by Sue Wilder
Arsen waited until she looked back at him and he had her full attention. “We’re trying to help you.”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
“You need it anyway.”
“And you seem to know a hell of a lot about what I need,” she said tightly. “Does Marge realize you aren’t an intervention guru?”
“Yes.”
“Why should I even believe you?”
“Because I’ve known Marge for five years.” At Lexi’s sharp laugh, Arsen launched into a lengthy description of Marge’s modest cottage in Rock Cove, what her office looked like, her favorite foods, the brand of coffee she drank, the color of the inside of her refrigerator—stained pink from an unfortunate event involving an open bottle of wine. He even knew the plot of the book she was reading, which Marge said kept her up late at night. After ten minutes Lexi realized Arsen knew more about Marge than she did. He would have continued, but Lexi held up a hand.
“How long as Marge known him?” she asked, flicking her hand toward the lava where the predator lounged.
Arsen hesitated. “Less than five years,” he said.
Lexi smiled in tight vindication. “Is Arsen your real name?”
He flashed that killer smile. Lexi looked away from those lying eyes and toward the man who was not named Smith, all too aware he’d been following the entire exchange.
“What’s your real name?” she demanded.
“Christan.”
Lexi was so certain she knew his name the heat of it burned on her tongue. His voice was quiet and dangerous. Minutes ticked by. Bright heat shimmered in the air. Lexi leaned against her rocky wall while Christan leaned against his, and every muscle in the man’s body clenched with contained power. Raw. He absolutely did not move and yet she imagined the acute sensation of that male gaze drifting against her skin, lingering hard on the pulse beating in her throat.
She sucked in a furious breath. To hell with him! He would not intimidate her.
Lexi stiffened against the rocks.
He remained where he was, relaxed in the sun.
She challenged him without speaking.
He taunted her, and for one desperate moment she wanted to flounce away like she was five years old again. She even thought there were daisies in her hair, felt a wet-sharp stem scraping against her scalp behind her ear.
Sunlight softened, melting on a faint breeze. Lexi reached up, just lifted her hand as a white and yellow butterfly flitted nearby. The dainty wings caught the light. She watched as the butterfly changed direction in that lazy, zig-zag way they do, flew toward her outstretched fingers. It hovered, landed briefly, waved its wings up and down before drifting away. Lexi realized she was holding her breath. Realized she was waiting for something that didn’t happen… always the waiting.
Christan pushed away from the rocks with such aggression the air became turbulent. Heat waves vibrated. Lexi’s eyes burned while he seemed to disappear around the edges. Then the energy dissolved and the man was back in his guardian position, arms crossed, legs relaxed, leaning against his rock wall with every appearance of disinterest.
It was a hell of a lot to get from a little butterfly. When Arsen drew her attention, Lexi tried to focus on what he was saying.
“Let’s go back to yesterday.”
“A day I do not remember,” she said tightly.
“I regret the loss of memory.”
“Says the person with no intention of apologizing.”
“I regret that as well,” Arsen agreed, and on a surge of frustration Lexi lunged to her feet, feeling like a drunken woman on stilts.
“I’m so tired of your explanations, Arsen,” she said, bracing against the rock to steady her cramped legs. She began to pace, trying to shrug off the disruptive effects of Christan’s hostility. The man threatened her in ways Arsen never would. Arsen was a surfer boy with steel beneath the killer smile. Christan was fierce with uncompromising male power. He pulled a phone from his pocket and Lexi smirked as he fought with the unlock function before jabbing at the screen.
“Christan?” Arsen asked. Then they were having some kind of silent communication that bros have and Lexi wasn’t included. Which was fine. She wasn’t interested in talking to either of them. They couldn’t force her to take part in a fake intervention if she didn’t want to, and it wasn’t as if being in the wilderness intimidated her. Lexi had trekked through plenty of empty places while researching locations, and they’d foolishly provided the hiking boots. She was no longer going to wait around feeling helpless.
Lexi decided her first action would be to locate some water. Then she would leave, walk away, and Arsen could explain her disappearance to his good friend Marge—who she would really fire the moment she got home. It occurred to Lexi that she was acting badly. In her own defense, she’d been sitting on the rocky ground for at least an hour with nothing to do but have inane conversations and watch the red ants move bits of grass around. She was entitled to be irritable under the circumstances.
With that justification, Lexi looked at her options. In her experience, backpacks contained water, and there were backpacks right in front of her. It would serve them right if she took matters into her own hands, maybe threw their underwear all over the ground.
Arsen was still in his conversation with Christan, so Lexi saw no reason to question her actions. The first backpack held clothes of the male variety and she tossed it aside. But the second held pay dirt.
It just wasn’t the dirt she’d expected.
There was a file, filled with photos that looked like—was that her cottage?
“Oh, my god!”
“Lexi.”
“Is that my bedroom?” Arsen reached for the photos but Lexi danced out of his reach. “Oh, no, Bucko, you get to explain this. All of this.” She waved them beneath his nose, thinking he could explain the brown grass and red ants as well.
Arsen was stalking toward her but wisely staying beyond her reach. There were photos of her deck, her kitchen, her bathroom... Lexi tossed photo after photo onto the ground because whoever had taken these photos had been following her for a very long time.
Arsen reached for her. “We can explain—"
“I’ll just bet you can.” Lexi wrenched away, hating him. Both of them. Hating Christan a little bit harder and not understanding why. “Just like you can explain me being here when I don’t remember, and why you took my phone.”
“The reason you were running—”
“Oh, so now we’re back to the running?” Were those tears in her eyes? No, she refused to waste that kind of emotion on them.
“Lexi, please, we aren’t trying—”
“The hell you aren’t trying.” Lexi was shaking the last photo in the air as if it was a weapon that would protect her if he attacked. And yelling, yes, lots of yelling.
Her vision was distorting again, too, because now Arsen had that heat wave vibration going on around him. He disappeared at the edges, the way Christan had when he’d pushed aggressively from the rocks.
But none of it was as bad as realizing they’d lied. Why did she feel hurt by that? People always lied.
Lexi closed her eyes. She wanted to be back home in Rock Cove. She wanted to stand beneath the cool fir trees dripping in the rain, listening to her grandmother’s voice as she said, Galaxy, what do you believe? Are you a pinpoint in the vast emptiness, alone in the dark, or are you part of something more?
In the background, two events registered. The first was the sound of car doors opening, then slamming shut, and Lexi opened her eyes to find the source.
The second was Christan as he flicked his hand in her direction.
Lexi landed hard, and face first on the ground.
CHAPTER 5
“Well, that worked out well.”
Lexi didn’t believe “worked out well” adequately rose to the occasion. But she recognized the voice. It belonged to Marge, her former therapist, former best friend and surrogate mother figure. And her bi
ggest betrayer.
Lexi was lying on the ground. She wasn’t able to move and she didn’t know why, other than her arms and legs refused to push her upright. It was a little humiliating when she thought about it. A little bizarre. But Marge seemed to take everything in stride, looking sophisticated and motherly at the same time. The older woman fit the wilderness environment as comfortably as she did the cozy therapy office in Rock Cove. She was tall and blue-eyed and there was a man walking at her side. A tall man, well-built with mink-colored hair, wearing jeans and a black sweater that caressed his shoulders.
Lexi wanted to think about that for a moment, think about why her friend would have lied about having a man in her life.
Lexi thought Marge lived alone; it was one of the reasons they’d bonded, but it was definitely not the reality. The man leaned in, pressed his lips to Marge’s temple, whispered something that made the woman laugh. It was an intimate laugh, the kind of laugh a woman only gave to one man. The sun shifted behind a swift moving little cloud and came out again. Lexi glanced around the empty landscape before looking back at Marge.
The couple approached, the men doing the forearm grab men do when they’re part of the tribe. It took a few moments. Marge was standing to the side wearing a plaid shirt in shades of green with khaki slacks and boots. The sunlight caught in her honey-blond hair, making it shimmer around her shoulders.
“What did you do, Christan?” Marge was looking in Lexi’s direction, while everyone else seemed to be waiting, tense.
“Nothing.”
“You can’t keep putting her on the ground every time you lose an argument.”
“I wasn’t losing.”
“Well, you still can’t do it, it’s considered abusive now. Go on, let her up.”
The predator tipped his head arrogantly, widened his stance and crossed his arms against his chest. His expression hardened. The breeze skittered and gritty bits of sand drifted in the air before Arsen moved his hand. The pressure holding Lexi eased. Christan waited until she was on her hands and knees and then flicked his hand again. She went down. Hard. Marge looked at Christan and her eyebrow flicked up.
“What are you, three years old? Let her up, Christan.”
He did nothing. Marge’s expression could have brought a grown man to his knees, if that man had been so inclined. Christan obviously wasn’t inclined. Marge blew out an irritated breath.
“Please,” she said after a moment. “Robbie needs to set up the canopy and I want it overlooking the river.” Then, as if a bribe would work when intimidation hadn’t, she added, “He has cold beer.”
Marge turned, waving a hand toward the black vehicle, and the conversation ended unless they were doing the silent communication again. Lexi watched with growing indignation as the group moved away. Christan could damn well come back and let her up because she wanted the sand out of her mouth. And the ants. They were beginning to concern her. She wondered if they knew she’d murdered one of their own.
But more than that, she wanted to know what the hell was going on, especially with the hand flicky thing Christan used to put her on the ground. She squeezed her eyes closed and then opened them. Men began carrying a small table and chairs to the hill Marge had chosen for her last stand. A white canopy went up, stakes pounded into the ground with rhythmic thuds—a medieval pavilion where the lords and ladies came to enjoy the carnage. All that was missing were the bright streamers and men on stomping horses.
Christan had moved back into her range of vision but there was no sense of relief. The man was arrogant. When he walked past without even acknowledging her, the wave of remembered loneliness was crushing.
You’re old enough to understand, Galaxy, her mother had said as she’d walked away. Their last conversation, probably the only truthful conversation they’d ever had. Her mother wanted a life and there’d been no room for a child. It was better that way, the way it ended, with a child and a stuffed bear and a mother disappearing in the mist.
It taught Lexi an insight she appreciated to this day. Life was limited in what the heart could absorb. Most hearts overflowed with the crap people drug around, so there wasn’t any point trying to get in if there wasn’t any room.
Nor was there any point in asking this man for anything. He would have nothing to give.
When the pavilion was finished, Lexi waited while Arsen approached. He looked guilty in his flowered Hawaiian shirt, but forgiveness was not an option. When he flicked his hand, she stumbled to her feet and took two rapid steps backward. Knocked his fingers away when he tugged a twig from her hair. The white tee shirt she wore had a red smudge near the waist and Lexi decided it was time to reset the ground rules.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk away right now.”
Arsen rocked back on his heels. He glanced at the ground, where the hollow in the sand matched the shape of her hip, then back to her face as she stood with her back to the rocks. A blond eyebrow arched.
It was all the reason she was going to get.
Lexi scrubbed both palms against her jeans, knocking away some of the sandy grit still clinging to her thighs. Arsen’s arms were crossed against his chest and he was doing something suspicious with his mouth. Lexi realized he was trying not to laugh. She wasn’t ready to see the humor in the situation.
“I hold grudges, Bucko, and I won’t forget this,” she said, ignoring his growing smirk.
“Get in line, Slick, and you won’t be alone.”
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?”
“Not my story to tell.”
A table had been set up beneath the shade. Beside it sat a white picnic cooler. Marge held a bag of ice and Lexi wondered whose story she was going to hear. Wondered why her best friend, her therapist and mother figure needed a wilderness to tell her a truth. Defeat was conceded when Lexi pushed the hair from her eyes.
“Does Marge have anything to drink?”
“Water, beer or wine?”
“Which one will I need?”
“I’d go with the wine. You want red or white?”
“Red if Marge has it. It matches the smudge on my shirt.”
Arsen laughed, a friendly sound as they walked up the hill to where the canopy burned white in the summer heat. The distant Snake River twisted like a silver thread beneath rocky cliffs woven in shades of red and gold. Heated juniper, rich and sappy like pine, scented the air in an empty landscape filled with wrinkled hills and rugged ravines. The blue smudge in the distance was probably the Seven Devils, mountain peaks edging canyons deeper than those of the Grand Canyon.
A hawk screeched, high in the sky. The sun was beginning to tip toward the west and Lexi hoped Marge would wrap up her little meeting before late afternoon; evening would descend rapidly and she had no intention of spending the night in this wilderness. Lexi could camp just fine, didn’t mind the dirt—being on her own was what she loved about her location research. But she did it alone and that was the point. No friends. No forced conversations. Nothing but the earth memories, whispering.
They reached the pavilion where a table sat in the shade, covered with a white cloth. There were chairs enough for four. Since there were five of them, Lexi was wondering about the seating when Marge gave her a little hug.
“Have some wine,” the woman said. Her voice was husky and rich, and she added, “I brought those sandwiches you like. Arsen, please move her chair over, the sun is still in her eyes.”
The woman was ordering the men about; they obeyed like young boys. Arsen arranged the chair to Marge’s satisfaction. Lexi sat down. Someone placed a glass in her hand. In the silence that followed, Lexi took a hesitant sip. Marge was making an effort. It was a very nice wine.
When Marge was happy with her arrangements, she settled in a chair across from Lexi. The man with her was introduced as Robbie, although once he’d been called Raziel, Marge added as if sharing a conspiratorial secret. Arsen joined them while Christan kept his distance.
“Why are
we here, Marge?”
The woman sighed and began the explanations, telling Lexi in a calm voice about the man who had been ransacking the cedar-shingled cottage. How Lexi had come home and found him there. He’d chased her down to the beach where she’d tripped on an exposed rock and hit her head. Lexi had been unconscious—well, sleeping heavily, was the way Marge phrased it despite the skepticism in Lexi’s eyes. Fortunately, Arsen and Christan had been nearby, to which Lexi made a rude noise before Marge continued.
“The man was retrieving several cameras. Small, micro—you wouldn’t have noticed. That’s how they got the photos you found.”
“So, the file wasn’t yours?”
“No.” And Marge added that a recording device had also been retrieved, an idea Lexi found both alarming and suspicious, since she rarely had conversations so there would be nothing to record.
“More of a playback machine,” Marge clarified, shifting uncomfortably. “There was a meditation program with a subliminal message, timed to play between three and four in the morning when your night terrors would strike. The cameras recorded your reactions.”
Memories of a pounding heart and being unable to move. Lexi said, “Those were dreams, Marge, traces of psychic energy, damned anxiety over traffic in town or too much caffeine. What could be so interesting someone would try to trigger them?”
The edge of the white pavilion fluttered in the breeze, reflecting bright crescents of yellow light. Lexi studied the expression on Marge’s face. There were secrets in the woman’s eyes—the kind of secrets that never turned out to be good, or they wouldn’t have been secrets in the first place.
“Don’t you find it a little odd,” the therapist asked, “that someone wants to force you to dream?”
“What I find a little odd,” the patient replied, “are cameras in my cottage and a therapist who brings me into the wilderness instead of going to the police.”