.”
I let out the breath I’d held back. “Shayne?” I finally said.
He shook his head, his eyes still hard.
I reached out to cover his hand with mine, fearful he’d recoiled, but he remained motionless and accepted my touch.
“I know you think I’m a heartless monster,” he said, his eyes downcast and his voice small. “But seeing you with Brax hurt. Having you accuse me of draining Suzanne hurt. Suspecting me of doing this hurts.” Licking the salty droplets off his lips, he brought his gaze to me. “I hurt, Lux. Demonic blood may course through my veins, but the human in me feels and hurts… and loves.”