by Angel Smits
Clarissa turned and looked at David, looked into those same eyes, but found darkness and pain where the happiness should be. His cold stare seemed to cool the warmth of the room. He couldn’t see the joy that had once been. He’d lost those memories long ago.
“Do you feel anything?” he demanded, his teeth clenched tight as if afraid to ask the words.
“Yes and no.” What could she say to him? Instead, she turned away and examined the rest of the room. A tall wooden cabinet caught her eye, and she moved toward it. It towered over her head, the doors and top ornately carved. A jester’s head provided the corner piece on each side, like a gargoyle she’d seen once on an old church. Fascinated, she reached out to feel the rich wood.
“Careful,” he warned.
She wasn’t sure if he meant for her to be cautious because of the value of the piece, or if there was something dangerous lurking inside. Before she could ask, David was there beside her, slowly opening the doors.
He took a deep breath and then spoke very softly. “My . . . my father brought that back from his last business trip to Germany.”
Slowly, reverently, David pulled open the doors. Surprised and delighted, she watched as he exposed a huge mechanical device. A silver disk nearly a foot and a half across with holes and bumps on it rested on a spindle.
“What is it?”
“A music box.”
“A music box?” Something cold slipped into the room and down her spine. “This big?”
He laughed—actually laughed—at her surprise. Some of his tension faded. “They used them at carnivals and fairs. They’re like the calliopes we hear now on a carousel.”
“It’s . . . it’s beautiful. Does it work?”
He nodded slowly, reluctantly. He opened another, smaller door on the side to reveal a large crank bar. He turned it several times before stepping back in front of her and pushing a small lever.
The disk spun slowly, and the sounds of bells and waterfalls filled the room. It was beautiful . . . and suddenly too familiar.
She took several steps back, her fear of the visions too strong to avoid. It returned, all too real in her mind, only this time she saw everything clearly. They were in this room arguing. Their voices echoed from the past. “Please. No. David. I . . . I love you.”
The man’s voice was clearer now, too. “No, my dear, treacherous wife, you don’t love me. You just love my money and position and everything it gives you.”
“No, David. No.” The woman’s screams exploded through the room. A gunshot was followed by cold, empty silence.
“Now, my sweet, you can’t hurt me anymore.”
Clarissa looked over at the white rug. A different rug had been there then, forever ruined by tragedy. She looked at David and then up at the painting. “Your father’s name was David, too?”
“Yes.” The single word tore from his throat. The music stopped and the silence returned.
“What happened here?” She knew but didn’t want to believe it.
He looked at her and must have seen the knowledge in her face. He grabbed her, his fingers hard on her arms. She shivered, not out of fear, but from the intensity of his pain. “You know already, don’t you?”
“No, not really. Just what I saw in the vision the other day.”
“Tell me. Tell me what you saw.”
“They . . . ” She tilted her head toward the picture. “They were arguing. Here in this room. I don’t know what about, but it was bad. He killed her.”
David’s face paled, and his hands dropped to his side. Slowly, he closed the side door on the music box.
“And the music box was playing,” she whispered.
David stopped. Not a muscle moved. She wasn’t even sure if he breathed. Then he spoke. “No, it wasn’t.”
“How do you know? I heard it in the vision.”
“I know because I was here.” His anger exploded, and he slammed the final door, the bells inside crashing against each other with the impact. “I was hiding inside this music box.”
“How old were you?” she whispered, afraid to touch off his anger again.
“Five.”
She looked over at the picture. The murder had happened not long after the portrait had been painted.
Suddenly, David threw back his head. Agony gripped his features, and he curled his hands into fists. “Get out.” He ground out the words as he fell to his knees.
“David, what’s wrong?”
“No!” he screamed as his body twitched, and he writhed against whatever took hold of him. His fists curled even more as they became wicked claws. He seemed to turn inward, shrinking before her eyes. Black feathers burst from his skin, and suddenly David was no longer there.
A black raven, its eyes amber and brooding, stared at her from where David had been. It screeched, then lifted its wings and rose into the air.
Soaring once around the room, the bird headed for the painting. Reaching out a clawed foot, the bird scraped the fragile canvas leaving deep gouges across the woman’s face. And then it flew out through the foyer and into the night.
“David! David!” she screamed into the night as the black bird flew higher and higher, as if headed straight into the moon’s bright face.
Six
CLARISSA RAN. Out of the room. Out of the house, away from whatever lurked inside. She ran into the dark shadows of the surrounding forest, and fear pushed her deeper into the darkness.
What had happened back there? Was this a vision? A dream? Was she going insane? Nothing made sense and the pounding of her heart made it nearly impossible to think straight. People didn’t turn into animals. They didn’t vanish into thin air, either. Where was he?
“David?” she called. Still there was no answer.
Hidden in the safety of the trees, she took several deep breaths, bringing the calming scent of pine into her lungs. A soft bed of pine needles crunched beneath her feet, and patches of white moonlight sifted through the branches. She focused on the calm of nature. She’d seen many strange things in her life and in her visions, but nothing like this.
A thought flitted through her mind and she tried to catch it. Think. She recalled hearing about Native American legends where animals represented emotions. There was something in her books at home but she didn’t know enough to help her now.
The quiet night closed around her as the moon rose higher in the sky, slipping behind a stray cloud and momentarily plunging her into darkness.
“David?” she called again, expecting no answer but hoping, maybe.
“Yes?”
He startled her as he stepped out from a clump of pines. The shadows clung to him, the darkness reluctant to let him go, though the moon came back out just then. Her gaze swept upward over his fitted jeans, to the dark turtleneck that seemed none the worse for wear. The only physical difference seemed to be his hair that now hung loose instead of pulled back.
Until she looked into his eyes. She sucked in a breath, knowing she was staring into the eyes of danger.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Looking for you. That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Where?”
“The bird.”
He didn’t say anything more, simply passed her and headed back to the house. Where the night had been silent, a cacophony of crickets and breezes and the crunch of his shoes on the forest floor erupted. He kept walking, and she hurried to keep up.
Now that he was safe, she let her curiosity step in. “Please, tell me what happened.” Fear and excitement bubbled inside her.
“Nothing.” His voice was even and cold, all emotion now gone.
“I’m not crazy, David. Even though you think I am. I know what I saw.” Old tales that Granny had told her as a child returned to frighten her anew. H
er thoughts clearer now, she recalled one of her favorites. A story of beasts in the forest that had cloaked themselves as men seemed suddenly all too possible.
The moon slid out fully from behind the cloud, its silver rays reaching down to caress the long stands of his hair. A part of her ached to reach out and touch him as well, to ease the pain she saw in his eyes, to soothe away the sadness she felt in him.
“Let’s get you home,” he said, an order in his voice.
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain.” She stopped, waiting for him to do the same.
He kept going for several feet and then stopped mid-stride to glare back at her. “You’re going home, and you’re going to forget I was foolish enough to bring you here.”
“Don’t count on it.” She wanted to provoke him, wanted to crack that cool demeanor he fought so hard to keep up. No man—no human—was as empty as David Lorde pretended to be.
Lightning split the heavens, and on its tail a roar of thunder shook the ground beneath her feet. Clouds she hadn’t noticed moved quickly across the sky. Even in the pale light, she saw growing emotions in David’s eyes. She stepped closer to him, resting her hand on his arm. The skin was warm beneath her fingers, and his muscles tightened as he clenched his fist.
A breeze whipped up with the coming storm, and the scents of the forest danced around them. That and the warm scent of him. She breathed in, taking him inside, settling him in the empty place in her soul.
The night grew even darker and she looked up. Clouds nearly covered the sky, eating up the last of the stars.
“Do you ever make wishes?” she asked.
“Don’t be silly.” He pulled away and resumed walking.
“I do,” she called after him.
He stopped and turned back, as if curiosity was too much for him. “And what do you wish for?”
She hesitated only an instant before moving toward him. When nothing more than a breath’s distance separated them, she reached up and placed a finger against his jaw.
“For this.” She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, pleading silently for him to feel—to let himself feel—something besides anger.
A growl escaped from his throat as his arms enveloped her and pulled her tightly to him. The hard, hot length of his body pressed against hers took her breath away.
This was madness. She willingly reached out to him, and he responded with a heady sensuality that turned her knees to water and jumbled her remaining sanity. He was too dangerous. She couldn’t trust him.
Then why did she ache so? Why did it feel safe and right when his arms held her? Drained and slightly out of touch with reality, she let him kiss her, let him touch her, let her body melt into his. She slid her arms up over the muscles of his chest and held on tight.
His strong, firm jaw sported a heavy five o’clock shadow that felt rough beneath her fingers. She recalled that day in his office when he had rubbed his fingers over his chin, sending a soft scraping sound around the room. She’d wondered then how it would feel beneath her fingers. Now she wondered how it would taste against her lips and tongue and proceeded to find out.
She slipped her hands into his hair, relishing the softness of the thick strands twining around her fingers.
“What are you doing to me?” he whispered, lifting his head only a fraction of an inch.
“Nothing,” she said, parroting his earlier words and pulled his lips back to her.
He returned to devour her with his kiss, engulf her with his arms. She let herself experience him, giving back as much passion as he did. Suddenly, the feel of his hair between her fingers changed. It was courser, stiffer. Different.
She pulled back, looking into his shadowed face. “What’s happening?”
“Between us or to me?” The thick gravel of his voice surprised her. “Don’t ask questions you can’t handle the answers to.” He stepped back and she followed. “No,” he whispered deep and low.
“Why? Tell me what’s going on.”
“No. Go home. Take my car. The keys are in the ignition. Take it and get the hell out of here. Now.”
The dark night soon swallowed him, though she heard his footsteps long after he’d left her. She wanted to go after him, to find out what tore him apart inside and away from her.
He couldn’t keep walking away, but she couldn’t force him to stay, either. Frustrated, she kicked the ground, enjoying a brief sense of satisfaction as the dirt flew into the air around her. “You will talk to me,” she called out to the night, knowing from the echo that he heard her.
A distant growl of a mountain lion came back to her and she shivered, realizing she wasn’t safe out here alone. She headed back to the house, defeated and disappointed.
Every light in the mansion still blazed. She stood at the edge of the yard looking at it. It was so beautiful and such a waste sitting empty out here in the middle of the woods.
David’s car sat in the drive just where they’d left it and the keys dangled from the ignition. As she stood there, raindrops fell around her, kicking up dust before the dry ground succumbed to its seduction. The uneven beat rat-tatted on the car.
She didn’t want to go home. Not yet, not until she understood what was happening. With a glance at the keys, she hurried into the house’s empty foyer before she changed her mind. The crystals of the chandelier chimed together in the breeze that came in with her.
“David, are you here?” she called, but no answer came back to her. Was he still out roaming the woods? Surely not.
He was somewhere on the property. He couldn’t have gone far. He’d come back to the house soon enough, especially as the rain increased.
She couldn’t leave him, not until she got some answers, and not until she helped him. She didn’t know how, but she knew she had to do it.
Pushing a matching set of doors open on the other side of the hall from the parlor, she found a book-filled library. The dark wood was a striking contrast to the light airy decor of the rest of the house.
She experienced no lingering emotions, didn’t feel anything. No visions or images stole into her mind. No David, either. She went from room to room on the ground floor. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but something kept drawing her mind back to the portrait of his parents. She knew David’s mind must be filled with memories of them, memories that for him were real and painful.
As she reached the curved staircase, she called out again, hoping he’d answer her. The silence emphasized that she was alone, but instead of giving in to the dark emotions, she moved on. Grasping the brass handrail, she took the first step, then the next, slowly climbing to the top. A single step creaked, the third one up, the only sign of her ascent.
Once on the landing at the top, she glanced down at the foyer. A strange sense of vertigo gripped her as she stared at the hard tiles below. Nothing stood between her and the drop but the gleaming rail. She stepped back toward the wall and away from the edge.
A short distance into the hall, a door stood partially open. Taking the initiative with more confidence than she actually felt, Clarissa walked to it and went inside.
She fumbled for the light switch, but as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she realized she didn’t need any light. The entire east wall of the room was made of glass with no curtains to impede the view.
The city of Boulder, with Denver off in the distance, lay at her feet. Like a toppled Christmas tree, the forest fell away and the city lights gleamed up at her, reaching out across the prairie. The beauty took her breath away as she walked toward it.
She felt David’s warmth behind her, sensed his love for the view, for the room itself. “You love this room.” Relieved that he’d returned, she waited for him to answer.
He did after several long, silent minutes. “This was the nursery when I was a child. I have no idea why Mother w
ould put so many windows in a baby’s room, but, yes, I loved it.”
He fell silent and she waited, not questioning his use of the past tense in regard to his feelings. She sensed his pain and knew he needed to escape, even if it was simply by refusing to say the words forming in his mind.
“After my parent’s deaths, my aunt and uncle moved in and I moved down the hall. After we married, Rachel turned this room into her study.” His voice faded. “She spent most of her spare time here.”
Clarissa turned to look at him. His face was illuminated by the city lights, and the play of shadows added depth to his already severe features and darkness to his troubled eyes. Instinctively, she reached out and caressed his now familiar and dear face.
He took a step back, away from her touch. She didn’t question her disappointment. “Thank you for showing me your home. I understand you and your past a little more.”
“It’s not my home. It hasn’t been for a long time. I wanted you to see—to feel—what’s here.”
Clarissa frowned. She’d picked up on some old memories and was now attuned to the emotions roiling within him. But other than that, she’d only experienced the curiosity of visiting a beautiful house. “The strangeness here,” she said, and then paused to carefully choose her words, “is the change in you, and I can see you’re not going to explain any more now than before. I don’t feel anything unusual about the house. Am I supposed to?”
“Damn!” He stepped farther away, leaning his back against the thick glass. “I knew she’d do this.”
“She?” Why did Clarissa suddenly not want to know the answer to that question?
“Rachel. She’s here. That’s one of the many reasons I can’t live here.”
He was serious. She felt it in the air, heard it in his voice and knew in her own heart that he was being completely honest with her.
“I’m confused. What happened?”
He was silent too long, but she didn’t push him, not yet.