by Celia Ashley
Leaving the bedroom, Liam went to his office and dumped his paperwork and discs into a second duffel bag before slipping the laptop into its carrier. He had to make this look good. Like he meant it. Straightening from the task, he listened again. The stairs creaked, first one, then the next. Several after were silent until the top two, which made the slightest noise as if pressure had been carefully applied. Pretending he hadn’t heard, Liam slid the handle of the computer bag over his shoulder and called Shadow’s name as he approached the door. The start he felt at finding someone standing right beyond the threshold wasn’t feigned, despite knowing he was coming.
“Going somewhere, Gray?”
Shadow scooted out from behind the desk and ran past Regan Raleigh’s legs, heading full tilt for the landing. Good boy, Liam thought. Get as far from this house as you can tonight, buddy.
“Yeah, Raleigh, I am. I believe the term is ‘jumping bail.’”
“I heard you got popped. Good man.”
“Paige had already figured out there’d be no charges short of a confession, so I provided it. The ploy worked. You got what you wanted.” Liam yanked the duffel from the floor and pushed past Raleigh, returning to the bedroom.
Coming into the room behind him, Raleigh laughed. Liam continued to pack.
“I’m surprised you didn’t figure out it was me sooner,” Raleigh said.
“What makes you think I didn’t?” Liam didn’t look back. He listened, though, closely, for any sign the man had moved nearer.
“You surprise me. Never figured you for a loyal soldier.”
“Threatening me didn’t matter. The fact you threatened Paige did.”
“Now, Gray, did I actually use her name?” Raleigh drawled.
“You didn’t have to. I’m no fool.”
“I can see that. And your next step?”
“What do you mean?”
“Think you can kill me?”
“Why would I bother?” Liam zipped the bag shut and straightened, looking around the room as if to make certain he hadn’t missed anything.
“Because you’ve been fucking the bitch.”
Liam didn’t miss a beat. “Not anymore. You know that information you were looking for? I got it. It’ll protect me, and it’ll protect her, long after I’m gone. What Paige saw that night is written down and notarized, waiting in a sealed envelope for delivery to the police if anything happens to either one of us.”
Raleigh came into the room, walking in a wide circle, eyeing Liam’s belongings with mild curiosity. Liam could see the man’s mind wasn’t on anything in front of his eyes. Except Liam. The bastard was sizing him up. “Then why haven’t you given the envelope to the cops yet? Something like that would have been good leverage, rather than confessing to this other business. Why didn’t you point the finger in my direction?”
Liam shrugged. “Because no one knows you’re here. It would be like pointing fingers at a ghost. And I just want to be done.”
Regan turned his head aside, coughing into his shoulder. He smelled, Liam realized, like alcohol. Not a good sign.
“So, you’ll leave her,” Regan said, “just like that.”
“That’s the plan. After the job.”
“After the—” Regan laughed again, so hard he staggered sideways against the doorjamb.
“Yeah, the job. I’m going to need the money. You said you wanted the load out before dawn with the storm coming up the coast. You haven’t time to waste, and I just want to put all of this behind me.”
Regan straightened, his pale eyes glittering in the lamplight. “You want in, you’re still in. I’m short a man. And then what? You’re really gone? Leaving her behind without a backward glance?”
“What do you think? She’s not going to want me back, thanks to my confession.”
“Maybe I’ll take her on myself then.”
Liam bent to adjust the zipper on the duffel bag, hiding his face. He couldn’t be sure Regan wouldn’t read his expression. “Doubt it. She knows now what you did to her mother.”
“She doesn’t have to be willing, Gray. You know that.”
Liam kept himself from taking a deep breath, giving his emotions away. He tossed the second duffel beside the first in the middle of his unmade bed and turned. “Was that really blood on the card with the rose?”
“Yeah, stroke of genius, that.” Raleigh held up his hand, wagging his middle finger. “Paper cut on these rough old hands. Couldn’t resist.”
“Your intent was only to scare her away? If you’d only ignored her, you would have been better off.”
“Needed her away from here, though, didn’t we? Besides, it was fun.”
Fun. Liam’s gut clenched. “I tried to get her to go back home. She wouldn’t listen.”
“Not surprising. She thinks she’s in love.” The man started chortling again. “And the end game? Well, you’ve changed that now, haven’t you?”
Liam’s eyes narrowed. He knew better than to believe the bastard was giving in this easily. Liam needed a little more time, that was all, and he hoped he’d bought it. He couldn’t count on any more than that.
“Fuck you, Raleigh. Let’s get this over with.”
He took a few steps into the hallway and turned in front of the bathroom door, waiting for Raleigh to exit the room. After a moment, the man sauntered out with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “Had her in there once, I did. Edwin’s wife. Right here in his bed. She was too scared to say no.”
Liam stayed quiet, his teeth grinding together. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the attic door swing open several inches. He looked away. “Last job, and I’m gone.”
Raleigh nodded. “Yeah. Last job.”
Liam didn’t much care for the way Raleigh uttered those three words, but he couldn’t change them.
* * * *
Paige crossed the porch, careful where she placed her feet. Storm clouds had begun to amass sometime overnight and, with the hour barely past four, the night remained dark as ink. A cool, damp breeze tugged at her hair, whipping loose tendrils into her eyes, while light rain clung like mist. Something bounded at her from the corner.
“Shadow!” Bending, Paige scooped the black cat up with one hand and tried the knob on the screen door with the other. Unlocked. So was the interior door. Paige walked into the unlit kitchen and lowered Shadow to the floor. Light filtered down from a room upstairs, lining the steps in the living room with a soft glow. Otherwise, the house was dark.
Had he already gone? Idiot. Such an action would only solidify a guilt that wasn’t his. Paige crossed the floor and climbed the stairs. Standing on the threshold to Liam’s bedroom, she studied the empty, rumpled bed, the drawers in the dresser hanging open, clothing obviously removed from them. In the office, she found the same conditions, drawers not fully closed, papers and laptop missing.
Paige’s shoulders dropped. “Liam, no.”
She was too late to stop him. Defeated and empty inside, Paige turned and headed back down the hallway. Two strides away from the door leading to the attic, she heard the feeble squeal of hinges and glanced back to see the door swinging open to reveal the darkened stairwell inside. She stopped. “Liam?”
Her question was followed by a sound in the bathroom that made her think of a struck match. She spun in time to witness the flare of white-gold light at the end of a cigarette and the face revealed behind it. The man puffed to get the cigarette going. Paige darted toward the stair head, but a stocky, balding man with a fierce tattoo the length of his arm already blocked her descent from the landing below.
“Hey, babe,” Raleigh said, coming out into the hallway behind her. “I see you got my message.”
She looked back. Regan Raleigh lifted his hand to reveal a cell phone cupped in his palm, her reply to Liam glowing on the screen.
Don’t leave me, Liam. Just don’t leave me. We’ll work this out together.
“Where is he?”
Paige glanced again into the ransacked bedroom. “Did you hurt him? Is he here in the house?”
Raleigh took a few steps closer and stopped at a point where she had to look up to meet his eye. Not far, though. He was nowhere near as tall as Liam. She could only hope the man was lying through his teeth. Unless Liam had been pounced on by more than one attacker, she felt confident Raleigh couldn’t have overpowered him. Not alone. Yes, now that she stood closer, she could see a definite swelling in Raleigh’s jaw and the beginnings of a black eye.
“He’s not in the house. He’s waiting for you…sweetie. I couldn’t very well leave him somewhere he could be found. Had to follow through with his bid for freedom, didn’t he? And you disappear with him. Simple.” He bent close. “We’ll have a little fun beforehand, though, won’t we?”
Paige drew a clenched fist. She kept it at her side, remembering the end result of the last time she’d taken a swing at him. Besides, the other man waited behind her. If she cooperated, she might find a way to help Liam. Patience had never been one of her virtues. It was time to establish that practice, if only for Liam’s sake. Wherever this man had taken him, she wanted to be there, too. Together they would—they would what? Probably both die.
“I’m not my mother. She was afraid of you.”
“You will be, too, before I finish.” He nodded to the man on the steps. Paige ducked away, up against the wall.
“What about—”
“The envelope containing the statement of what you saw on the beach sixteen years ago? Believe me, you’ll sign another saying it was all a lie to try and frame me because of this whole harassment thing they’ve charged lover boy with. If you don’t, you’ll just prolong the agony I’m going to subject him to before he dies.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but she latched onto the fact that Liam lived. “Why do you want to kill him?”
He appeared affronted that she’d even ask. With a smirk, he took another drag on the cigarette. “Do I need a reason? He irks me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That he irks me? Why would I lie about that? He’s been working for me for six months now and has never shown an ounce of respect. I never quite trusted him. And I’ve dumped men in the ocean for less. As soon as he hooked up with you, though, I knew it was only a matter of time before he learned the truth about that night. That truth makes him a danger to me. Just like you.”
Paige risked a look to her right, where the second man stood less than six feet away now. “I don’t—”
A knife flashed out, sparking light from the single burning lamp in the bedroom. She raised an arm to ward off the blow and felt the blade slash across her forearm. Not deep. Please God, not deep.
“That’s just a taste of what’s coming,” Raleigh said with a smile.
Blood dripped onto the floor, a few crimson spatters on the hardwood. More ran warmly over her skin. She lifted her hand to her shoulder to elevate the wound, clamping her right over the cut, and turned toward the stairs. “Where are we going?”
“Just shut up. I’ll let you know when you get there.”
He marched her outside and down the stairs to the dark beach, the knife inches from her ribs and his tattooed companion on her other side. She had no doubt she’d break down when this was over, but for now she felt preternaturally calm. Like the atmosphere. Eerily still before the pending storm. Even the wind had died. Not a star could be seen over the ocean, and the mist had ceased its fine spray. Waiting. Everything waiting.
“The old broad? Bea something? I was in the house that day you came back to talk to her. I was there to make her shut up. Her grandson told me she’d been blabbing to you. Couldn’t have her saying too much. She might have let something slip without even knowing what the fuck she said. You passed the place I was hiding twice. I could have reached out and touched you.”
Paige’s stomach rolled. “Did you hurt her?”
He chuckled. “Nah. Scared her good, though. Couldn’t hurt her. She reminds me of my granny.”
Sick freaking bastard. Paige stumbled on a dimple in the sand and was jerked upright with a rough wrench to her arm. Biting her tongue to keep from crying out, she scanned the beach from side to side for any sign Liam had preceded her. For all she knew, Raleigh was lying about that.
Before they’d gone far, he appeared—the seaman’s ghost. Lantern swinging. Looking back at her. Paige gasped. Did ghosts do that, look at people? The man to her right sucked a breath in through his teeth, his eyes bulging.
“Shit fuck, what is that?”
“You see him, too?” Paige asked, ever so calmly.
“I told you to shut up,” Raleigh hissed.
Oblivious. No chance to frighten him with it, then. But his buddy was faltering. Hell, Bea Hunt had been right. Sailors were a superstitious lot. This guy probably viewed what he was seeing as a premonition of death. One could only hope.
“Cap’n, you don’t see that?”
Raleigh stopped. “Who is it? Where?”
The man raised a hand, pointing. “Right the hell in front of us. It’s a haunt.”
Snorting impatience, Raleigh shoved her at the man, who grabbed her arm. Raleigh then marched forward, straight up and through the specter, pausing on the other side. Even at this distance, Paige witnessed his shoulders jerk in a quick shiver. He spun on his heel to stare back at her and then down to the beach at his feet. The apparition vanished. Where it had been, Paige spotted again the long, low rock, free of seaweed. This time, instead of the black stone, she saw an actual body and the remembered stance of Regan Raleigh sixteen years ago standing over it, bloody knife still clutched in his hand. The man’s plea for his life and the whispered suck of his dying breath reverberated in her head with all the force of the present, rather than memory. The victim of Raleigh’s savagery had been a stranger to her then and remained a stranger now, but it didn’t matter. Raleigh had killed a man in front of her. She had witnessed his horrendous crime and spent a lifetime blocking it from her mind. Well, it was back now, the memory, and it both sickened and enraged her. Her jaw tightening, she raised her gaze to Raleigh’s bone-white countenance and knew he had seen the vision of the body on the sand, too.
He rushed back in her direction. “Lights out,” he said.
And they were.
Chapter 29
Paige awoke to the vile stench of her own vomit. She struggled up onto her knees but couldn’t stay there as the surface beneath her rolled and dipped, tumbling her onto her side. Duct tape bound her hands behind her back as well as her ankles. Using her heels, she shoved herself backwards until she hit something solid and worked her way into a sitting position against what appeared to be a metal wall. The world plunged again. A voluminous spray of seawater crashed down over her and flooded across the deck. She was on a ship.
Without warning, another stream of vomit churned from her stomach.
“Seasick, little butterfly?”
“She’s probably got a concussion, Raleigh.”
Paige jerked away from the visage of Regan Raleigh bending over her to Liam’s voice, locating him similarly trussed about ten feet away. He’d been tied about the chest, too, secured to what appeared to be a barrel affixed to the deck. The sun had not yet lipped the horizon and black clouds roiling overhead limited her vision. Raleigh straightened, unaffected by the tossing ship.
“You’re a fool if you think you can ride out the storm in this vessel,” Liam shouted.
“You’re a fool if you think it should matter. Not to you, Gray. Not to your lady, either. I’ve faced worse. You, however, have about another ten minutes for concern. After that…” He made a theatrical slashing motion across his throat
.
“What’s another ten minutes going to do?”
Liam, Paige thought. Shut up. Don’t taunt him.
Raleigh crouched again. A flash of metal preceded the downward motion of his hand. Paige flinched and turned her face away, feeling a tug at her ankles. Two seconds passed before she realized he hadn’t stabbed her but only severed the binding on her legs.
“Turn around.”
She complied. He cut the tape on her wrists before yanking her to her feet. Good. Having her hands free evened the odds a bit.
“What are you doing?” This from Liam. Paige tried to reassure him with a look, but the deck’s plunge and roll across huge waves prevented her from focusing.
“I said ten minutes, didn’t I? Think about what’s happening to her while we’re gone. I don’t like them bound. I like them to fight.”
A wordless growl gurgled up from Liam’s throat as he struggled to free himself. Raleigh grinned. She wanted to knock his teeth out. As he dug his fingers into her arm, Paige envisioned the photo of her mother and Raleigh, both of them smiling. It had to have been taken before Deb Waters understood what a monster this man was. Another wave of nausea took her and she lurched over. Beside her, Raleigh jumped back, avoiding the spray.
“Fuck. This isn’t going to work.” Striding angrily across the reeling deck as if on dry land, he threw his hands up, the knife still in his left hand reflecting what little light existed. None of it came from the ship. They were running dark. Overhead, lightning seared the sky, followed by a blast of wind that threw her sideways. She caught herself on a coil of rope. A shrill keen filled the air. The storm was upon them.
“Too late, asshole,” she said, and charged Raleigh with her head down. She hit him square in the bony, concave structure of his lower back, sending him sprawling. The impact rolled her hard across the deck. The other men onboard stared, as if unsure what to do. An instant later, she realized they weren’t looking at them at all, their attention fixed starboard where an ominous black shadow, whether cloud or water, loomed toward them. If the latter, she understood the ship could flounder at any moment.