DANGEROUS, Collection #1

by Patricia Rosemoor

  And yet, he’d seen something that night.

  It would come to him. It had to.

  Some instinct pushed at him.

  Bram pushed back.

  Hoping to distract himself before the headache became full-blown, he let his mind relax and browsed through the attic, stopping here to lift a sheet, there to check the contents of a box. And all the while he felt some invisible force driving him to continue. He was nearly back to the cot before an overpowering urge made him stop and lift a sheet trailing from a chest of drawers. A trunk lay buried below.

  He stood staring at it for a moment and concentrated on the feelings washing through him. An urge to open the thing grew until he recognized it as being something more than normal curiosity , as if the urging were coming from outside of himself.

  “All right, all right, I’ll look,” he muttered aloud.

  The pressure immediately let up.

  Stooping, he undid the lock and lifted the lid unprepared for the contents that greeted him.

  Blueprints!

  Carefully, he unrolled each sheet, giving a cursory look-see to the various floor plans until he got to the lower level. Then he took a long, hard look, reacquainting himself with the secrets he had once known, and others he hadn’t.

  Three hidden staircases. Two underground tunnels. Four concealed rooms of various sizes, three of which lay in a labyrinth under the guest wing. One looked to be a storage area with massive shelving indicated. Of course. In the twenties, Dunescape had been the base of an illegal alcohol-running operation. One of the tunnels connected this room to the boathouse.

  His mind suddenly flashed on the past.

  How do you know about this place?

  Bram immediately tuned in.

  I followed the sound and—

  You came from the tunnel. How did you know about the tunnel?

  But Bram couldn’t hear the answer. Staring down at the blueprint in his hands, he concentrated, once again ignoring the throbbing at his temple.

  “Get me out of here!”

  A new voice?

  “Don’t leave me here! Bram, where are you?”

  His head jerked up at the panic-stricken plea. “Echo?” Had he really heard her?

  “Please, somebody help me!”

  Her voice was hollow, real and not real. Just like the last time. Just like when he was seven.

  “Bram! Anyone!”

  His gaze shot to the metal ventilation ducts. That’s where the voices had come from thirty years before. And why they’d sounded so spooky.

  “I’m in here, behind the wine cellar!”

  Her frenzied wail made his gut clench. “What wine cellar?” Bram mumbled.

  A quick check of the blueprint in his hands and he knew. Not needing further prompting, he dropped the plans, grabbed his torch from where he’d clipped it to his belt and took off like a shot.

  “I’m coming, Echo, hold on,” he muttered as he started the long descent.

  Passing the second floor, he suddenly wondered why Echo wasn’t in bed locked inside the guest room where she was supposed to be. The wine cellar had to be the area with the shelving. If so, she somehow had gotten herself trapped in a room she supposedly knew nothing about.

  According to the blueprints, the stairs that led to the labyrinth beneath the wing started in the ballroom and were conveniently tucked under the stairway leading up to the guest rooms. Touching down on the main floor, he raced along the hall and past the conservatory, switching on his torch as he entered the ballroom.

  Running his beam over the west wall, he could see no indicator of where the secret door might be until his light picked up something strange. He stooped to see better. Bits of what appeared to be smashed pumpkin decorated the floor. And a thin line of orange marked the paneling.

  But how to spring the secret door?

  As he stood, his gaze met the elaborately carved decorative trim at waist level, mostly flowers and leaves. He ran his fingers over the uneven edges, pressing and poking. A moment later, a leaf gave and the door shushed open.

  Bram hesitated long enough to make certain he was alone before plummeting down into the house’s depths. If he was to help her, he had to keep his wits about him. He didn’t want to think of the alternative.

  He realized the staircase was steeper and went further down than the normal cellar stairs. The labyrinth lay below ground level, at least several feet lower than the basement, the reason it had been near-impossible to find. Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, he slowed and listened hard, but heard nothing. No voices. No cry for help. He couldn’t tolerate the thought that Echo might be in even greater trouble, when he got his first glimpse of wine bottles and knew he’d reached the right place.

  No matter their differences, he had fallen hard for the impossible woman, and even after knowing her for only a few days, he couldn’t fathom being without her. Remembering the way he’d found her after she’d plunged down that drain pipe, he fought panic.

  If she was so much as hurt again...

  Under the right circumstances, he could be capable of violence.

  Finding a light switch, he tried it. Still no electricity. He scanned the sublevel room with the torch before reattaching it to his belt.

  “Echo,” he called, wondering whether his voice could penetrate the walls. He didn’t want to think she might not be able to hear him. Maybe louder. “Echo!” he shouted.

  “Bram, I’m here!”

  Relief shot through him. He realized she was shouting, too, though her panicked voice was barely discernable.

  Muffled and hollow.

  His gaze shot to the metal tubing overhead. The windowless rooms were interconnected and obviously got their air supply from the ductwork starting in the attic and reaching all the way down here.

  “Echo, where are you exactly?” he called.

  “The back wall,” came her faint reply. She was sounding calmer now. “The shelving slides on a track.”

  Bram wended his way through the racks of wine, but when he reached the back wall, he didn’t have a clue as to where to start looking.

  “Talk to me,” he yelled. “Maybe I can hear you through the wall.”

  Instead a muffled set of pounding— her fists meeting wood?— led him to his right.

  “That’s it! Keep it up!” He followed the muted thumps, and a moment later almost shot by them. “Got it! Any idea of how this works?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t be in here!”

  Bram couldn’t help himself. He grinned. Even trapped, she was ornery. He’d almost forgotten what a fighter she was.

  Retrieving his torch, he ran the brilliant beam over the shelving, and with his free hand, moved a few of the bottles around so he could see behind them.

  “Anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  He fought frustration as he continued his search, until his gaze lit on a bottle with the dust disturbed, as if a sleeve had run over it. Filled with a sense of triumph, he removed it from the rack and aimed the light in its space. He experienced a deep disappointment, for he saw no levers or catches, only the wooden cross brace of the rack itself.

  And then he was being pushed again. From the outside in. Almost as if someone were whispering in his ear, telling him what to do. Someone in his skin again, though this time not uncomfortably so. For a moment, he fought this... this presence... and sensed a frustration even greater than his own. Then he let go of his own will and allowed this unidentifiable instinct to guide him.

  Reaching out, he grasped the cross brace and jerked it upward. A metallic click and a shush of well-oiled wheels were his reward as the rack shot toward him a few inches.

  “You did it!” Echo yelled, her voice immediate rather than being filtered through the air duct.

  Equally excited, Bram shoved at the rack, which slid silently to the left. On the other side of the threshold, caught like a frightened doe in his light, Echo stood wide-eyed, trembling, yet rooted to the spot as if she were una
ble to move. He held out his arms and she threw herself into them with a strangled cry.

  “I thought I was trapped forever,” she sobbed into his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her tightly. “I thought I would go out of my mind.” And in a smaller voice, she added, “Just like Mama.”

  “You’re fine,” he said gruffly. Her flesh was cold beneath the thin nightgown. He tried to rub some warmth into her. “And you’re already out of your mind or you would have stayed where I put you.”

  With a sniff, she shoved at his chest and glared at him. “If you hadn’t been creeping around in the middle of the night, I wouldn’t have come after you.”

  Cupping her cheek, he wiped away a stray tear with his thumb. “You followed me up to the attic?”

  “Not up. Down. To the ballroom.”

  “I wasn’t in the ballroom, Echo, not until just now when I came down to find you.”

  “Yes, you were,” she insisted. “I saw you.” Then her gaze settled on his Hunter green sweater. “But you were dressed differently. A black silk shirt...” And lifted to his face. “And your hair, it kind of fell over your forehead...”

  Bram didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. Echo hadn’t seen him. A week ago, he would have called her crazy. Or full of hooey. But something, someone, led him to those blueprints, made him lift the cross brace. Allowed him to rescue the woman who’d become infinitely important to him in a few short days.

  “It wasn’t me,” he emphasized.

  Her eyes rounded. “Maybe I am already out of my mind. The first time I met you... and then the day in the coal bin... and... and that feeling I keep having that I’m not alone in my own skin.” She took a shaky breath and announced, “Bram, either I am exactly like my mother... or your father really is haunting Dunescape Cottage!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FINALLY ACCEPTING that the place was haunted, Echo was on edge as to Bram’s reaction. She felt infinitely better when he neither laughed nor shouted at her. His expression seemed so accepting.

  “You believe me?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Maybe Aunt Addy has been right all along. Maybe Father’s soul hasn’t been put to rest. I haven’t seen him, but I keep getting this eerie feeling that I’m not alone. That my thoughts aren’t my own. That someone’s in my skin. It’s how I found you so quickly.”

  Knowing exactly what he meant about the in-his-skin part, Echo took a deep relieved breath and sagged. Bram immediately put a steadying arm around her. She snuggled in closer, glad for his warmth and comfort.

  “We’d better get you back upstairs before you get pneumonia.” He tried to move her off.

  But she stayed put. She’d panicked earlier, because she hadn’t understood. “No, wait. I think he wanted me to find this place.”

  “Surely you don’t think a spirit was able to lock you in here?”

  “No. This particular spirit is kind, not cruel,” she said, remembering Donahue’s comforting presence on the stairs. “Someone of this earth must have followed me. But there was a purpose to your father’s leading me here.”

  “Just as there was a purpose to my searching that trunk.” When she looked at him questioningly, he explained, “I was led to the blueprints.”

  “You see?”

  Her heart lightened. She’d disliked Bram’s being judgmental, but it seemed he had the capacity for change, giving her hope for the future, especially now that she’d faced her personal demons and had come out whole. That she hadn’t exactly done so alone didn’t matter. Maybe it was a sign that their being together was special. And right.

  “What do you expect to find down here?” he asked.

  “I wish I knew.” When she’d wakened in the dark, she’d felt an urgency to search the place. Somehow, she had dispelled some of the shadows in her mind and had calmed herself enough to renew her anger and determination. “I was too busy yelling my head off to do a thorough search.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  First they secured the sliding shelves so they wouldn’t have any nasty surprises. Then Bram slipped out of his sweater and helped her into it, seemingly oblivious to the cold through his short-sleeved black t-shirt. And when he realized her feet were bare, he forced his socks on her, as well. Echo was certain she must look ridiculous. But warmed outside and in, she set to the task of figuring out what Donahue wanted of her.

  A cursory search of every shelf and every drawer in the desk revealed nothing that gave them a clue.

  “If we only had some idea of what we were looking for,” she said.

  “The jewels.” Bram’s expression was confident. “In the attic, I remembered more. My father caught the thief, Echo, and that must have happened in here, or somewhere in this underground labyrinth, because I heard them that night.” He pointed to the metal ducts. “Your raised voice carried up to me in the attic just as theirs did.”

  “You recognized the voices?”

  “Let’s just say my gut tells me Father wasn’t the thief.”

  “But if he caught the thief...”

  Their gazes locked.

  “Ferguson was no doubt correct when he said the jewels never left the house,” Bram said. “There was a third room shown on the blueprints.” Then stared at a spot behind the desk. “And an entrance right there.”

  It took some doing, but while Echo held the torch, Bram found a release. A section of bookcase popped inward and slid along a track. She shone the beam into the room, which was small and lined with metal.

  “A vault.” Echo followed him inside. “My Lord, look at this!”

  Racks along the walls held paintings and sculptures, pottery and silver serving pieces. Everything looked very old and very, very valuable.

  Bram whistled. “I’m no expert, but I would say there’s some serious money here.”

  “Then Miss Addy’s not destitute, after all.”

  “Seems not. I’m just glad she didn’t know about all this, or it might be gone, too.”

  Echo was only half-listening as the central object on a waist-high shelf caught her eye. “Bram, look.”

  She pointed the beam at a jewelry case. Big and fancy. A plush deep blue velvet, the color of Bram’s eyes where the dust had been removed by a human hand. Instinctively, she knew it was home to the Courtland collection. Were they about to find the mysterious jewels at last? She waited until Bram stood next to her.

  “You do the honors,” she said.

  His hand trembled as he flipped open the lid. Then a sound of disappointment issued through his lips when they stared into the empty satin-lined interior. Sorry for having built up his hopes, Echo gave him a stricken look.

  “I would have sworn you were right,” he said.

  “Now what?”

  Discouraged, she fiddled with some framed oils that stuck out below, looking but not really seeing the oversized paintings.

  Letting the artwork drop back into place, she heard an odd scraping sound as Bram said, “Let’s get some sleep. Maybe things will be clearer tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” she agreed. Halloween. Like they’d have any time to think at all. Her first step brought her stockinged foot down on a hard object that bit into her already abused flesh. “Ouch!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I stepped on a screw or something.” She shook her foot and the sharp object went flying through the beam of light. She followed its trajectory and her attention was caught by a sparkle between two of the paintings. “What’s that?” she asked, steadying the beam to see.

  “Looks like a piece of glass,” Bram said.

  Then in unison, “Diamonds!”

  They both went scrambling, but it was Bram who spread the painting and reached in after the object.

  “Got it.” Pulling back, he held out his palm to reveal a large canary diamond, the central stone of a ring, winking up at them.

  “Whoever removed the jewels from the case must have dropped this in amongst the oils and not noticed,” Echo said. “A
nd it had to have been done very, very recently.”

  “How so?”

  “Look at the jewelry box again. Dark blue velvet and full of dust except where it’s been handled. And someone was at it before you!”

  Turning the ring in the lights, Bram raised his brows. “Why would someone steal the jewels and then hang onto them for three decades?”

  “Got me. Maybe we’ll have to ask the thief.”

  Thinking they might have room to catch the guilty one yet, they put everything back in order. Echo wondered how long it would be before the person who’d trapped her would return to see how she fared. If ever. Of course, once she showed in the morning, the game would take a different turn. She only wished they could manage to turn it in a direction favorable to them.

  Carefully they backtracked to the ballroom. No one else seemed alert but the storm still challenging them from the other side of the terrace windows. Nature covered their stealthy footsteps as they ascended to the second floor, Bram holding onto Echo as if he would never let her go.

  Part of her wished he wouldn’t have to.

  Once in her room, he didn’t waste any time in discarding the torch, pulling her to him and kissing her deeply. Snaking her arms up around his neck, she responded with the intensity of the night’s experiences. Her senses heightened with the rain driving against the windows. She’d thought they might talk, but words didn’t seem necessary. Only the closeness and the silent emotions raging between them mattered.

  Down in that hellish dungeon, she’d thought she might die, or worse, go mad. If she had, she never would have felt this pure, unbridled passion. This lust for life and him. She’d come so close, so very close to the edge. But she’d looked into the abyss and had come back.

  And Bram had been there waiting for her.

  A sign. Surely it was a sign.

  Breaking the kiss, he tore at the hem of his sweater and she raised her arms to give him access, at the same slitting her eyes to watch. The candle on the dresser still burned; the room was a kaleidoscope of flickering warmth and deep shadows. And in his face she recognized that same duality. Light and darkness. For as surely as did she, he had a dark side, a deep black hole from which he fought to stay afloat. Her hair crackled with the static that bit through the nightgown as he wrested the sweater fully from her, leaving her aroused and breathless.