Brynn walked up to the counter and a middle-aged woman greeted her with a sympathetic smile. The name Judith was printed on her name tag.
“Good afternoon,” the woman said, softly. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Brynn replied, automatically softening her voice to match Judith’s. “I would like to visit a woman called Hildy Banks. Is she a resident here?”
Judith’s thin brows pulled together in a frown, but, remarkably, her mouth held that sympathetic smile. “Are you family?”
A lie danced on the tip of her tongue, but she’d already given herself away. After all, if she were related, she’d know whether or not Hildy Banks was a resident.
“I’m not. Mrs. Banks worked for my family when I was a child. I’m visiting and hoped to see her. She was like a second mother to me.” She laid it on thick, hoping the woman would feel sorry for her.
Judith tilted her head, smile stretching wider. “This is a long-term care facility for seniors. Most of our residents suffer from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia. I’m afraid we can’t just let in anyone. You understand, I’m sure.”
“Of course.” Crap, now what?
“What I can do for you, however, is take down your name and information, contact Mrs. Banks’s power of attorney and ask you be added to the visitor’s list.”
“Thank you. My name is Brynn James.” The woman wrote out the information. “I’m staying at my father’s house now. It’s called Stonecliff, if Mrs. Banks’s power of attorney needs to verify—”
The woman’s gaze shot up from the paper, that compassionate smile gone, leaving her expression uneasy. She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Are you here about Ruth?”
Ruth? Who was… Her father’s nurse. She hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with the woman since she’d arrived. Ruth rarely left her father’s room.
Judith glanced uneasily around the room. “Has anything happened?”
Like what? Alarm bells clanged inside her head. “She’s my father’s nurse. He has emphysema. Should I be worried about something happening?”
“Of course not.” Judith’s smile was back, but it looked stiff and unnatural.
“How do you know Ruth? Did she work here?”
The woman nodded, leaned closer and whispered. “There are some benches by the trees around back. I’ll meet you there.”
Brynn left the building and hurried to the benches Judith had indicated. After a few minutes, the woman slipped out through a rear door and started toward her. Judith pulled her thick sweater tight around her middle to ward off the cutting wind sweeping in off the water. Her straight, mousy hair whipped wildly around her head.
“I’m glad you waited,” Judith said when she reached Brynn. “I’d heard that someone from Stonecliff had called for a reference and I never felt right that the administrator had given her one.”
Cold prickled Brynn’s skin. “Why? What did Ruth do?”
Judith stared for a long moment, so long Brynn didn’t think she’d answer. “No one will ever admit to any of this. Investigations and lawsuits would shut down Hazelwood, and despite what I’m about to tell you, this is a good facility. Believe me, I’ve seen ones that aren’t.”
“Was Ruth fired?” Nerves skittered down Brynn’s spine.
Judith shook her head. “She was a model employee. Helpful, eager, almost too eager. If there was an awful task to be done—and there’s plenty in this place—Ruth was the first to volunteer. But there was always something off about her, vacant.”
Brynn knew what Judith meant. Ruth had stared at her with that bemused sort of smile, looking through her rather than at her. “Did something happen?”
She chuckled, the sound tinny and false. “You could say that. She hadn’t been here very long when residents started to die whenever she worked the night shift.”
Brynn’s stomach bottomed out. “She was killing residents?”
“There’s no proof. In this line of work, there’s a high mortality rate anyway, but while Ruth worked here, when a patient died it was almost always during her shift.”
“Didn’t anyone report her to the police?”
“Like I said, there was no proof. People died here every other week. A police investigation would have merely resulted in bad press for the facility.”
And so a killer was left to go free? Left to take over the care of her father? Brynn had no warm fuzzy feelings where Arthur was concerned, but she didn’t want his crazy nurse to murder him either.
“Bad press? You suspected she was killing people.”
“Suspicion without proof. What if we’d been wrong? We could have ruined her life.”
“You’re telling me now. Aren’t you still worried about ruining her life?”
Judith shrugged and stood. “Like I said, I never felt right about Hazelwood giving her a reference. My break’s over, I have to get back.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was dark by the time Brynn pulled into the courtyard and got out of the car. Cloud cover blotted out the moon and stars. The kitchen windows were dark. Only a small pool of light from the fixture over the coach house door alleviated the black.
Something crunched the gravel. Brynn stiffened. She scanned the area, but couldn’t make out anything in the darkness. She was letting Reece’s paranoia about ghostly warnings spook her. Still, she hurried across the drive to the back door.
Fast footfalls pounding the gravel behind her rose up from the black. She jerked around in time to catch sight of something long and silver glinting in the low light and arching straight for her.
A knife!
Fear burst inside Brynn like a firework and she stumbled back from the blade, but not fast enough. The knife caught in her jacket’s open flap, jerking her forward and toward the shadowy form. She tried to pull back, but her heeled boots lost purchase on the uneven gravel and she fell sideways, pulling her attacker down with her.
She landed hard on her side, something jabbing her ribs, and her assailant fell on top of her, thrusting the breath from her lungs.
Gasping, she tried to scream, but couldn’t draw enough air. Her jacket tightened against her shoulder, and she risked a glance at her attacker struggling with something caught in her coat. The knife was still wrapped in her jacket and she was half-laying on it.
Terror flooded her system, washing away reason, leaving behind only the primal instinct for survival. She twisted away from her attacker, clawing at the rough stone to pull herself from under the weight pinning her down. Pointed gravel stabbed her hip, her stomach, bit into her palms.
The dry scrape of rending fabric filled her ears. Cold washed over her. The knife was free.
Brynn let her arms go lax, shrugged out of her coat. The sudden shift in momentum tipped her attacker sideways. The pressure on Brynn’s back eased. She scrambled from under the weight and bolted for her car—it was closer than the house.
She grabbed the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. Locked. “Fuck!”
She whirled around. Her attacker—little more than a shadow in the darkness—was on his feet, disentangling the knife from what was left of her coat. She scanned the driveway for her purse, spotted it a few feet from the shredded remains of her coat.
Heart thundering in her ears, she darted forward, snatched up her bag and dumped the contents onto the driveway. Her keys glinted in the low light. She grabbed them and hit the remote lock as she rushed back to the car. Quick footsteps crunched behind her.
In a nearly single, fluid motion, she yanked open the door, slid inside and slammed it closed behind her, then hit the locks.
Two simultaneous clunks filled the car and Brynn let out the breath she’d been holding, sagging in her seat. Outside, the dark form stood in front of her car, knife at his side. For a moment, neither moved as if they were both unsure what to do next.
Brynn acted first. She jammed her key into the ignition, turned on the car, headlights igniting the darkness. Her attacker dodged the light�
�a swirl of black and gray before disappearing entirely.
Where had he gone? She searched the black for any sign of movement, the telltale glint of a blade. Maybe he was waiting for another chance to come at her. She leaned on the horn. Hopefully, the noise would chase him away, or at least bring help from the house.
A loud rap at her window made her jump. She looked up at Reece peering through the glass. Relief washed through her only to vanish almost instantly, replaced with black fear. He was out there with a killer. She opened the door and jumped out.
“There’s someone with a knife.” Her voice sounded too high, her words too fast even to her own ears. She tried to calm her rapid breathing, but couldn’t quite manage it.
“Who had a knife?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t see. It was too dark.”
She shivered and Reece wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her against his solid chest.
“Eleri?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Eleri, Ruth, or the shadow man from her room. She didn’t have a clue.
* * *
“You were very lucky, you know.”
Reece leaned against the kitchen counter, watching Harding posture beside Brynn. She looked small and shaken sitting on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. The detective badgering her with the same questions over and over zinged through Reece like tinfoil on a filling.
“She certainly is,” Warlow agreed, setting a cup of tea in front of her and sitting in the chair opposite.
Shoulders hunched, she wrapped her hands around the mug, but didn’t drink. Maybe trying to warm herself through her palms.
He wanted to go to her, wrap his arms around her. He couldn’t, of course. Not with Warlow, Harding and Eleri in the room. Instead, he and Brynn had to go on playing their roles, careful not to give away what they’d become to each other. What exactly that was, he didn’t know, but his chest squeezed every time he thought of how badly things could have turned out.
She’ll die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
Brynn hadn’t died. She sat less than six feet away from him, fragile and haunted. The ghost had been wrong—unless there was something more to come. His mouth turned dry at the thought.
“Now, is this everyone who was home tonight?” Harding’s gaze locked on Eleri hovering silently in the doorway between the kitchen and the back stairs like a ghost. She didn’t meet the detective’s stare, her attention fixed on the checked floor. “Apart from Arthur, of course. Where’s that nurse?”
“She doesn’t work Tuesdays,” Warlow explained. “I believe she visits her son on her days off.”
Which explained the hissing baby monitor, Arthur’s rattling breaths tinny through the weak speaker, on the table beside him.
At the mention of Ruth, Brynn’s gaze jerked up, bounced between Warlow and Eleri. “I have to talk to you both about something.” Her voice scraped like she hadn’t used it in years.
“We’re just about finished here,” Harding said, flipping open his notebook. “Let’s go over your story one more time.”
“She’s exhausted,” Reece ground out. His jaw ached from gritting his teeth.
The detective shot Reece a hard glare before turning back to Brynn. “You said you didn’t see who attacked you, correct?”
Brynn nodded. “It was too dark and it happened so fast.”
“A man or woman?” he asked, brows lifting, creasing his forehead.
“I…I don’t know.”
“This person didn’t speak, didn’t make a noise?”
Brynn shook her head, frown marring her forehead. “I don’t think so.”
“So you can’t say who it was…or wasn’t, for that matter?”
“No.”
“I wonder if anyone recognizes this.” Harding fished a small, clear bag from his pocket and tossed it onto the kitchen table. Inside was a thin silver cross on a chain. “We found it outside, not far from Brynn’s jacket.”
“That’s yours, isn’t it Eleri?” Hugh swiveled his head to look at her. Eleri’s eyes were wide and panicked, like a trapped animal ready to bolt. Hugh turned back to the detective. “It was Enid’s.”
“I didn’t…” Eleri coughed. “It’s been missing for days.”
“She lives here,” Hugh reminded him. “If she lost it, it’s not surprising you found it in the drive.”
Chuckling, Harding picked up the bag and slipped it into his pocket again. “You’ve no idea how not surprised I am to find something of Eleri’s.” He turned to the woman in question. “You need to come with me now.”
“Wait,” Brynn stood. “Eleri’s too small. It wasn’t her.”
Harding shook his head. “You just told me the attack happened too quickly, that it was too dark for you to provide any details about your assailant. Come along, Eleri.”
“Are you arresting me?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
“Do I need to?”
“What about Ruth?” Brynn said, quickly coming around the table and putting herself between Eleri and the detective.
Reece frowned. Why was she fighting so hard to protect her sister? He didn’t like Harding, but the detective was right. Eleri had finally gone after Brynn just like everyone knew she would.
“Ruth is at her son’s,” Warlow said.
“Do you know that for sure? I was just at the seniors’ home where she worked before coming here. The staff suspected her of killing residents.”
“It wasn’t Ruth’s necklace I found on the drive. Time to go, Eleri”
“I didn’t do it,” Eleri said, shaking her head, eyes glassy. “I swear to God, it wasn’t me.”
Harding gripped Eleri’s elbow and Brynn watched helplessly as the detective led her sister out of the kitchen. Frustration simmered beneath her skin. She needed to stop this, to make them listen. Instead, people moved around her as if she’d suddenly turned invisible, as if they couldn’t hear a word she said.
Brynn turned to Hugh. “You have to stop this. Make him let her go. The detective needs to find Ruth.”
“Wait here.” Hugh followed the detective from the kitchen.
“Hey.” A touch brushed her arm. She started and turned to Reece, his concerned gaze locked on her face. “Are you all right?”
“It was Ruth, not Eleri.”
“Brynn—”
“I know what you’re going to say,” she told him. The faint condescension in his voice irritated her. “But she’s killed before.”
Brynn told him everything Judith had said. Reece’s frown deepened. “No one said anything?”
“Just a few of the staff suspected, and there was no proof. But if it’s true…”
Warlow strode into the room and they sprang apart like guilty teenagers. His cold eyes locked on Brynn. “I believe your time here is just about done, wouldn’t you agree?”
Was he blaming her for all this? “What about Eleri?”
“I’ll try to get in touch with Mr. James’s solicitor, but I doubt I’ll reach him before morning. Once matters are resolved with your sister—one way or the other—I want you out.”
She swallowed hard. “Once I know what’s happening with Eleri, I’ll have no reason to stay.”
He straightened, smoothed invisible lint from his pants. “I’m glad we understand each other.” He turned to Reece. “Be sure to lock up before you leave.”
Reece nodded, but didn’t reply, merely glared at the man’s back until he was gone.
“Bloody tosser,” he muttered, once they were alone. He turned to Brynn. “Go on, then. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
She nodded and hauled herself from the chair. Once in her room, she pulled her fitted top over her head and stood in front of the mirror over her dresser. She lifted her arm and turned sideways. A collage of purple bruises from catching the railing to avoid tumbling down the stairs last night marred the skin over her ribs. Below them thin red welts from the knife crisscrossed her flesh.
Everything cou
ld have turned out so much worse. If the knife hadn’t caught in her coat. If she’d landed on the sharp edge instead of the blunt. If she hadn’t found her car keys as quickly as she did.
It was pure fluke that she was still alive. If one thing had gone differently… She shivered.
The door clicked open and Brynn turned as Reece slipped inside.
“Is that from tonight?” He pointed to the bruises on her side.
“These are.” She gestured to the red marks. “The rest are from nearly falling down the stairs.”
He nodded, expression inscrutable. “You should get some rest.”
She shook her head. “I’m not tired anymore.”
Her exhaustion had dissipated, and dull energy thrummed low inside her.
She was alive. She wanted to feel alive. She wanted to touch him, taste him, to lose herself in him.
She unfastened the button on her pants, let the soft fabric slide down her legs and pool at her feet.
His throat bobbed. His gazed raked over her from foot to head and back down again.
“Brynn,” his voice rasped, “you’ve had a hell of a night.”
He wouldn’t turn her down, would he? He couldn’t, not tonight.
“Please, Reece,” she whispered. “I need this. I need you.”
His eyes flared, and within seconds she was in his arms, sinking into the hungry mindlessness she craved.
Chapter Sixteen
This was wrong, some distant voice whispered in the back of Reece’s brain. Someone had tried to kill Brynn hours ago. Her sister had been arrested. He should be comforting her, not running his hands over her nearly-naked body, tasting her sweet mouth. But the pale swell of breasts against the dark blue lace of her bra, the soft pleading in her voice…
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