Wicked is the night

by Catherine Mulvany

  “You’re kidding,” Trick said. “My fiancée wanted to show me around.”

  He’d demoted her to fiancée?

  “She grew up in this house,” Trick added.

  The gardener just stared, not saying anything.

  Trick gave the man a friendly smile. “That would have been before Mr. Harrington bought it.”

  Still the gardener said nothing. Nevada had just started to wonder if maybe he was deaf when he broke his silence. “Trick Granger? By the Lord, you’re Trick Granger!”

  “Why, yes. I am.” Trick extended his hand.

  The gardener set down his bucket and shook Trick’s hand enthusiastically. “I am mighty pleased to meet you, Mr. Granger. Marvin Odell’s my name, and I am your biggest fan.” Grinning widely to display a set of square white teeth, he pumped Trick’s hand a couple more times before letting it go. “I apologize, Mr. Granger, for not recognizing you at first. The eye patch kind of threw me for a loop.”

  “I was involved in an accident a few months back.”

  “Yes, sir, I know. Hell of a thing. All them sports commentators was saying at the time you’d probably never race again, but I figured they was exaggerating like they always do. I didn’t realize how bad you was hurt.”

  “Yeah, not much demand for a one-eyed race-car driver.” Trick had thought he’d gotten past the self-pity stage, but talking about his shattered dreams like this dredged up remnants of negative emotion.

  As if she knew exactly what was going on in his head, Nevada leaned closer, wrapping one arm around his waist, then threading the fingers of her right hand through his.

  Which reminded him that if he hadn’t had the accident, he never would have met Nevada. His gaze locked on hers, and for a moment, the world seemed to stand still.

  “For sure, the fans are gonna miss you,” Marvin Odell said. And the spell was broken.

  “Not as much as I’ll miss competing,” Trick told him. “Listen, Marvin, do you think it would be okay if my fiancée and I took a walk around the courtyard?”

  “Oh, hell, why not? Mr. Harrington wouldn’t mind. He’s a big race fan hisself.”

  Trick angled away from the gardener and winked at Nevada.

  “In fact, if you’d like to check out the inside”—Marvin hooked his thumb through the key ring that dangled from his belt loop—“that can sure enough be arranged.”

  Trick nudged Nevada.

  “Oh,” she said blankly, then, “Super.”

  “Super?” he mouthed.

  “Thank you.” She blessed Marvin with a dazzling smile while treading heavily on Trick’s right foot. “I w«oot>

  FIFTEEN

  The interior of the Harrington mansion provided a stark contrast to the old-fashioned charm of Leticia Granger’s three-story Edwardian. From the high-tech stainless steel appliances in the kitchen to the sleek lines of the massive living room where one entire wall was covered with museum-worthy examples of African art, the mansion had obviously been decorated to reflect the owner’s excellent and rather sophisticated taste.

  Despite what Nevada had told Marvin, she’d dreaded this tour, not certain until the second Trick had dragged her across the threshold that she would be able to force herself beyond the door, which was strange, since the mansion didn’t seem familiar in the slightest. She had no rational explanation for her reluctance. Still, dread, unfocused but loaded with a powerful emotional charge, niggled at the edges of her consciousness.

  “This here is my number one favorite spot in the whole dang mansion,” Marvin was saying. Nevada, who’d been moving through the tour in a fog, gathered her scattered attention and focused on their surroundings. The gardener stood in the center of the master bath, a room larger by far than the average living room. “And this here’s why.” Marvin pointed to the enormous walk-in shower, tiled in peacock colors. “Eight separate shower heads,” he gloated. “Eight. And,” he added, “over here’s a heckuva big ol’ Jacuzzi tub. Multiple jets. Plus it’s got its own online water heater.”

  “You’re in the wrong line of work,” Trick told him. “You should be a real estate agent.”

  Marvin gave a hoot of laughter. “Not on your life. I’d druther spend my time grubbing around in the dirt. Plants ain’t as likely to tick you off as people.”

  “Good point,” Trick said.

  “Okay, then, next on our tour…” Marvin led them back through the master suite, an elegant cluster of rooms that hadn’t made much impression on Nevada the first time through, despite being decorated in the same vivid peacock colors as the bathroom.

  Their footsteps clattered along the terracotta-tiled hall. “Does it bring back memories, miss?” Marvin asked.

  “Not really,” she said quite truthfully. “Everything looks so different.”

  “No surprise there, I reckon. The Harringtons have done a bunch of remodeling and redecorating since they moved in three years ago.”

  The address appended to her file must have been a mistake. She didn’t know this house. Nothing about it seemed familiar.

  “Here’s a spot you might recall from when you was little.” Marvin drew them into what appeared to be a den. “This here study is the one room Mrs. Harrington hasn’t tackled yet.”

  Shudders wracked Nevada&rsqu®s ho;s body in great shivering waves.

  “Are you all right?” Trick asked.

  “No,” she meant to say. “No, I am not all right. I am very much not all right. Get me out of here. Get me out of here now.” Only nothing came out of her mouth.

  Her own reflection stared back at her from the large octagonal mirror that hung above the fireplace. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. Her eyes widened.

  “Nevada?” Trick said, sounding scared. And then again, “Nevada?” Only this time, as her vision narrowed to a pinprick and her legs turned to jelly, his cry seemed to echo hollowly: “Nevada-Nevada-Nevada-Nevada.”

  And then nothing.

  When Nevada returned to consciousness, she was no longer in the study. She lay on the cool tiles of the hall with Trick down on one knee beside her, supporting her head and upper body. Marvin Odell squatted nearby, leaning forward on the balls of his feet, arms braced on his thighs. Both men appeared shell-shocked. She suspected she didn’t look much better herself.

  “You all right, miss?” Marvin asked. “You took quite a turn back there.”

  She heard him, but the sense of his words didn’t really register. Something slithered around at the back of her mind. A memory maybe. She could feel it, dark and threatening, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t bring it into focus. All she could make out was the vaguest of outlines as it clung tenaciously to the shadows.

  “Nevada?” Trick said, this time without the echochamber effect.

  “Dead,” she blurted, which was pretty weird since what she’d meant to say was “yes.”

  “No, you’re alive. You’re going to be fine,” Trick assured her. “You just bumped your head on the edge of the hearth when you fell.”

  “Not much more’n a scrape,” Marvin said. “Bled some, but that’s how it is with head wounds. Any itty-bitty little minor scratch and you can almost double deluxe guarantee you’ll bleed like a stuck hog. Don’t mean you’re gonna die, though.”

  Trick didn’t drive straight back to his great-aunt’s house. Instead, he made a short detour to Lafayette Park. When he switched off the ignition, Nevada, who hadn’t said a word since they’d left the Harrington mansion, turned to him with a puzzled expression. “What are we doing here?”

  Trick got out of the car, then went around to open her door. “Enjoying some privacy.”

  She released her shoulder harness, hesitated a second, then placed her hand in his. “Why do we need privacy?” He was fairly certain he wasn’t imagining the tension in her voice.

  “So we can talk without worrying about being overheard.” He led the way to a sunny patch of grass with a clear line of sight in all directions. Nobody would be slipping up on them
unawares. In fact, the only people within ten yards were a couple ³ weue"of energetic preteens tossing a lime green Frisbee back and forth. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, indicating the grass with a wave of his hand.

  Nevada sat, wrapping her arms around her knees.

  He took up a position across from her, so he had a clear view of her face. Words were easy to manipulate; facial expressions and body language, on the other hand, seldom lied.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Nevada eyed him warily.

  “I think you know.”

  “My fainting spell.” She shifted her gaze to a spot above his left shoulder. She could have been watching the kids with the Frisbee, but he didn’t think so.

  “Yes, your fainting spell. What did you see in the mirror?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  “Was it the gardener? Does Marvin have a dirty little secret?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure? You said you didn’t remember.”

  “It wasn’t a flash. I know that much.”

  “Then what?”

  She shook her head, then pressed her fingers to her temples as if she had a headache. “I don’t know. A memory, I think, but I can’t be sure. It’s like I can almost see it, but then it’s gone again.”

  “A memory.” He jumped on that. “A memory from that house? You think you lived there once?”

  “Lived there, visited there. I don’t know. Maybe. I told you. I don’t remember.”

  “But it’s possible.”

  She glared at him. “Yes, damn it, it’s possible. Even likely. Why else would I have been so nervous about going inside? Why else would I have fainted?”

  “You said ‘dead’ when you woke up. That was the first word out of your mouth. I thought at the time you were worried about your injury, but that wasn’t it, was it?”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t even realize I was hurt.”

  “So what were you talking about?”

  She glared at him. “Quit badgering me!”

  “Give me a straight answer, one I don’t have to extract like an impacted molar, and I’ll quit badgering.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Here’s the thing. I don’t know why I said dead. I swear I meant to say yes. Only when I opened my mouth…” She uttered a shaky laugh. “I almost said, ‘when I opened my mouth, dead came out.’ Creepy image, huh?”

  “I know what you said. The part I don’t understand is why you said it.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t understand, either. The word just popped out. It wasn’t in my mind, I swear. And I don’t hav³don="0e a clue what I meant by it. Only…” She paused, frowning.

  “Only what?”

  “It was something bad. A memory, I think. A really, really bad memory, so horrible I can’t make myself remember. Or maybe my brain won’t let me remember.”

  “Or,” Trick said, “there’s another possibility.”

  She glanced up in surprise. “There is?”

  “Think about it, Nevada. Think about where you were between the time you lived in the Harrington mansion—”

  “Hypothetically lived in the Harrington mansion.”

  “All right, hypothetically. Whatever. Between then and now, where were you?”

  “At the Institute,” she said, and then, “oh.”

  “Exactly. You can’t remember because whatever happened is part of the artificial void their conditioning created. They erased your memory.”

  She heaved a tremulous sigh. “So maybe dead is short for dead end.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “I have an idea.”

  Nevada wasn’t thrilled with Trick’s idea, but since she hadn’t been able to come up with anything better herself, she agreed to go along with it. To tell the truth, she’d been half convinced Great-aunt Leticia would refuse to cooperate, but no such luck.

  No sooner had they retired to Great-aunt Leticia’s sitting room after dinner than Trick and his great-aunt had begun moving furniture, lighting candles, and otherwise preparing the scene.

  “Have you ever been hypnotized before, my dear?” Great-aunt Leticia asked.

  “No.” Nevada studied the old woman’s lined face suspiciously. “Have you ever hypnotized someone before?”

  “Oh, my, yes.” Great-aunt Leticia batted her false eyelashes, worn tonight to complement her silver sheath dress, diamond choker, and Marilyn Monroe wig. “I worked at the USO during the war—”

  “World War II, she means.” Trick moved the flame-stitch wingback to the center of the room.

  “Yes,” Great-aunt Leticia agreed. “People think the USO was all cookies and dancing, but my hypnosis gig was hugely popular, let me tell you. The boys thought it great fun to give their buddies posthypnotic suggestions. You know the sort of thing I mean. ‘When you wake up, you’ll think you’re a frog.’ Had that one backfire on me, actually. Fellow mistook the punch bowl for a pond…”

  “No posthypnotic suggestions!” Nevada shook her finger for emphasis. “Repeat after me, both of you: No posthypnotic suggestions.”

  “No posthypnotic suggestions,” the other two chorused.

  “Spoilsport,” Great-aunt Leticia muttered under her breath.

  “I heard that,” Nevada said.

  “Okay,” Trick said. “Sit in the chair, Nevada, and try to relax.”

  She could handle the first part. It was the second part that might prove problematic.

  “We need a focal point for her to concentrate on.” Great-aunt Leticia began rummaging in the drawers of her dainty little cherry wood escritoire.

  “I have just the thing.” Trick held up Blanche’s ring.

  “Perfect.” Great-aunt Leticia took it from him and approached the chair where Nevada sat. She dangled the ring four inches in front of Nevada’s nose. “Look at the ring.”

  “I’m trying,” Nevada said, “but it’s too close. My eyes keep blurring.”

  “Not a problem. Let them blur. Just keep focusing on the ring.”

  “Aren’t you going to swing it back and forth? That’s the way they do it on TV.”

  “Don’t worry your head with preconceived notions,” Great-aunt Leticia murmured. “Keep your eyes on the ring. Let your mind drift.”

  “Snowdrift,” Nevada said, then frowned. “That’s not right.”

  “Don’t try so hard, my dear,” Great-aunt Leticia advised. “Relax. Breathe in, breathe out.”

  Nevada breathed in and out. Her eyes went blurry. And then her mind went blurry.

  The next thing she knew, Great-aunt Leticia was leaning over her, saying, “Wake up, my dear.”

  “Did it work?” Nevada asked Trick.

  “If you mean, did she manage to hypnotize you? The answer’s yes. If you mean, were you able to access those hidden memories, then the answer’s no.”

  “Did I say anything? Anything at all?”

  Trick shot a questioning look at Great-aunt Leticia, who inclined her head. “Nothing new,” he said with a shrug.

  Nevada studied his face closely. “I said dead again, didn’t I?”

  “You said dead, all right, but that was it. No context,” Trick told her.

  “I don’t know what those horrible doctors did to you.” Great-aunt Leticia looked distressed. “I’ve heard of brainwashing, but your brain isn’t really cleansed. All the dirt’s still in there, just locked away where you can’t get at it, even in a hypnotic state. It’s like there’s a roadblock.”

  “Or a disconnect,” Trick said. “Like maybe they didn’t just shut down the pathway, they removed the pathway.”

  “And either way,” Nevada said, “I still don’t know who I am.”

  Britt was lying on the sofa³ing

  He had tried to divert himself with television, and when that had not worked, he had started a crossword puzzle. But he had found himself unable to concentrate. Not even computer solitaire had held his attention.

  Whenever Britt murmured something under her breath, h
e zoomed in on her lips, soft and pink and kissable. Her sighs, on the other hand, drew attention to her chest, where her sweetly rounded breasts stretched the fabric of her T-shirt. And as for her toes…

  He had never had a foot fetish or any other sort of fetish for that matter, but Britt’s wriggly little toes with their pale pink nail polish were rapidly driving him insane. He kept fantasizing about sucking on them and then slowly licking and tasting his way up her body. He was not sure if that made him a pervert or just an oversexed bastard, but either way…

  He turned a groan of frustration into a fairly believable cough.

  Then Britt sighed again, low and breathy, the same exact sound she would make if he…

  Cazzo! He had to get out of here before he did something they both would regret. He shut his laptop and shoved himself to his feet. “I am going for a jog. I need the exercise.”

  Britt frowned. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  Not only wise but necessary. Imperative. “No one is down on the beach this time of night.”

  “No, I suppose not.” But she still looked uncertain. “I realize being cooped up like this probably has you bored stiff.”

  Bored and stiff. Two quite separate problems.

  Britt yawned and stretched.

  Marcello looked away, but not quickly enough to avoid another testosterone rush.

  “You know,” she said, “I’m about due for a break myself. Mind if I come along?”

  Yes, he thought. A million times yes. But, “Suit yourself,” he said.

  “Great!” She sat up and the Linda Howard book went tumbling onto the carpet. “I’ll go change.”

  Into something less comfortable, Marcello hoped. A ski suit would be nice. Or better yet, a ski suit, parka, and mukluks.

  Of course, that did not happen, and ten minutes later, Marcello found himself alone in the moonlight on the deserted beach below the lodge with the woman of his dreams, a more terrifying predicament than one might suspect. Britt in a well-lit room had presented a temptation. Britt by moonlight was mortal sin made flesh.