by Adrianne Lee
“It’s Jacoby.” The sniffling woman lifted eyes as eerily green as Lorah’s. “Janice Jacoby. Halliard was my maiden name.”
Chris and Nikki introduced themselves and asked after Lorah.
Janice Jacoby began to weep anew.
The man, wiry and middle-aged and dressed as though he’d rushed there from the golf course, stepped forward. “Dr. Roland Wiggins. I’ve been Lorah’s physician and friend for many years.”
Nikki’s stomach dropped. “Is she okay, Doctor?”
“No. Unfortunately...no.” He choked on the last word.
“She’s worse?” Chris paled.
Nikki held her breath.
Dr. Wiggins blinked. “I’m sorry to say she died before I arrived.”
“Oh, no.” Nikki’s throat constricted. Just like Carmella. She curled her fingers around the crystal ball charm in her pocket. Her knees quaked, and she dropped onto the chair beside Janice Jacoby. “Oh, no.”
Janice stopped sniffling. She wiped her spookily pale eyes with the mascara-stained hanky. A tinkle caught Nikki’s ear, resounding with the intensity of a death knoll. Janice was clutching the charm bracelet as though holding a lifeline, as Nikki herself clutched the tiny charm she’d purchased for Lorah. Cold spread through Nikki.
The woman sniffed. “Mother’s dead. Dead.”
Nikki breathed hard. Just like her own mother. The ache in her chest grew. She knew exactly how Janice felt at this moment. Shocked, forsaken, alone, devastated. She reached a hand to her. Janice shrank back, as though she might collapse if touched.
The roses drooped in Chris’s hand, the sweet scent now cloying and funereal in the compact room. His black brows dipped low over his narrowed eyes. “It was her heart, then?”
“That’s what these quacks are saying.” Janice’s expression hardened. “But Mother’s heart was as strong as a teenager’s. The women in our family always live into their late nineties or early hundreds.”
Nikki couldn’t take it in. She wondered for a split second about the females in her own family. Did the women all die young? She shook herself, concentrated on Janice Jacoby. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Lorah’s daughter asked, her mouth thinning, her gaze penetrating. Was she, also, psychic?
Nikki could barely breathe. “I lost my own mother to a heart attack last year.”
Janice eyed her for a long moment, obviously taken down a notch by this news. “You have my sympathy. But you aren’t listening to me. Mother could not have died from a heart attack.”
“We don’t know that yet, Janice,” Dr. Wiggins said softly.
“I know it!” Janice insisted. “Complete misdiagnosis. If only Mother hadn’t been unconscious—she’d have told those quacks what was causing her distress.”
“We’ll have our answers as soon as possible, Janice.” Dr. Wiggins glanced at Nikki and Chris. “Soon as the autopsy is performed.”
THE NEWS OF LORAH’S DEATH placed a pall on the mansion, and the rest of the day passed with everyone in a subdued mood. All retreated to their rooms early.
Nikki found the next morning held little improvement. The tension was so thick in the dining room, even Mrs. Grissom’s wonderful array of breakfast dishes inspired few hearty appetites. Nikki settled for coffee and a bowl of fruit.
Marti seemed a wilted violet in her purple frock, her journal absent, her normal enthusiasm dimmed. Diego kept muttering what a tragedy it was that a fine woman had met death before her time. His black eyes held a faraway cast as though he were remembering a long lost friend, not the recently deceased Lorah.
Chris and Olivia continuously exchanged worried glances, and Nikki suspected the autopsy had them on edge, the fear something would be found that would give Janice Jacoby reason to sue.
As though in defiance of the mourning exhibited by guests and staff alike, Dorothea wore an electric-blue jumpsuit and a cheerleader expression. She did her best to lift spirits, then finally on an exasperated sigh she chirped, “You know, I understand how distressed everyone is about poor Lorah. So am I, of course, but, well, the grand opening can’t be canceled—what with reservations and all. And neither should the festivities.”
Chris stayed his fork halfway to his mouth. His eyes narrowed as he waited for Dorothea to continue.
She gave him a nervous smile. “Don’t you agree, that despite this tragic event, Wedding House deserves the best launch we can manage?”
“What’s your point, Dot?” Chris snapped with impatience.
She flushed. “Well, I’m saying, of course, that the play must go on.” She returned Chris’s hard stare with a defiant one that included Nikki.
Nikki groaned inwardly. She’d all but forgotten the play, and now fervently wished she hadn’t committed herself to it. Her only consolation was that Chris looked even less excited about it than she fell
He finished his bite of pancake, mean muttered, “Fine.”
“Oh, good.” Dorothea clapped her hands, then seemed to realize her triumph was inappropriate in the midst of the gloomy group. “Rehearsal begins after lunch. In the ballroom.”
Nikki spent the morning on her book. Wanting to avoid another tense meal, she had lunch in her room. Chris came to her door just before the rehearsals were to begin. She closed her laptop and stepped into the hall with him.
They were alone on the third floor, but a buzz of activity rose from below, the melancholy of hours past lifting from the mansion like a departing fog—much as her lethargy seemed to rise and float away at the very nearness of Chris. She struggled against her susceptibility to him.
But for all the hurt and anger he’d caused her, something about the man made her blood sing, made the air taste fresher, gave her purpose and hope.
His handsome face was pinched, his expression rivaling the shadows in the hallway. She asked, “Is something wrong?”
He walked slowly beside her toward the stairs, keeping his voice low. “Diego left for a meeting in town, and I searched his room as we discussed.”
Nikki’s throat thightened. She gazed at him with her pulse licking a beat faster. “And?”
Chris’s scowl deepened as though he were disgusted with himself, as though finding the diary wasn’t important enough to set aside his ethics.
She wanted to remind him that her life might depend on their laying hands on that diary. “Did you find it?”
“If he has it, he’s got it with him.”
Long rays of sun poked thorough the stairwell windows, casting glittery beams across them as they descended. Nikki sighed, staving off her disappointment. She’d known finding the diary would be tricky. Perhaps impossible. But still she’d hoped for the easy fix. Did Diego have it? Or had someone else taken it?
Maybe Diego had nothing to do with any of this. She pressed her lips together, considering. No. He had known Theresa. But how well? She recalled how closemouthed he’d become when she pushed him about that relationship. “I’m certain there was something romantic between Diego and Theresa.”
Chris didn’t look convinced. “If there was, I’d say he got over it fairly quickly. There’s a photo on his bedside table of a dark-haired young woman about your age, who looks like she might be his daughter, She doesn’t resemble Theresa.”
That stopped Nikki. She stared up at Chris a long moment, considering the significance of this. Too bad she couldn’t get a look at that photograph. But it was out of the question. She wouldn’t ask him to breach his ethics a second time.
But what of the photograph? Did it mean she, Nikki, wasn’t the baby who’d been at the mansion? “Perhaps Diego and Theresa had a child.”
“That he raised?” Chris’s brows shot up, his expression incredulous. “It’s more likely Diego Sands has a nice wife and lots of kids tucked away somewhere.”
“Oh, I suppose you’re right.” She shrugged, nodded and started toward the landing again. “But if he’s married, why didn’t he bring his wife here with him?”
“Hmm,�
�� Chris muttered thoughtfully as they reached the second floor
In the ballroom, the sun was brilliant, raising dust motes across the wooden planking. Dorothea, as blue and red as a Brazilian parrot, Olivia, in her best Morticia Addams gear, and the other two actors in normal rehearsal casuals, all looked up as Chris and Nikki arrived.
“Right on schedule.” Dorothea motioned them to the center of the room. “You know the scene. We’ll just pick up where we left off last time. Do you need to see the script again?”
Chris and Nikki both asked for scripts. Nikki could see Chris growing more sullen as he read again the dialogue leading up to “the push.”
Nikki’s knees felt weak. Her palms felt damp. She stumbled over her lines, as clumsy as a child reading in front of a class for the first time. The real actors exchanged amused glances and she blushed.
Chris wasn’t much better. His manner and dialogue were stilted, his movements as controlled as plays in a game of chess. Nikki’s heart went out to him. It had to be awful to be that frightened of one’s own emotions.
Of course, she was a fine one to talk, considering the state she’d been in, allowing her feelings to rule, to sway her this way and that like a windsock on a blustery day.
Dorothea called, “Action.”
Chris read his lines with all the ardor of a plastic plant. He seemed to hate the words he was forced to say, wouldn’t even look Nikki directly in the eye. But he did shove her. Too hard. It startled her. It startled him. She lost her balance.
Chris’s eyes flew wide and, as he’d done two days ago, he caught her before she fell.
Dorothea groaned. “Not again.”
“Perhaps this is not a good scene to work on.” Nikki suggested, trying to ward off fresh outbursts from Chris and Dorothea.
“Oh, but we must get it right.” Dorothea fluttered. “Please, just once more. I promise it will be the last time, no matter what”
“Yes. it will be,” Chris warned.
He and Nikki took their marks, the other two actors nearby. Nikki’s stomach twisted like bent aluminum. But this time Chris spoke his lines as though they were his own. For some reason his confidence fed hers. She could hear the improvement.
Go with it, she coaxed herself.
And it worked.
If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was having an actual confrontation with Chris. God knew, they’d had enough of them. He reached his hands to push her. Nikki readied to coordinate her backward lurch to his forward thrust.
“No.” Chris dropped his hands and shook his head. “I can’t”
Nikki sagged, relieved, yet let down.
“What is the matter now?” Dorothea looked crestfallen.
Chris kept shaking his head. “You have to rewrite this.”
Dorothea blinked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “But it’s history.”
“Lookit, Dot.” Chris pointed his finger at her, fire building deep in his brown eyes. “I don’t hit women. And I won’t parade my family’s dirty laundry in public.”
He pivoted toward his sister. “Liv, how did you ever approve this garbage?”
With that, he tossed the script at Olivia’s feet and stormed from the room. Nikki stared after him in confusion. Despite appearances, he wasn’t a spoiled child. Something about his uncle’s violence caused his temper to arc out of control. She’d seen it more than once. What was behind his reaction?
Was Chris a violent man who didn’t want anyone to know his secret? Or did he detest violence so much he couldn’t even pretend it? As badly as she wanted an answer, after yesterday’s fiasco, Nikki wasn’t about to follow him.
But Olivia did.
Embarrassment painting her cheeks, she snatched up the script and chased after her brother. “Christopher, will you do the scene if we rewrite it?” Her voice echoed back to the ballroom
“I said I would,” he growled.
“Promise?”
“Yes.” The front door banged.
AFTER DINNER, with the revised script, which Dorothea and Olivia had worked on all afternoon and which none of the actors had yet seen, they retired to the parlor. Marti and Diego joined them.
Marti had her journal open, her purple pen poised. She’d announced at dinner that her newest mystery, based on the mansion, its ghost and other pertinent facts, was humming along at great speed “All names changed to protect the innocent, of course.”
Of course, Nikki thought. But who among them was innocent?
“Okay, Chris.” Dorothea pointed to his mark, a pink, chalked X on the parlor carpet. “The new scene calls for you to kiss Nikki. And make it a good kiss. Then after a few moments, Nikki, you try breaking away and that’s when you push so hard against Chris’s chest when he releases you, you stumble backward.”
Nikki’s cheeks reddened. Heat climbed Chris’s neck. Everyone else waited with avid expressions. Ire swirled through Chris. But he had no one to rage at. He’d insisted on having the scene changed, and now that they’d accommodated him, he couldn’t very well refuse or go back on his promise to Liv.
But kissing Nikki. Damn. He couldn’t. But what choice did he have? It was either kiss her or admit to one and all that he feared he wouldn’t stop kissing her once he’d started.
Trembling inside, he offered his open arms. Nikki stepped toward him with reluctance, then closer, until their breaths tangled. She lifted her face to him. He swallowed hard. Then, too aware of the audience and his heating blood, he brushed his lips across hers, tentatively at first, relishing the sweet, remembered taste of her. Then the flame that had ignited yesterday between them exploded anew, a flash fire of desire, and he whisked his arms around her and deepened the kiss until she moaned, until he wanted her so badly he’d have risked anything to have her.
Through the haze of desire enveloping Nikki, she heard someone shouting. Then again. At last she realized it was Dorothea. “Now, Nikki. Start struggling now.”
The words struck with a sobering chill. How had she let this man sweep her up in his passion again? She fought his hold, felt his grip tighten, felt his body responding as it had yesterday, and she denied the corresponding need tingling her own flesh.
She thrust the heels of her palms against his chest. Unexpectedly he let go of her. She flew backward. The “audience” seemed to be holding its breath, but the silly grins on their faces left little doubt what they were thinking. Nikki’s cheeks burned as brightly as the heat inside her.
Deliberately she tripped farther away from Chris. Her backside banged into the wall. Tiny shards of pain joined the humiliation spreading across her skin. She had but a millisecond to notice. For, like a hole opening in the earth, the solid panel supporting her vanished. And Nikki was falling.
Chapter Thirteen
Nikki screamed. With her arms flailing, she fell into the open space behind the panel. Dust and debris surged upward, lifted by her invasion. She dropped hard on her backside. Pain radiated from her tailbone toward each hip. The dusty cloud hovered above her for a split second, then rained down like dirty snow.
Coughing and batting at the gunk, she cowered against its onslaught. Hands caught her upper arms, and she heard Chris cursing. “Are you all right?”
Everyone seemed to speak at once, drowning out Chris, asking the same question. Was she okay?
Nikki stung with embarrassment, vaguely aware of some distant pain she couldn’t pinpoint at the moment. She blinked through the flaky powder coating her lashes, her cheeks, her clothing and choked out, “I think so. What happened?”
But Chris was examining her chest, concern lowering his brows. She realized her blouse was torn, her right breast partially exposed. The heat in her cheeks intensified She clutched at her blouse, felt something sticky squish against her fingertips, and realized she was bleeding. “I’m cut.”
Chris told his sister to get the first-aid kit. He helped Nikki to her feet.
“I think you scraped against a nail,” Diego said, his expression as conce
rned as Chris’s, his probing gaze hitching her embarrassment another notch higher. “But the wound seems superficial enough.”
“Have you had a tetanus shot?” Olivia asked.
But Nikki didn’t hear her; she was trying to make sense of what had happened. She spun and gazed at the opening she’d fallen through, realizing as she did so, what it was that she was seeing.
Marti was peering into the black hole in the wall. “Holy Joe, what is this?”
“It’s a passageway,” Olivia stated, as though admitting some shameful secret
Diego marched to Marti’s side. “I knew this mansion had walls that didn’t match the dimensions inside and outside.” He glanced back at Chris. “Is there a network of passageways?”
Chris ignored him. “Liv, the first-aid kit.”
“Where’s a flashlight?” Diego stepped into the opening. “I’ve made quite a study of hidden corridors in houses all over the country. How exciting to add this mansion to the list.”
“Where does it go?” Marti asked, following the architect through the portal. “Let’s explore. I can use this for the book. Just think of all the transgressions my perpetrator could commit sneaking in and out of rooms undetected.”
“Get out of there!” Chris roared. “I nailed that access shut. I don’t know how it popped open, but I don’t want anyone going in there.”
“Why not?” Diego demanded, peering out at him.
Chris glared at the architect. “Because my insurance agent insisted.”
Dorothea chirped, “Are you saying it isn’t safe?”
“Bingo.” He left Nikki’s side and stood by the opening, motioning Diego and Marti back into the parlor. “It’s off-limits. I’d appreciate it if everyone would respect that. Liv, where is that first-aid kit?”
Olivia shook herself, a sleepwalker waking. “Oh, my, yes, I’m sorry, Nikki.”
She hurried from the room before Nikki could tell her not to bother. The wound didn’t look worth the fuss Chris was making.
Marti brushed white dust from her lavender slacks and complained halfheartedly, “I won’t say I’m not disappointed, Chris. But I’ve no desire to cause you or Olivia unnecessary grief, and I certainly have imagination enough to make these tunnels come alive on the page. This book just keeps getting better.”