The Bride's Secret

by Adrianne Lee

  Purple underscored Marti’s hazel eyes, the color darker from the reflection off her robe. “We’ve never been introduced.”

  Olivia swept nearer. She nibbled at her nails as though they were hors d’oeuvres. “We have reason to believe otherwise.”

  Marti stiffened, eyeing each of them in turn. “What is this ... an inquisition?”

  “No. It’s about this, Marti.” Chris handed her the news clipping.

  She read it and blanched as white as her hair. “Oh, all right. So, the twit sued me.” Marti laughed bitterly. “For plagiarism, of all things. But the case was thrown out for lack of evidence.”

  Olivia frowned. “Why would Janice sue you—if it weren’t true?”

  “Oh, pul-leeze.” Her hand dipped into her pocket again.

  Nikki stared at the pocket, dark suspicions rising in her mind like oil on water. Was Marti fingering the pill bottle? Could she have somehow placed an overdose of Percodan in the glass of water at the séance? No. The idea was ludicrous.

  Shutting her eyes, she recalled the overturned glass, its contents spreading across the bloodred table cover, and Lorah gasping. But had she even been poisoned? They wouldn’t know for a couple of weeks. “Why did Janice sue you?”

  Marti sighed loudly. “She was, perhaps still is, an aspiring writer whose work I had volunteered to judge for a romantic suspense contest. Her entry stank. It was awful.”

  Nikki tilted her head. “She sued you because you gave her a bad score in a contest?”

  “No, of course not. The dimwit got it into her head that I’d ripped off her idea. Used it in my next book. Believe me, it wasn’t true. And after that experience I’ve never judged another contest. Nor Will I.”

  Olivia gnawed harder on her nail. “It gave you a reason for wanting Lorah dead.”

  “So, you do think Lorah was murdered,” Marti stated. It wasn’t a question.

  Olivia wrenched back. “No. I didn’t say that.”

  Marti fingered whatever was in her pocket again. “I think it gave Lorah reason to hate me, but I had no reason to hold a grudge. The lawsuit didn’t hurt my career or my reputation. In fact, it boosted sales.”

  “That’s that, then.” Chris stood.

  “Yes.” Marti smiled stiffly. “I’m going to bed. It’s been a trying night.”

  CHRIS AND NIKKI WALKED Olivia to her room, then ascended to the third floor. He leaned toward her, speaking softly. “It has been a hell of a night. Are you all right?”

  Nikki drew in the gentle scent of him and sighed inwardly, staving off the need that sprang through her. But she couldn’t douse the memories of his arms on hers earlier this evening, or the sense of peering into what the future could hold—if only Chris and she... She let the thought trail away. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be all right again.”

  “I’m sorry about what my sister and Dorothea did to you.”

  “Don’t be sorry. If they hadn’t done it, I might never have seen the portrait and found someplace to start looking for my family.” And I might never have met you. She glanced into his arresting face, yearned to touch it, ached for him to touch her, to kiss her, to tell her that he no longer worried he was losing his mind.

  But she could see the worry rode him still, an onus as real to him as responsibility to a single parent. The cold spot inside her widened into a gaping, gelid sinkhole. He lifted his hand as if to caress her, but pulled back at the last minute, swallowed hard and gestured toward her door. “I’ll check your room, if you like.”

  “Please.”

  She stood in the doorway as he inspected the closet. “The passageway is still secure. Just lock your door and no one will bother you during the night.”

  “Thank you.” She placed her hand on his chest. Felt his thundering heart beneath her fingertips. She gazed up at him. “Chris...”

  He lowered his head. She lifted her lips and closed her eyes. He kissed her on the forehead. “Good night, Nikki.”

  She glanced at him with all the sorrow shredding her heart. Goodbye, Chris. Tears clogged her throat. She shut the door and twisted the lock, then stared at the bed. The bed she would never share with the man she loved.

  Nikki expected sleep to elude her. Instead she dropped off immediately and woke late into the morning. She’d planned on leaving today, but now was forced by the police to stay—in a house where her very life had been threatened, where her heart had been devastated—one room away from the man she wanted and couldn’t have.

  Perhaps she should have told the detective someone was threatening her. At least earned permission to stay in a motel in Port Townsend. Somewhere away from Wedding House.

  She growled and paced the room. Impatience and anger vied for control of her. She felt trapped. A puppet in a nightmare skit. Nikki had never allowed anyone else to control her life. She resented this new, uncomfortable position in which she’d been placed.

  If only she knew who.

  Knowledge was power, but at the moment she had little knowledge. She needed some answers to her questions, and she needed them now. She gathered her laptop and headed for the TV room.

  “It’s right through here,” she heard Marti say as she passed the library. Peering in, Nikki saw the mystery writer and Diego stealing into the passageway. She shook her head. She supposed there was no stopping the curious. Let them face the consequences of their own actions. She’d had all the contact with the people in this house she wanted.

  She settled down in the TV room, feeling more frantic than hopeful as she logged on-line. To her surprise, there was e-mail from both of her sources. Jellybean had narrowed her search and come up with an Aznar family in Texas who concurred that they had a relative named Theresa who had married one Luis De Vega in a seaport town in Washington State.

  Zeus reported the same, but his research had netted news even more riveting. He’d discovered that Theresa had a younger sister named Carmella. The last anyone heard of Carmella was when she left Texas to visit her sister at Wedding House. She left Port Townsend before Luis De Vega’s murderous rampage and was never seen nor heard from again.

  My mother ... Carmelia? Nikki stared at the screen, trying to take it in. What did it mean? Where did she, Nikki, fit in? What secret had the two sisters shared? Feeling concussed, as though a bomb had landed near her, she returned to her room and deposited the laptop on the desk.

  What had happened here? Was Theresa her birth mother? Compelled, her feet moving without her conscious will, she proceeded to the master suite, coming to rest only when she stood before the portrait. Again she experienced that elusive connection she’d felt the first time she’d laid eyes on this image that seemed to have been painted of her.

  “Where do I fit in, Theresa? Am I the child of you and your secret lover? Did you give me to your sister to raise?”

  She swore she heard Theresa answer, “Yes.”

  A calm settled over Nikki, as though the last puzzle piece had snapped into place and lifted a terrible tension from her body. She felt physically lighter.

  Carmella, then, was her aunt. She’d raised her, and had refused to tell her anything about her father because of the tragedy that had befallen her real mother, Theresa.

  The wall to the left of the fireplace slid open. Nikki lurched toward it, expecting to see Marti and Diego. The person standing there was a shadowy white figure. The bride. Nikki jolted, but this time she felt outrage, not fear. “Who are you?”

  In her eerie voice, the bride said, “Leave...or die.”

  With that she turned and fled into the passageway, obviously certain Nikki wouldn’t follow a second time.

  “The bride” had misjudged her opponent.

  Fury rushed through Nikki, propelling her forward and into the passageway. “Come back here!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  In the daylight, the passageways were gloomy, but not pitch-dark as they were at night. Nikki spotted the bridal gown ahead and raced after her tormentor. “Stop.”

  But the bri
de dashed on. She disappeared momentarily at the first Y, but today Nikki could see her charging through the corridor to the left. “Stop.”

  Nikki’s anger climbed to rage and she quickened her pace. Right. Left. The clatter of their feet echoed in the passageway. The odor of sea water intensified, and suddenly the bride disappeared. Nikki rushed on, then skidded to a stop. The staircase. She heard the bride tripping down the steps. They were steep, the stairwell tight, the walls rough with splintered boards.

  But the bride charged downward with such speed, with such familiarity that Nikki knew who she was. In that moment, she realized she’d always known—but she didn’t understand why. She followed, descending with caution, her pulse at full gallop. She hit the landing and stopped. They were in another corridor. The bride was twenty feet ahead. The gown had snagged on a nail, stopping her. She was trying to tug it free.

  Nikki bolted for her.

  The lace rent, and the bride moved quickly, popping open the access into the parlor. Nikki caught her just as she started through and pulled her back into the passageway. “It’s over, Olivia.”

  Chris’s sister seemed to collapse inside, growing smaller before Nikki’s eyes. “Why couldn’t you just leave here?”

  Nikki grabbed the veil and yanked it upward. Olivia looked even more pale surrounded in white. “I meant you no harm. Truly I didn’t”

  “Meant me no harm? You nearly killed me with that chisel.”

  Contrition issued from her dark eyes. “I only wanted to scare you away.”

  “What about Lorah? Did you poison her? Did you shove Dorothea from the third floor?”

  “No.” Olivia blinked. “Why would you even think such a thing?”

  “If you could try to kill me, you’re capable of killing anyone.”

  “I didn’t try to kill you. Just to frighten you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you must be related to Theresa. You’ll take Wedding House from me. It’s the only thing I’ve ever had of my own.”

  Nikki stepped back, trying to grasp what was real and what wasn’t—the anger that had propelled her this far dissolving into pity for this woman. “How long have you suspected I was related to Theresa?”

  “From the first time I saw you in person.”

  Nikki recalled how she’d blanched at their first meeting, and knew Olivia must have suffered as bad a shock seeing her as Nikki had seeing the portrait.

  “I helped Dot get you here and I was never so sorry. I tried getting the skit canceled.”

  “You called the actors’ agents?”

  “Yes.”

  A shadow swept the light behind Olivia. Nikki glanced up. A shovel arced down toward Olivia’s head. Alarm paralyzed Nikki. “Look out!”

  Olivia shifted just in time. The shovel missed her skull, but clipped her cheek. Groaning, she dropped like a felled tree.

  “I killed you last night!” Jorge yelled, standing over Olivia, the shovel raised for another strike. “Why you no die?”

  “Jorge, no!” Nikki shouted.

  He froze and jerked toward her voice, peering squinteyed into the passageway. Then he spotted her. He reared back, fury flaring scarlet on his half-melted face. “Jorge? Jorge? You cry the name of your lover, Theresa? The pig who stole your honor from me? Stole your heart? I spit on his dead soul.” He raised the shovel again. “No one makes a fool of Luis De Vega and lives.”

  She leaped back out of his reach, her mind scrambling to catch up. Luis? Was it possible? In that second she knew it was. It made sense of everything—providing Olivia knew her uncle wasn’t dead. Fear shot through Nikki. Spread across her tongue. Filled her nostrils . Sickened her. She struggled for courage. Found none. She stumbled away from the madman and his shovel.

  She shouted, “Help! Someone help!”

  She turned to run, but the shovel came down on her head. The world spun, then went black.

  Nikki WOKE in a place that stank of creosote and seawater. The boathouse? How had she gotten here? She struggled to sit up. Pain kept her down. Closed her eyes. Nausea climbed her throat.

  She moaned, drawing in a breath full of smoke and heat.

  Why was she so hot? She heard it then. A crackling sound. Then another odd noise. Hissing.

  She forced her eyes open and glanced around. Horror brought her wrenching upright. The wall leading outside and to the passageway connecting to the house was in flames. The fire licked across the creosote, hungrily racing over the aged boards and gobbling into the boxes and boxes of fireworks.

  A whistling Pete ignited, drowning out her scream.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chris emerged from the dining room, his mind on Nikki and her departure. It had been staved off for a few days because of Dorothea Miller’s death, but she would still be leaving too soon. And forever.

  His heart was a block of ice, slowly evaporating in the heat of his distress, shrinking with every passing hour that edged closer to the time she walked out of his life. And he could do nothing to prevent it. Would do nothing.

  A loud moan floated to him from somewhere on the lower level. He stopped and listened. It came again. Frowning, he hurried into the parlor, then pulled up short. The passage access he’d boarded up the night of Nikki’s fall had been broached again. It stood wide open. He gaped at it, anger igniting in him like a gas torch.

  Another groan lured him closer. A pile of lace was heaped on the floor of the passageway. His gut clenched as images of last night’s horror flashed through his head, riveting his feet. Dread coated his tongue. Had someone else been killed?

  “Ah, oh, oh.” The moan lifted from the lacy pile.

  Chris shook himself and rushed into the corridor. “Dear God, Liv, what happened? What are you doing in here? Dressed like this?”

  She tried answering him, but winced as he lifted her. Her cheek looked smashed. He swore. “You need a doctor.”

  “No. Not yet. Listen to me, Christopher.”

  He cradled her on his lap and felt a new fear grabbing his belly. Her eyes were feverish. He’d been so concerned about himself going insane, he hadn’t been paying enough attention to his sister. “How did this happen?”

  “Uncle Luis hit me.”

  “What? Are you telling me a ghost smashed your cheek?”

  “He isn’t dead.”

  “Yes, he is, Liv. For over twenty-five years.”

  “No. He’s here. Pretending to be Jorge.”

  “What!” Had she lost it completely? “That’s absurd.”

  “No, no.” She clutched his shirt front, pain slowing her speech, but clarity in her eyes. “One day, six months ago, I overheard Mama and him talking. He is Luis.”

  Chris could see she was serious. Not insane, but crazy with fear. His breath left him in a whoosh. He lifted her and carried her to the sofa, laying her down gently. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t want it to be true.” Shame flashed into her eyes.

  Chris, also, felt shame. Ashamed of his family. Horrified at his mother. Disappointed in his sister. “So, it was you posing as the ghost.”

  “Please don’t hate me, Christopher. I didn’t want Nikki to be Theresa’s daughter, and I don’t want her to claim Wedding House. I only wanted to scare her away.”

  “Where is Luis?”

  “He killed Dorothea. He’s completely mad. He thought she was Theresa. He thought I was Theresa a moment ago. And now he has Nikki.”

  “What!” Chris jumped to his feet, swearing, fear stabbing his heart. “Why didn’t you tell me that immediately? Where did he take her?”

  “Into the passageway.”

  Terrified for Nikki, Chris darted into the corridor. “Upstairs?”

  “No.” Olivia pointed in the opposite direction. “Toward the outbuildings.”

  Apprehension morphed into white-hot wrath as Chris ran for the boathouse calling Nikki’s name. For the first time in his life he felt furious enough to kill. This was the day he had dreaded. The d
ay he could no longer control the rabid blood that he’d inherited from his uncle. Rage flooded from the very depths of him, flowing into every limb, every pore, every nerve, every muscle until it consumed him. Drove him.

  From the shadowy passage ahead, a familiar figure came rushing toward him, hefting a shovel. “Luis.”

  Luis De Vega froze. He glared at his nephew, his crazed eyes raking Chris from head to toe as though sizing up an opponent. “Move aside and let me pass.”

  “Where’s Nikki?”

  Confusion robbed Luis of his bluster. “Nikki?”

  Chris grasped Luis by the collar, all but choking him. “Where is she?”

  Sputtering, Luis struggled to free himself and managed to crack Chris on the shoulder with the shovel. Chris’s rage shot higher. He wrenched the shovel from his uncle, knocking the older man to the floor. “Where is she?”

  Luis gave a demented laugh. “Weep for your Theresa, Rameriz. For at long last, she is dead.”

  The words severed Chris’s shriveled heart. In that moment he had never hated anyone as he hated this man. “I’ll kill you.”

  Luis reared back in alarm. “No. I beg of you. Spare me.”

  Chris’s stomach turned. How dare Luis beg for the very mercy he denied all of his victims? As though with a power beyond his control, Chris raised the shovel, the sharpest edge of the blade pointed directly at his uncle’s vulnerable temple. One good swing and the man would be as dead as he should have been all these years.

  Luis De Vega was every nightmare he’d ever had. How could his mother have adored and worshiped this monster? Protected him? Wanted Chris to emulate him? Convinced Chris he was the image of him? Sweat beaded his upper lip, flushed his body. He trembled, fighting the impulse to swing. But in the end, he couldn’t stop himself. He rammed the shovel blade as hard as he could against the nearest stud. The solid wood cracked. Luis cried out as though the blade had found his head, instead of the wall.

  He cowered, sobbing.

  Chris tossed aside the shovel and raced down the corridor toward the boathouse. Something inside him burst free, like a bird fleeing a brass cage. He couldn’t kill. Anger didn’t control him. He controlled it.