by Ivy Sinclair
I got out of the SUV and glanced at the cabin. I asked for secluded, and she had more than delivered. “I thought you said this was a fishing cabin?”
Paige pointed at a small trail off to our left. “Follow that about a hundred yards and you’ll find Lake Braken. It’s not very big or very deep, but folks like paddling around on it in the summer.”
I had no intention of spending a lot of time checking out Lake Braken. I dug in the backseat and pulled out the bags of supplies that I lifted from the store. “Lead the way.”
I followed behind Paige and couldn’t help but admire the curve of her butt in the jeans I had picked out for her. My mother and older sister used to drag me on endless shopping trips when I was younger, and somehow that translated in a unique pleasure in shopping for women as I got older. I knew what looked good on a woman’s body, and the outfit that Paige chose from the options I provided didn’t disappoint.
When she reached the door and stood up on her tiptoes to reach upwards, her shirt rode up and exposed the skin of her flat stomach. I found myself wanting to touch that skin and see if it was as soft as it appeared. I managed to bring my eyes back up to her face just before she glanced over her shoulder at me. She held up a key.
“Not the most secure hiding spot, but no one comes out here much. Christopher said if someone is that determined to break in, then more power to them.”
“Christopher just sounds swell,” I said. I realized that I had let my emotions color my words when I caught her questioning glance. “I mean, from what you’ve told me he seems pretty easy-going.”
“He is,” she replied, but I sensed that she didn’t buy my cover up. I shouldn’t care in the slightest if she had a boyfriend or not. She was an assignment. One that I was getting paid top dollar for, and potentially more if I could figure out the right angle.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside. I took one long look around the clearing, and hoped that by getting rid of our clothes with the cemetery’s scent, we had ditched the Tiphon. If not, we were setting ourselves up for an even bigger mess being so secluded.
I walked into the cabin and for an instant felt claustrophobic. The ceiling was just a few inches above my head and everything was situated in one room. There was a small table under the window with two chairs off to my left. A galley style kitchen with sink, stove, and a small refrigerator covered the wall to my right. There was a sofa that looked like it had seen better days in front of me facing a fireplace. A narrow cot framed in one side of the living room. On the other side was a door that I could only assume led to the bathroom.
“Cozy,” I said, as Paige took the bags out of my arms.
“When you come up here, you’re supposed to be spending your time down at the lake. This space is strictly for eating and sleeping, so it’s not much.”
There was an undercurrent in her voice that sounded defensive, and I realized that she might be thinking I disapproved of her choice of hideaways.
“It’s perfect. You thought fast on your feet, and that will probably be what keeps you alive through all of this.”
Her face fell. “You think that they’ll keep looking for me.”
I found that I wanted to wrap my arms around her and comfort her. Getting personally involved in a job was a big no-no in my profession. That was one thing about necromancers; you end up spending more time with the dead than the living and that makes getting personally involved with anyone dangerous for everyone. I had found that out the hard way. Casual relationships were the extent of my abilities. Instead, I cleared my throat. “Somebody is paying those demons to look for you, and they are highly motivated, especially now that you’ve proven so elusive. They won’t stop any time soon.”
“I need to call Christopher and at least tell him something,” Paige said, putting her fingertips to her forehead and then brushing her hair out of her face. I could tell she was frustrated.
“They will be monitoring your home,” I said. “You are better off disappearing at this point. If they think that he knows anything about where you are, then he will be in danger. You have to be smart about this, Paige. I know it’s hard, but you have to trust me.”
She started unpacking the bags and didn’t say anything else to me. The waves of anger were practically wafting off of her, and I knew that I needed to give her some space. Which was next to impossible given the size of the room that we were in.
I decided to make myself useful, and so I prowled the small room looking for entry points. Not all demons were polite and used doors to gain entry. The most concerning opening that I found was the fireplace. I needed to do something about that, and I thought I had just the right solution. I went out to the SUV and pulled my kit out of the back. Grabbing the duffel with my other weapons, I carried the bags inside.
I tossed the duffel on the floor where it landed with a satisfyingly heavy thud. It was frustrating to have lost three good knives in the spar with the Tiphon demon. I preferred using guns whenever possible. Getting good Plythen steel was ridiculously expensive. I might have to increase my rate for the job overall based on my rapidly mounting equipment losses.
I slung my kit on the table and started to browse through it for what I was looking for. I had just pulled the small bottle out when I felt Paige trying to creep up behind me. She wouldn’t make a good stalker.
“What’s all of that?” she asked, looking curiously at the kit.
“Useful tools of the trade,” I said. I wasn’t sure what she was going to think about the fact that the person she was counting on to keep her safe regularly raised people and demons from the dead for profit. I was going to keep that one to myself for as long as possible. There was a part of me that felt as if I was lying to her, but I told myself it was the slightest of omissions that was hardly relevant at all to the current situation.
“What kind of trade?”
“The demon kind,” I said, easily deflecting the question. I held up the bottle. “A couple sprinkles of this around the base of the fireplace will help make sure that nobody sneaks up on us.”
She crinkled her nose, which was incredibly adorable because it emphasized the spray of freckles across her nose. I found that I wanted to kiss each and every one of them. “You mean, demons come down the chimney like Santa Claus?”
I chuckled. “Yes, except Santa Claus is a fictional character and demons are not.”
She sighed. “Less than six hours ago, if someone had asked me to pick which one I thought could be real I would have picked Santa Claus.”
I touched her arm because I couldn’t help myself. “Which means that you are completely and totally human.”
She touched my hand, and then peered up at me. “Riley, I know you don’t agree with me, but I have to call Christopher.”
I shook my head, wondering how we were back on this topic again so soon. “It’s not going to happen. I’m sorry.”
Her eyes swiveled away from mine, and I saw her lips twist up into a wince. I glanced over her shoulder, and that’s when I saw something I had missed in my initial sweep of the cabin. A telephone.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Please tell me that you didn’t call Christopher from that phone.”
She had the grace to look embarrassed. “I left him a message at the shop so I didn’t even speak to him. Don’t worry. I didn’t tell him anything about where I was. I told him I needed a few days away. I just wanted to let him know that I was safe.”
I tried to stem the tide of anger bubbling up inside of me. “Unfortunately, that probably won’t be true for long now. For any one of us.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN – PAIGE
Riley was furious. I could tell by the way he stalked across the room without a further glance in my direction. I wanted to be defiant about my decision to make the call to Christopher, but the doubt and second-guessing had already set in. It was already done. I couldn’t go back and change it.
In the small quarters, Riley’s huge frame seemed to overwhelm the space. It didn’t
feel like I could be anywhere in the room and not be acutely aware of him. I watched him as he knelt in front of the fireplace. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see what he was doing. There were so many things that I felt like I needed to learn. I couldn’t expect Riley to ditch his life and protect me for the rest of mine.
That thought brought me up short. So far, we had been moving in our plans hour by hour. How long could this continue? How long would Riley feel like sticking around to help me? I was floundering in this new transitional place, and he was the only solid thing in my life at the moment. How was it possible that in just a few short hours, this man had engrained himself into my life? I couldn’t process all of those thoughts yet because they didn’t make sense.
Just as he said, Riley opened the small bottle and peered into the liquid inside. Then he traced a line with his finger along the ridge at the edge of the fireplace. Then he dabbed the liquid on his finger and retraced the line. He mumbled something that I didn’t understand. I gaped as he pricked the same finger with his knife and then traced the boundary line again with several drops of his blood.
“I hope that comes out. I’m not sure how I’m going to explain that one to Christopher,” I blurted.
Riley’s shoulders seemed to sag for a moment before he stood up, catching me off guard. His hands caught mine just as I started to fall backwards. He brought me back to my feet and didn’t release his grip until he knew that I was steady.
“I swear I’m not this clumsy usually,” I murmured.
“It’s fine. There are worse things than helping a pretty lady keep her footing.”
I hated feeling the tension between us, and I knew it was all my fault. At least he called me pretty.
“I’m sorry about Christopher, and it wasn’t my intention to put us in harm’s way more than we already are. He’s been really good to me, Riley. It just felt wrong to disappear with no explanation at all. That would hurt him, and I didn’t want that.”
“This guy is pretty important to you.” Although it was a statement, I sensed there was a question there too. I wanted to smack myself across the forehead. Although trying to appear thoroughly disinterested in the answer, Riley was asking if Christopher and I were involved that way.
I couldn’t make him understand about Christopher without explaining what happened to me. Knowing that I might have already compromised our position, I needed to let Riley into my life a little bit further.
“I need to tell you something that may or may not be important to all of this,” I said. “Can we sit down and talk?”
Riley still hadn’t let go of my hands. He sat down gingerly on the edge of the sofa and pulled me down next to him. “I’m intrigued.”
There was something about him that drew me in and made me want to trust him. He risked his life to save me. That had to have earned him something from me, and what I was willing to offer was my story. The real one that only Christopher knew.
“So I told you that before I came to Calamata Island, I was at Park Ridge General Hospital.”
“Yes,” Riley said. He settled back against the couch cushions. I looked down at our joined hands and thought about how his huge hands completely engulfed mine. He squeezed them, as if encouraging me to continue.
I took a deep breath, and then plunged in. “I don’t know where I came from before that. Three years ago, in June, I woke up in one of the hospital beds there and was diagnosed with amnesia.”
The only surprise that Riley registered at my admission was a tightening of the shoulders and a slight widening of the eyes. I was impressed that he didn’t start asking questions right away. He always seemed to have one.
“They found me floating unconscious, practically dead, in the bay. I had been struck by something, and it basically cracked my skull.” I disentangled my hands from his then, feeling sad at breaking that physical connection. I lifted my hair up so that he could see the scar. “Fifty-two stitches. The doctors said that it was likely only because the temperature of the water was so cold that I survived. If the fisherman had found me even ten minutes later, I wouldn’t have made it.”
I started to lower my hair, but he stopped me. His fingertips grazed across my scalp tracing the scar. The touch felt intimate in a way that I couldn’t remember ever experiencing in the short memory of my life.
“You’re a survivor,” he said softly.
“I was in a coma for three weeks before I woke up. I had no identification on me, and no memory of my name or where I came from. No one ever came looking for me, even after my story was on the news. The doctors kept saying that my memory would eventually come back, but obviously after three years, it still hasn’t.”
“But you knew your name was Paige?”
I shook my head. “I got tired of being called ‘Jane Doe.’ One of the nurses brought a baby name book up from the nursery, and I thumbed through it hoping one of the names would jump out at me. When that didn’t work, I just picked one. Once I had a name, then it felt as if I should start over. I didn’t know how long the amnesia would last, and I couldn’t sit in the hospital for the rest of my life. I can’t even describe to you how overwhelming and frightening it is to realize that you are totally lost and alone.”
“You really have no idea who you are or what happened to you? Even now?”
“None. The reason that I feel like I owe so much to Christopher is because he took a chance on me. He is a good man. He gave me a job and a place to call home. I’ve been able to build some semblance of a normal life again because of what he’s done for me.”
“I see.” Riley’s tone was cautious and measured.
“For the first six months or so, I clung to him. But when I took the first steps out into the world, I realized that I could never feel about him the way that it was obvious he had started to feel about me. Luckily, that didn’t ruin our friendship because otherwise I think I would have lost my mind.” I let out a shallow breath. “I owe him a lot, and I love him. Not in a romantic way, but he is my family.”
Riley nodded. “I understand, Paige. I do.”
“Thank you,” I said. “For a long time I wished I could remember my life before the accident. I’ve had nightmares on and off since I woke up from the coma. I think they are about the accident. The images are all really fuzzy and I can’t make anything out in them, but I feel like there’s something in them that I’m running from. That’s when I don’t want to remember.”
Riley was silent for what seemed like an eternity. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
“That demons had something to do with my accident.” Saying it out loud made it sound even scarier than thinking it in my head. “But if that was the case, why wait all this time to come after me? It’s been three years. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Riley pushed himself up to face me, and our knees touched. He reached across the short distance between us and placed his hand on the side of my head where my scar was hidden by my hair.
“That’s not so hard to figure out. They thought you were dead.”
A knot of fear formed in my stomach. “What could they possibly want from me?”
Riley dropped his hand and then stood up as he rubbed his face. “That’s the million dollar question, Paige. And now that I know about your amnesia, I’m afraid that you’re in an even worse position than I thought.”
“What do you mean? How could it possibly be worse?”
Riley started to pace the small room. “I have contacts in the demon circles who are fairly reasonable. I know the names of the demons who have been looking for you, and luckily, the ones I know sit in different…political camps if you will. Intelligence is an even more powerful currency than money. I thought that we might be able to bargain for your protection.”
There was little about his plan that I liked at all, and I said as much.
“It doesn’t matter because as long as your past is locked up inside your head, that puts you in the precarious position of potentially being
less of a threat dead than alive. You can’t bargain with information you don’t have.”
“We need a better plan then,” I said. He was right. I was a survivor, and I’d be damned if I let my life end like this.
CHAPTER TWELVE - RILEY
I needed time to think. I was glad that Paige told me her story, but I was pissed at the same time. Every time I thought I had a way to extricate myself from the situation, there was yet another complication that made me all the more concerned for the woman I just met.
She’d been sitting on the couch staring at the fireplace for more than ten minutes while I paced the small room trying to wrack my brain for a plan. I was starting to recognize what the set of her jaw meant. She was digging in, and that would make almost anything I suggested that much more difficult. Demon business was nasty business, even when working with the ones that I tolerated.
“I need some air,” I said. “Why don’t you try to get some rest?”
“I feel like I’ve been asleep for nineteen years,” she replied.
“The medicine that I gave you requires a lot of your own strength and stamina to do what it needs to do to heal you. If you aren’t feeling it already, it’s going to feel like you got hit by a ton of bricks soon enough. I’ll be just outside. You’re safe.”
Paige turned her face away from me. “I’m fine, Riley. I’ve managed to survive one near death experience and the last three years without you. I’m sure I can manage being alone in the cabin for ten minutes.”
I didn’t blame her for being mad at me. She had taken in a lot, and it was natural for her to lash out. But I needed her rested and alert. I wasn’t done with my questions. In fact, I was just getting started. If there was one thing I was good at, it was ferreting out information that other people didn’t consider relevant, but was often more important than they realized. The first thing I needed to do was figure out who Paige was, and that was where my network should come in handy.