by Jana DeLeon
The storm was raging and she had to strain to make out Brian as he slipped behind the automobiles in the courtyard. After that, the fountain came into clearer view and she got her visual bearings. Scanning the courtyard, she looked for anything out of place…like someone standing in the middle of a torrential downpour just asking to be struck by lightning.
Across the courtyard, just beyond the woods, she saw what had sent Brian running outside. She dimmed the lamp to barely an ember to remove the glare from the window, and looked outside again. The figure was still there, wearing a white-hooded cape that whipped around in the storm. She strained to make out a face or even to tell if the figure was a man or a woman, but the head was bent, as if staring at the ground.
Suddenly the figure raised his head, and Justine would have sworn on everything holy that whatever was out in the storm was looking directly at her. Two red eyes glowed inside the white hood and her heart began to race. Her skin tingled and her hair stood on end as a wave of fear like she’d never experienced before washed over her.
She drew back from the window, her body flat against the wall, and struggled to breathe normally, her heart pounding so loudly she thought it would burst. What in God’s name was out there? And where was Brian? She hadn’t seen him at all. Had that…that thing gotten him?
You’re panicking. Get a grip. It has to be a trick.
She sucked in a deep breath and slowly blew it out, then leaned over and peeked outside again. But this time the courtyard was empty. No white-hooded figure. No red eyes.
No Brian.
She scanned beyond the courtyard, past the caretaker’s cottage and the storage shed and into the woods. Surely Brian wouldn’t have gone into the woods. He was armed, but if someone was playing a trick on them, they were obviously prepared, and Justine had to assume, better equipped to disappear, even in the storm. What Justine had seen required planning and setup and careful deliberation. Certainly not the sort of thing kids would pull off, as the sheriff had suggested to Olivia.
She scanned the courtyard once more, looking for any sign of Brian, and her hands clenched involuntarily as every square inch she could see turned up empty. How long did she wait? Hours? All night? What if he needed help?
Justine was an excellent tracker, but in a storm like this, even she would have trouble determining whether the telltale signs of a presence in the woods were due to a man passing or the winds and rain of the storm. Footprints wouldn’t remain for long in the downpour.
Frustrated and antsy, she blew out a breath and paced the length of the room. On the second pass, her nose wrinkled and she stopped to sniff the air. Something was different…acrid.
Smoke!
Blood rushed to her head and she clutched the desk to remain steady. The room went out of focus for a moment, then seemed to tilt. She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing, on regaining control.
Think.
But there was little to think about. There was only one way out of the second floor that she knew of, and that was down the main stairwell. She shoved her keys into her pocket then lifted her pistol from the desktop and crossed the room to the door. She ran her hand across the surface of the bedroom door to check for heat, but felt none.
This is it.
She stared at the dead bolt and took a deep breath. Finally, she slid it back and eased the bedroom door open to peer into the hallway. The smell of smoke was much stronger in the hallway, but she couldn’t see smoke or hear any sign of fire. More importantly, she didn’t see anyone with red eyes wearing a white robe.
Her best option was to get out of the house, even if the road to Cypriere was unpassable. The house was old and huge and the fire could be anywhere below or above her. Either could create a collapse, so her car was the safest place to be, assuming there was nothing in the courtyard that was more dangerous than fire.
Not allowing her mind to dwell on that possibility, she hurried down the hall toward the stairwell and rushed downstairs to the entry. Stopping short at the front door, she peered out the narrow side windows to ensure the courtyard was clear. As she reached for the doorknob, she heard something behind her, but before she could turn around and take aim, something hard struck the back of her head and she dropped to the floor, everything fading to black.
THE RAIN CAME DOWN in blinding sheets and soaked Brian completely before he’d even made it twenty feet from the house. He wiped the excess moisture away from his eyes, wishing he’d thought to grab his ball cap on the way out. He skirted around the edge of the courtyard, moving from one hiding place to another without using the flashlight, trying to limit his exposure. When he’d made it completely across the courtyard, he hid behind the storage shed near the caretaker’s cottage and then slipped into the edge of the woods just beyond.
He looked back at the house to get his bearings, and saw the dull glow of the lantern light cast from the windows of the bedrooms that he and Justine occupied. He looked across the courtyard from the windows and estimated the location where he’d seen the figure. The area was empty now, but if someone had been standing out in this storm, they would have left footprints in the thick, gummy Louisiana mud, even in the downpour.
He moved steadily through the edge of the woods toward the spot where he’d seen the figure, then scanned the courtyard and the woods beyond for any sign of movement. Nothing. He waited a couple of seconds, but nothing moved except the storm.
Finally, he left his hiding place in the woods and walked to the ground where he’d seen the person standing. He turned on the flashlight and shined it on the ground.
No way.
He shined the light back and forth across the muddy ground, looking for the trail that had to be there—the trail that should indicate how the person arrived or where they’d gone. But the ground held no prints at all. He turned around and shined the light across the ground where he’d walked and saw the outline of his footprints in the mud.
Even with the intensity of the rain, there wasn’t enough time for footprints to have washed away—not in a matter of minutes. He walked to the edge of the woods and shined the flashlight along the perimeter, looking for any sign that someone had entered or exited the courtyard through the woods.
His frustration grew with every step he took. He hadn’t imagined the figure, and he knew he was looking in the right area. But no one could have walked across that ground without leaving a trace.
No one but a ghost.
And that just wasn’t possible. He’d never believed in that sort of thing before, and regardless of what Olivia thought she’d seen when Wheeler held her captive, and the huge amount of respect he had for her, he wasn’t about to start buying in to it now. There was a logical explanation for everything happening at laMalediction.
And he was going to get to the bottom of it.
He entered the woods just behind the area where he’d seen the figure and scanned the ground for any sign of passage. There was some broken foliage along the edge of the woods, but the force of the storm could have caused that as easily as a man. What a storm couldn’t do was leave footprints and there had to be footprints somewhere.
He covered at least a hundred-foot stretch of woods, ten feet deep into the brush, but turned up nothing. Glancing at his watch, he realized he’d been gone from the house for over thirty minutes. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Justine in there alone, especially not at night and during a storm.
He glanced back at the house and his heart began to beat faster. The light from Justine’s room barely showed through the window, when earlier it had been bright. Abandoning his investigation, he ran straight across the courtyard to the house, his mind racing with a multitude of possibilities, none of them good.
No way had she turned off the lamp and gone to bed and he’d made sure it was full of oil when he checked on her earlier. If she was afraid of someone seeing her, she could have drawn the drapes, but he could still make out the dark lines of the heavy fabric drawn to the sides of the window.
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He burst through the front door, prepared to dash upstairs, but his foot connected with a solid object in the dark and sent him sprawling across the marble floor of the entry. He directed his flashlight to the floor and a single glance back confirmed his worst fear. He scrambled over to Justine, who lay across the entry.
Leaning in, he watched her chest and saw it rise and fall. A quick check of her pulse showed a somewhat elevated heartbeat, but nothing alarming. “Justine,” he said and patted the sides of her cheeks, trying to wake her. “Justine.”
His pulse quickened as he failed to get any response. He slipped his arms underneath her and carried her into the sitting room where he placed her on the couch. A lantern sat on a table next to the couch, so he lit it to cast more light on the situation. As he placed the lantern on the coffee table closer to Justine, she stirred.
And that’s when he saw blood on the couch pillow.
He froze for a moment, then knelt down and gently lifted her head, trying to see what was causing the bleeding. The gash was immediately visible, and he let out a sigh of relief as he realized that the cut wasn’t deep or large, and was probably made by something with a fairly sharp end, rather than the marble floor, as he’d originally feared. She must have slipped and hit her head on something. But what?
There was nothing in the center of the entry where he’d found her, so the only other logical explanation was that she’d hit it somewhere close by and staggered to the center of the entry where she’d passed out. He stepped through the other side of the sitting room and into the kitchen. He’d noticed clean dishtowels in a drawer earlier, so he grabbed one and soaked it with cold water. Justine still hadn’t wakened when he returned to the sitting room, so he placed the cool cloth across her forehead.
She stirred a bit and her eyes fluttered. Then all of a sudden, she sat bolt upright, her eyes wide with fright. He grabbed her arms as she tried to strike him.
“Justine, it’s Brian. You’re safe. Stop struggling or you may injure yourself.”
Justine locked her gaze on him and he could see the panic in her eyes begin to diminish. She gasped for air, then blew out a huge breath and swung her legs around so she was in a sitting position.
“What happened?” she asked.
Brian shook his head. “I found you passed out on the entry floor. You’ve got a gash on the back of your head. I figure maybe you fell in the dark and hit your head on something.”
Now that the initial crisis had passed, Brian felt irritation begin. “Things like this are exactly why I told you to stay put. You can’t just walk around in the pitch-black in a strange house. You’re going to be lucky if you don’t need stitches.”
“There was a fire,” Justine argued. “I smelled the smoke in my room, and stronger in the hallway.”
Brian frowned. “I don’t smell anything, and if there was a fire we’d see it by now. Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I would risk leaving the room with that…that thing outside if I didn’t have a good reason? I know you’re here to protect me, but I didn’t exactly grow up in Mayberry. Survival is something I’m very familiar with.”
Brian sat on the coffee table and sighed. “So what happened after you left the room?”
Justine stared at the wall behind him, her brow scrunched in concentration. “I figured the safest place to go was my car. I checked the bedroom door before opening it. It was cool, but the smell of smoke was stronger in the hall. I hurried downstairs and looked out the entry window to make sure the outside was clear.”
She frowned and Brian could see she was struggling to remember.
“Did you see something outside?” he prompted.
“No…I heard something…inside.” Her eyes widened. “Directly behind me in the entry, but before I could turn around, something hit me on the back of the head and everything went black.”
“Damn it!” Brian jumped up from the coffee table and paced the room. “I should have known better. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“What should you have known? I don’t understand.”
“It was all a trick to get to you. The person outside to draw me out of the house. The smell of smoke to get you out of the locked room. All so someone could take a shot at you.”
Justine sucked in a breath. “But that’s crazy. Why would someone go to all that trouble just to hit me? If they’d wanted me dead, I would be.”
Brian frowned at Justine’s words because he knew she was right. There had been plenty of time to kill her if that was the intent. “Maybe someone wants to scare you away.”
“But why me? Why not go after you? You’re the strongest.”
Brian shook his head. “All I can figure is that someone is unhappy about your work here.”
“How would anyone even know about it?”
“It’s a small place. I’m sure word has already gotten around about most everything that’s happened here. A lot of the story was splashed all over the New Orleans newspapers, and the Cypriere locals probably all know what really went down. All anyone would have to do is figure out what you do for a living and they could put two and two together.”
“I thought the missing emeralds were a secret, assuming they’re even still around. The only other thing I’m here to do is research the Borque ancestry. Why would anyone care about that?”
“No one should care, and that’s exactly what I don’t like about all this. Olivia and John didn’t make the emeralds public knowledge because they didn’t want the estate besieged by treasure hunters.”
“That makes sense. And the locals have probably passed down tales of the emeralds and other things at laMalediction for generations. A local would have looked for them before now if he thought they really existed.”
“Maybe he has been looking and wasn’t successful. News of the hidden journals was made public. Maybe he thinks the journals will lead you right to the very thing he’s been looking for.”
“This is so convoluted.”
Brian nodded. “John and Olivia anticipated trouble when they asked me to come here, but I know for a fact, they didn’t expect anything like this.” He placed a hand on Justine’s arm. “I think you ought to consider leaving. Pack up the journals and albums and take them back with you to New Orleans.”
“No way. The emeralds are not hidden in any of those books, and that’s what Olivia’s paying me to do. If they even exist and can be found, they’re going to be at laMalediction.”
Brian blew out a breath. She was right but he didn’t have to like it. “Okay, then we stay, but we’re going to have to come up with a strategy. Someone prepared for us, so right now he has the advantage. We have to make sure we do everything to level the playing field. That means, if you want to stay, you do everything I ask with no argument. Got it?”
The apprehensive and somewhat belligerent expression on Justine’s face gave away her real feelings, but she nodded.
For now, he guessed that would have to do.
Chapter Four
Justine awakened before dawn the next morning, but that was no surprise. She’d never been a heavy sleeper, and the previous night hadn’t been exactly restful. She sat up in bed and gingerly felt the back of her head. The lump was still there, but had decreased significantly in size. It was tender to the touch, but her headache was gone, so she figured the worst of it was over. She threw back the covers and eased out of bed, careful not to jar her head and start the throbbing all over again.
The connecting door to Brian’s room was partway open, so she eased over to it and peeked inside. Brian was sprawled on top of the bed, covers bunched in a ball at the foot of the bed. He wore only a T-shirt and drawstring shorts, and Justine couldn’t help but admire the toned, tanned length of his muscular arms and legs. As much as being closed up with a man, especially this man, made her uneasy, she had to admit that, as far as bodyguards went, Brian appeared to be a competent one. Certainly his bravery wasn’t in question, given what he’d chased in the cour
tyard the night before.
She pulled the connecting door almost shut, hoping the sound of her moving around wouldn’t wake him. He’d tended to her head last night in a gentle way that she’d found surprising, then he’d insisted on helping her to bed and to two shots of whiskey. He’d sat in the rocking chair in the corner and claimed he wasn’t leaving until she fell asleep. Justine had no idea what time he left her room, but figured he could probably use the rest.
She eased out of the bedroom and down the stairs to the kitchen. Coffee and aspirin were her first orders of business. She couldn’t afford a headache, with everything she needed to do today, any more than she could afford to be unfocused. Between the caffeine and the aspirin, she should be ready to take on the world—or at least her research. Olivia had indicated she’d left supplies in the kitchen and Justine sighed with relief when she pulled out a sealed package of gourmet coffee.
Pulling the package apart, Justine took in the rich smell of the grounds and gave Olivia a mental blessing. Her employer had seriously good taste in coffee. She filled the coffeepot, figuring Brian wouldn’t be able to pass up a cup, once the smell had permeated the entire downstairs, and while the coffee brewed, she checked out the refrigerator and pantry. Olivia had understated the amount of food she’d provided. Both the pantry and refrigerator were full of tasty and easy-to-prepare items.
Justine pulled a strawberry breakfast bar out of the pantry and waited impatiently for the coffee to finish brewing. She’d just taken her first heavenly sip when Brian entered the kitchen.
“Man, that smells fantastic,” Brian said, and took in a deep whiff of the coffee. “It is fantastic,” Justine said as she removed a coffee mug from the cabinet and handed it to Brian. “If Olivia was here, I’d kiss her.”
Brian poured a steamy cup of coffee and smiled. “I didn’t know you swung that way.”
Justine smiled at his teasing. “For this coffee, I may consider it.”