“What?”
“Forget it,” she said, suddenly upset by the whole evening. She turned back around and started searching for the keys that she had absentmindedly dropped back inside her purse.
“Lilly... wait.”
After finding her keys again, she touched the button on her key ring to unlock the car door. As she took her seat behind the wheel, Wade opened the passenger side and sat down.
“Not now.” She was unable to hold back the tears any longer. “Can we talk later?”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not leaving you like this.”
Lilly wiped at her tears as she recalled the conversation about her parents. It had been a couple of weeks since she had found them, two horrible weeks of funeral arrangements, estate matters, the on-going police investigation, and of trying to stop crying. Now this… Maybe talking to Wade about it would help. She glanced his way, already feeling a little comforted by his presence. He waited patiently, quietly for her to compose herself. A moment later she said, “The guy I met with tonight said he was a friend of my parents.”
“What did he want?”
“Apparently they were supposed to meet with him to give him this statue that they had brought back from Egypt for him.”
“So what does this have to do with… what happened to them?”
“He said they were murdered because of the statue,” Lilly said. “He wants me to find it and to give it to him. He even said I may be in danger if I don’t give it to him.”
“We’re going to the cops—right now! What does he look like? When did he leave? I probably saw the son-of-a-bitch walk out.”
“He’s not the problem.”
“This guy threatened you! Yeah, I think he is the problem.”
“He didn’t threaten me. I think he was trying to warn me. But that doesn’t matter. This whole thing just has me thinking about my parents. That’s why I’m upset. Not because of him.”
“This is messed up. Let me handle this guy.”
“No, I can handle it myself.” She wiped hard at her tears, determined to make them stop. “Why do you always have to overreact?”
“I don’t like this one bit. This guy coming around here threatening you. I’m not letting you talk to him again. If he contacts you—”
“You’re not letting me?” Her hand shook as she turned on the ignition. Why did she think Wade could help her calm down? He had managed to somehow make her feel worse! “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but things have changed between us. Even when I was your girlfriend, when did you start controlling who I talked to? What is going on? Everything has changed. You know, I can’t take it anymore. It’s over. This, us… over.”
Wade’s long silence told her that her words had cut him. Even though she hadn’t meant to blurt it out, it needed to be said, so she couldn’t take it back. She closed her eyes, trying to keep from bursting into tears again and waited for him to get out of the car.
It took him a moment to open the door, and before he got out he said, “I love you, Lilly, and that will never change.”
“Uhhh.” Lilly fought the urge to lie right down on the seat and cry all night. Why did he have to make it about him? Why couldn’t he give her a little room? Following her around, barking out orders…
She pulled out of the parking lot onto the road and drove with one hand and wiped tears with the other. Her conversation with the man became all tangled up with the conversation with Wade. Wade the caveman; “Must protect my woman.” She wasn’t his woman any longer. Really no longer. It hadn’t happened the way she had wanted it to happen, but it was over. She had just told him, and she was glad. Right? And how dare he pretend to be interested in who murdered her parents? He never liked them. Every time he got around them, he got all snappy, like that night… Lilly suddenly stopped her mental raving, becoming aware of her surroundings. She turned into her parent’s neighborhood. In her despair, she must have subconsciously chosen to drive there.
Lilly hadn’t been able to bring herself to go inside since their deaths, but she did drive past their house every day after work on her way home. Was she really considering going inside to search for the statuette for that man? Was she really up to going through her parent’s things, tonight? Maybe this was what she needed; a little push to get her over the hump, over the threshold, and into the house. She was afraid that if she went home and slept on it, she would never do it.
She drove up the drive-way, turned off the motor, and stepped out of the car, staring at the dark house she hadn’t called home in many years. Memories began to overshadow the fear as she remembered her childhood and how difficult it had been being so introverted but having parents who were so adventurous. They had pushed her, like they thought her courageous genes would come out of hiding. Yet, the more they pressed, the more Lilly withdrew inside herself. That is, until she met Wade. She was pretty sure the decision not to marry Grant had been the first decision she had ever made by herself.
With shaky hands, she opened the front door to the strong scent of bleach and ammonia. She stood there, actually proud of herself for getting that far, and tried to block the horrible heavy feelings. “Stop it,” she told herself and gritted her teeth as she walked inside.
Lilly went through the downstairs and snapped on all the lights. She’d had it cleaned, but the memory of the mess seemed to pop in front of her eyes. She quickly searched the front area of the house. Even though she had failed to ask for a description, she knew a pyramidion was the top part of a pyramid, and he had called it a statuette, so it was going to be small. So she would look for a small pyramid.
She only glanced in the kitchen, the place where they had found Constance, her parents’ personal cook and family friend, dead on the floor, a burnt bird in the oven and her famous mashed potatoes on the stove. Unfortunately, Lilly knew where she really needed to go. If her parents had brought something back from Egypt, most likely it would still be with their things. And their things would be upstairs in the dark, in their room… where they had been.
Lilly made it up the stairs and into the master bedroom, but once the tears started flowing, they wouldn’t stop. She avoided the mattress-less bed, where her parents had been. She couldn’t actually recall them lying there, and didn’t try to remember—which she knew was best—but stayed at the surface of her mind. She only remembered what the police had said; her parents had been shot, execution style. She hadn’t even picked up a newspaper in the last couple of weeks in fear it would stir the memory. She desperately didn’t want to remember what they had looked like when she’d found them.
Forcing herself not to run out of the house screaming, she headed straight for the dresser and started going through it. She didn’t allow herself to see the contents of the drawers; instead, she searched mindlessly. She went through all four drawers and then moved over to the nightstand. She didn’t notice anything that didn’t belong, so she moved on to the walk-in closet. She looked in the pockets of her dad’s suit jackets, around notebooks, shoes, and inside boxes on the shelves.
When she had about given up, she kicked a neatly folded quilt on the closet floor and felt something hard underneath it. She moved the blanket, and there sat the wooden buffalo mask she remembered from childhood. It had a long decorative nose and two outer ringlets that circled huge, dark dot eyes. Although the paint had faded, its original colors were still vivid in her mind. She had seen one exactly like it in action on her first trip with her parents to Africa where they had been digging near a small village in Burkina Faso. Dancers wore similar masks along with fluffy fur costumes depicting different animals. One at a time, they became the center of attention as drummers beat out the music. It had been captivating and memorable, especially since the mask hung in the dining room and put the images of that day in her head whenever she ate.
She picked it up. “Now how did you get way up here?”
Chapter 3
Wade watched from the road and then pulled into the Steward�
��s driveway after Lilly had gone inside the house. He parked behind her car and cut the motor to his truck. “What the hell does she think she’s doing?” He couldn’t believe she would go to her parents’ house—where they had been murdered— in the middle of the night.
He unbuckled his seatbelt and squeezed his hand into his jeans pocket, pulling out and opening his knife. He grabbed an apple from the bag of apples on the seat beside him and sliced a bite, grabbing it with his mouth and chewed his new cigarette.
She was crazy, was the only way he could describe it to his brother, Colt, after he’d asked why Wade needed to crash on his couch for a couple of days. Sure he might have said a couple of things to set her off, but she was freaking out and wouldn’t even let him touch her. He was mad at first; what the hell? He thought maybe she would want to lean on him a little bit. He had begun to wonder if her coldness was caused by something other than grief.
It had hit him that morning while examining the diamond engagement ring that had become like his keys, wallet, or loose change since he moved out of their apartment; something he emptied out of his pockets at night and put back in the morning.
He snapped the little box shut after Colt walked into the living room and asked if he was going to work. Born with wrenches in their hands and grease in their diapers, they both worked at Kit’s Auto Shop. Their dad would have been proud. Wade had always thought he would be running his father’s shop after high school where he received both a diploma and an automotive certification. But his father had died before he had graduated, leaving a pile of bills instead of a thriving business, and Wade hadn’t been ready for the responsibility of bringing it back from the dead.
“I don’t know,” Wade had said. “I was thinking about trying to catch Lilly before she goes to work today.”
“Don’t make a scene in front of her classroom.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I just need to talk to her and find out what’s really going on.”
“Wade, when she’s ready.” Colt sat on the arm of the couch—Wade’s makeshift bed. “Give her some time. I really think you should go on to work and try and get everything off your mind for a while.”
Wade shook his head and then blurted, “Lilly blames me. You know, for her parents.” There. He’d said it out-loud.
“What? No. It was a horrible thing that happened to her parents, but you didn’t do it.”
“Well, she blames me all the same.” Wade stood up and shoved the ring box into his pocket.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because the more I think about it and think about that night, and the things Lilly had said during our last fight, the more I wonder if things would have been different if I wouldn’t have stopped for that friggin cigarette!”
“Is that what she said?”
“Not exactly, but she did say something about my bad habits and how irresponsible I am. How sometimes my irresponsibly affects others.” He started hastily buttoning his shirt. “I can’t help replaying that night in my head. I mean, maybe I could have prevented it if I—”
“Wade, I’m glad you didn’t get there on time. You and Lilly would’ve been dead, right beside her parents. So, if you ask me, that friggin cigarette saved y’alls’ lives.”
Wade had ended up missing Lilly that morning before work. After work, when he was pulling into the parking lot of the apartments, she was leaving. He debated, for a second, what to do and had decided to follow her. He needed to talk to her to find out if she did blame him so that he could do whatever he needed to do to fix it.
And that had turned out dandy. He didn’t get answers or get them back together. He had caused the opposite—she had officially broken up with him. He was beginning to think he was the crazy one, especially now that he had followed her again, like some stalker. But all that talk about some strange guy, her being in danger, and murder had him all nervous. He’d just wanted to make sure she made it home safe. He had no idea she would be stopping at her parents’ house.
Lilly had said the man she’d met wanted her to find something her parents had brought back from Egypt. He couldn’t believe she would put herself in danger like this. Of course, it did involve her parents. They had been pretty high up on her list when they were alive, and now that they were dead, they were first and only. It had taken him five years to make her realize she was her own person, a grown woman, who could make her own decisions. Somehow their deaths had brought the old Lilly back from the dead. Nevertheless, he knew in his heart that she hadn’t meant what she’d said earlier. She was just real upset at the moment and as soon as she came back to her senses, he would be there. In the meantime, he had to protect her from herself as well as anyone else who tried to hurt her.
When a car pulled up the circular drive, coming from the opposite direction Wade had parked, he threw the apple in the seat beside the other core. He sat up a bit to see around Lilly’s car, and gave a low whistle. “2005 Jaguar XKR.” Even in the dark he recognized the oblong mesh grille and hidden bumper of the sleek, straight-lined beauty.
“Crap!” he said after realizing he’d missed seeing who stepped out of the car. He searched the area until he saw a tall, dark figure almost to the front door. Definitely a man.
He jumped out of his truck, leaving the door wide open, and ran down the driveway to the front steps. He flew up the stairs and grabbed the man from behind. In one swift move, the man reversed the situation and Wade found himself against the porch wall.
The front door opened.
“Run!” Wade yelled. “Run!” If this guy had the muscle to treat him like a rag doll, he didn’t want to think about what he could do to Lilly.
Wade automatically shut his eyes when the outside light snapped on.
“Wade? Ben? What’s going on?”
“You know him?” Wade found himself saying this at the same time as his assailant.
Lilly stepped out of the house. “It’s Wade, my... uh—”
“Boyfriend,” Wade said. He stared at Lilly daring her to say different. She didn’t. However, her eyes didn’t meet his.
Wade dusted off his shirt after the man let him go.
“What’s going on?” Lilly asked.
“I was going to ask the same thing,” Wade said. “Who is this guy?”
“This is the gentleman I was talking about,” Lilly said. “The friend of my parents. Are you still following me?”
“No,” he said. “I happened to be driving... It doesn’t matter.”
“Thanks for getting here so quickly,” Lilly said to the stranger.
“You invited him?” Wade rolled his eyes and couldn’t seem to close his mouth.
“Please,” Lilly looked at Wade, “leave.”
He fidgeted, starting to feel like a real fool. But then her safety overshadowed his embarrassment. “You don’t know this guy, Lilly. He could be some sort of pervert. Look at him; he’s as big as Herman Munster.”
She gave a quick smile to the man and said, “I’m sorry. He can be so rude sometimes.”
The man didn’t seem fazed. He smiled and dismissed it all with a slight nod of the head. Wade sensed Lilly’s sudden apprehension as soon as she started biting her thumbnail. He wasn’t sure if it had all been embarrassment or if she finally snapped to the fact that she had been stupid to invite a stranger into the house at night—alone!
Lilly sighed. “We’re letting all the bugs in. Come in. Both of you, I guess.” After they walked inside, Lilly said, “Ben, you can go right down the hall to the living room. I’ll be right there.”
He nodded and walked down the hall.
“What?” Wade said. “The living room? I never got to go in there. You always told me it was for guests only.” As soon as he had said it, he knew how childish it sounded.
“Please don’t do this,” Lilly pleaded. “This night has been very upsetting to me.”
“So you invited Mister Beauty and the Beast to get you through it?”
“Why did I say you could c
ome in?”
He was about to let her have it again when he noticed how red her nose was and how her eyes were a little swollen and wild. Obviously she had been crying a lot. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you.”
“I know, and that’s why I’m letting you stay… on one condition; no more accusations or adolescent name calling.”
He glimpsed up at the ceiling. He didn’t want to make any promises...
“Wade? Or you can leave.”
“Fine! No more comments about Prince Alarming. That was the last one. Promise.”
Chapter 4
When Lilly and Wade walked into the living room, it seemed as if Ben felt right at home, sitting patiently with his arm draped across the back of the white sofa. Lilly found it ironic that the living room, the source of her childhood willpower torture, had become the only room in the house that she now felt comfortable in. She couldn’t remember her mother ever saying the words, “Don’t go in there,” but it was understood. She had been a good girl and had never stepped foot inside the “museum room.” Now—because she hadn’t developed a homey familiarity with the couch, the rug, the statues, or the framed original art—it all felt alien, which helped her feel disconnected from the sorrow she associated with the rest of the house.
“Lilly,” Wade said but glared at Ben. “What’s going on? Why did you call this guy instead of me?”
“I called Ben because I have information... for him.”
She noticed a spark of hope in Ben’s steady eyes as he stared up at her. She dryly smiled at him, not wanting to make him expect too much. “Here,” she said, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket and handing it to him. “I found this.”
Ben unfolded the paper and read it to himself and then asked Lilly, “Did you read it?”
She nodded, feeling a bit flushed, because it had been addressed to him. And not only had she read it, she had memorized the strange, ominous words.
Passage to Queen Mesentia Page 2