There it was again, the swirling, nauseous panic, the blur of green. Screams, echoing. She swallowed hard and fought it down. “I…don’t remember,” she faltered. “My mother insists that we weren’t there.”
“I see.” He tapped his pen against the desktop, a rapid tattoo. “Your uncle, does he know you’re asking around about Peter?”
She shook her head.
Haley shrugged. “Be a hell of a lot better for you if he never found out, if you ask me.”
“I know that,” she said stiffly.
“You watch your back, miss. People who take too much of an interest in Victor Lazar’s business have a bad habit of dying young. And being closely related to him isn’t much of a safeguard. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” she repeated softly.
The grim silence that followed signaled a close to the conversation. A faraway, mechanical part of her brain dealt with the business of shaking hands and thanking Bill Haley for his time. The same part kept her from walking into the people in the corridor outside.
She finally had something concrete to corroborate her dreams. That was progress. But if trained agents of the federal government, with all their experience and all their vast resources had thrown up their hands in defeat, what could she possibly hope to accomplish?
Raine bumped into someone, and veered away, mumbling an apology. She had to keep on as she was. Infiltrating. At least she wasn’t crazy or delusional. She was on the track of something horribly real, no matter how elusive. That was something to cling to. A man was turning to stare at her as she walked past. She shot him a brief glance, just long enough to register information without seeming interested. A split second after she looked away, her stomach began to roll.
There was no reason for it. She’d never seen him before. She reviewed everything she had caught in the swift, photographic glance. Tall, protruding belly. Thinning dark hair, clean-shaven, bifocals. Nothing particular about him, other than his expression. Not one of masculine appreciation. He’d looked horrified.
She turned to look again. He was striding down the hall away from her, very fast. Almost running. Ducking into a doorway, the same one she had just exited. Bill Haley’s office.
She turned around and kept walking, shivering with the rising panic. It was like a whirlpool inside her, a sick, out of control feeling. The green blur, the screaming. This was senseless. Why was she having a panic attack after catching a glimpse of an innocuous middle-aged man? Maybe she really was going nuts.
The best option was the simplest and most direct one, she told herself. She could go back to Haley’s office, knock, and ask the man if they knew each other from somewhere. Either they would or they wouldn’t. Raine turned, and took a slow, reluctant step in that direction.
There was a loud snap. She felt a stabbing pain in her hand. She pulled it out of her coat pocket. She’d been clutching the frog glasses so tightly that one of the earpieces had broken off. The metal joint had dug into her palm, hard enough to draw blood.
Trust your instincts, Victor had said. With trust, they grow stronger. She shoved the glasses back in her pocket and hurried towards the stairwell. As soon as her legs got moving, it was all she could do not to draw attention to herself by breaking into a dead run.
Chapter 15
“Ah. There you are. Harriet told me you were absent for a doctor’s appointment. I trust you’re feeling better?”
Raine looked up from the cell phone into which she was trying to punch a message to Seth. She slipped it into her pocket, message uncompleted, and forced herself to return Victor’s solicitous smile.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she assured him.
“My personal physician would be happy to see you at any time.”
“No, really, I’m quite all right,” she repeated.
“So glad to hear it. I trust you’re fit enough to go out to Stone Island this afternoon, then. I need your help on an urgent project.”
She heard Seth’s reaction in her mind, and winced inwardly at the thought. “I—ah, well, on such short notice, I really—”
“Don’t worry about packing. Everything will be provided. The car is waiting to take you to the marina. I will join you at the island after I take care of a few small items of business. Be brisk, please. There’s a great deal to be done.” He strode away without waiting for a response.
She stared at his retreating back, dismayed. Harriet sashayed over to her desk and leaned down with a big fake smile. “Don’t worry,” she hissed. “Everything will be provided.”
Raine lifted her chin and glared right back, sick to death of the pointless, toxic hostility of that place. “Don’t you get tired of being such a cast-iron bitch, Harriet?” she demanded. “Doesn’t it wear you out?”
Her voice carried farther than she’d intended. Shocked silence spread out, like the electromagnetic pulse of a hydrogen bomb. Not a piece of paper moved. Even the phones stopped ringing. The whole office waited for the sky to fall.
Harriet yanked Raine’s coat off the hook and flung it at her. “Your carriage awaits,” she spat out. “Get out of here. Don’t come back.”
It took the whole ride to the marina for her heart rate to slow down to normal. She calmed herself by fiddling with the cell phone, composing and sending a message to Seth. Going to Stone Island. No choice. Don’t worry. She added three little heart icons. Goofy little messages, that was what he said he wanted. Useless, too. Of course he would worry. She had to push that fact away and concentrate.
She was met at the dock, not by Clayborne, but by a stunning brunette with hazel eyes who introduced herself as Mara. They passed right by the main stairway that led to the second floor office, to Raine’s bewilderment. “But aren’t I—doesn’t Clayborne need me in the office?”
“Clayborne’s not here. None of the office staff are here.” Mara started up a spiral staircase, which led up to the tower bedroom that had once been her mother’s. Raine’s apprehension climbed a notch.
“Then why did Mr. Lazar tell me—”
“Ask him, not me.” Mara pushed open the bedroom door.
The room was brilliantly lit with a makeup mirror. A rack of plastic-covered clothes hung in front of the bed. Raine turned to Mara, bewildered. “But Victor told me he had a project he wanted—”
“You’re the project, honey,” said a thin, short-haired woman. She and the plump white-haired lady beside her rose to their feet, eyes narrowing as their professional instincts leaped to life. “Out of that horrible outfit, and into the shower, please. We’ve got to get your hair shampooed so I can blow the curls out.”
Raine shook her head. “But I—”
“Just do it,” Mara said flatly. “There’s a huge party tonight. You’ve got to look good, so let’s get on with it.”
“But—”
“You do have contact lenses with you, don’t you?” Mara asked.
“Ah, yes, I have them in my purse, but—”
“Thank God.” The white-haired woman rolled her eyes and began unraveling Raine’s braid.
There was no stopping them. They plucked, steamed and peeled, massaged and moisturized her. Her hair was washed, conditioned, rinsed, trimmed, dried, straightened. It seemed a waste of energy to resist. It was part of Stone Island’s spell. Part and parcel of the bizarre transformation she underwent, day by day.
Even the lingerie was provided. It was the most beautiful stuff she’d ever seen—midnight blue lace panties, lace-trimmed thigh-high stockings. She looked around for a bra, but Mara shook her head.
“Not with the dress you’ll be wearing. You won’t need one.”
“Me?” Raine looked nervously down at her bare chest, trying to imagine what kind of dress she could possibly wear braless, but there was no time to fret about it. She was plunked down in front of the big makeup mirror. Lydia, the short-haired woman, coiled her hair back into a smooth, intricately knotted chignon at the back of her head, while the plump woman, whose name was Moira, began with the ma
keup. She made approving little noises as she dabbed on cosmetics with a slow, delicate hand. She brushed Raine’s face with a translucent powder and stepped back with a triumphant smile. “Done.”
“Now the dress.” Mara rummaged through the things on the rack and pulled one out, tossing it on the bed. A long, voluminous skirt spilled out from the plastic wrapping, gleaming against the white lace coverlet. It was a deep, peacock blue taffeta, shot through with subtle rainbow tints. The garment was two pieces, the billowing skirt and a tight, boned corset top, strapless and scalloped at the neckline, angling down to a rounded V at the bottom. Raine finally understood the lack of a bra. The close-fitting bodice was a bustier in itself. It pushed her up, offering a daring expanse of her white chest, and lots of deep, shadowy cleavage. Lydia scowled as she fastened up the hooks. “You’re thinner than I was led to believe.”
“Sorry.” Raine almost laughed at her accusing tone. “I haven’t had time to eat lately.”
“If you don’t eat, you’ll lose your looks,” Lydia scolded, threading her needle. “Hold still while I fix this.”
They twitched and tucked, stitched and tweaked, spritzed and sprayed. Finally they led her before the mirror on the armoire.
She tried not to gasp, but she was truly shocked at the way she looked. The color of the dress set off her skin, making it pearly and luminous. The makeup was subtle, but it brought her face into focus, accentuating her high cheekbones. Her straight brows were plucked into an elegant shape, opening up her face. Her eyes seemed huge. Even her big, full mouth, which she had always felt made her look childlike and vulnerable, looked different. Sensual and curvy. She looked glittery, luminous. Almost…beautiful.
She had never considered herself beautiful. Pretty, maybe, in a washed-out sort of way, but beauty was Alix’s undisputed territory and Raine had sensed from an early age that it would be dangerous to encroach on it.
The knowledge that she was beautiful gave her no pleasure, however. It was a possible advantage, maybe even a weapon, if she had the stomach to use it. Alix had used hers. Often, and without mercy.
The thought chilled her. Beauty did not make her feel powerful. At least, not here. On the contrary, she felt even more vulnerable in the sensual, beautiful gown. Victor was playing with her.
The dress was the color of the last light of evening in a clear sky. It reminded her of an illustrated volume of fairy tales she’d read as a child. Bluebeard’s bride had worn a dress like this one, except for the addition of puffed leg-of-mutton sleeves. The same peacock color had clothed her on her voyage of horror and discovery through her new husband’s grim, bloodstained castle.
She shuddered. Mara misinterpreted it and reached behind her.
“There’s a wrap, if you’re cold,” she said. She draped a stole of the same peacock taffeta across Raine’s shoulders. Rainbow highlights shifted, shimmered. Raine dragged her gaze away from the mirror and looked at the expectant faces of the three women. She manufactured a smile. “Thank you. You’re all very talented. I look wonderful.”
“Come with me now,” Mara said briskly. “Mr. Lazar said to bring you to the library when you were ready.”
She followed Mara through the corridor. The taffeta skirt billowed around her, brushing sensually against the floor. Cool drafts sighed across her bare shoulders and exposed neck, making the stole float behind her like fairy wings. Mara opened the door to the library, gave her a brief nod of farewell, and melted away into shadow.
Raine wafted across the crimson carpet. The library was lit only by a stained glass hanging lamp that illuminated the photographs on the shelf below and the portrait of Raine’s grandmother from above. She stood in the center of the roiling serpentine pattern of the Persian carpet, swathed in an enormous, dreamlike silence.
She stared up at the portrait. Her grandmother’s painted image seemed to stare down, her pale gray eyes gleaming with subtle amusement. Raine realized that she had the same eyes and brows. The brows were slightly different, now that Moira and Lydia had plucked and tamed them, but the basic effect was the same.
She wished she had called Seth, but the cell phone was still in her purse in the tower room. She had no evening bag to match the dress to carry it in. She’d been so afraid of Seth’s reaction, but now, dressed up and led here like a virgin sacrifice, his anger seemed the least of her worries. She stared at her reflection in the window. Darkness had fallen, and the skin of her exposed throat and shoulders looked shockingly pale in the dim room. Trapped in this spooky dream world, the thought of Seth was a lifeline to reality.
Currents of air whispered across her shoulders. She sensed the library door opening, though it made no sound. Her senses had dilated, like eyes opening. There would be no more jumping and squealing in surprise. She knew exactly who had just come in the door.
She stood in the center of the blood-red vortex of the carpet’s strange pattern and waited quietly, staring at her grandmother’s image. Victor’s reflection moved closer. He placed his hand on her shoulder for a moment, then removed it.
He gestured towards the portrait. “You’re very like her, you know.”
She let out a long, silent sigh. He knew who she was, he had always known; and the awareness of his knowledge had crept up upon her so gradually, it had no power to jolt or alarm her.
The world shifted and settled quietly, like a garment fluttering down around her. She turned to him. “Am I? People keep telling me I look exactly like my mother.”
Victor dismissed her mother with a casual flick of his hand. “Superficially,” he said. “Your complexion is like Alix’s, but your bone structure is much more pronounced and delicate. Your lips are fuller. And your eyes and eyebrows are pure Lazar. Look at her.”
They stared up at the portrait for several moments.
“You share more than just her name,” Victor said. “May I call you Katya? It would give me great pleasure.”
Her automatic desire to be accommodating and agreeable crashed up against this new, solid woman planted in the center of a red vortex. The new woman won the struggle with surprising ease. “I would prefer to be called Raine,” she said. “My life is chaotic. I wish to maintain as many lines of continuity as possible. Otherwise I’ll lose myself.”
Displeasure flickered in his eyes. “That disappoints me. I had hoped that your grandmother’s name would be carried into the future.”
Raine held her ground. “We can’t always get what we want.”
Victor’s mouth twitched. “Now that, my dear, is God’s own truth.” He offered her his arm. “Come. It won’t be long before our guests arrive.”
“Guests?” She lifted her chin, and did not take his proffered arm.
His smile radiated warmth and approval. “I take too much for granted, eh? Since we had not formally established your status as my beloved, long-lost niece, I could not discuss my plans with you. It is a relief, no? To finally be who you are?”
“Yes,” she said, meaning it with all her heart. “And your guests?”
“Ah. My guests. It is just a gathering of friends and business associates for dinner. The original idea was to host a simple meeting of my collectors club, for dinner and drinks, and a showing of some recent odd acquisitions of mine. I am a collector of art and antiquities, you see. But once you arrived, the idea of the party became more grandiose.”
“I see,” she murmured, still baffled. “But why all this? The dress, the hair. Why do you want me at your dinner party?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Victor smiled, and brushed his knuckles across her cheek, a light, glancing touch. “Vanity, I suppose. I’m a childless man. I can’t resist the opportunity to present a beautiful, cultured, intriguing young woman to my friends and associates as my niece. Think of it as your debut.”
She stared at him.
“I know it’s foolish,” he said with a shrug. “But I am growing older. One must seize these opportunities while one c
an.”
She swallowed over the lump that was growing in her throat. “How long have you known about me?”
Her heart twisted at how similar his smile was to her father’s. The high cheekbones, the deep smile lines, the sharp, sculptured cut of his jaw. “I’ve known where you were since the day your mother took you from this place. I never lost you for so much as a day.”
She could barely breathe. “All that running,” she whispered. “All those fake identities. All for nothing.”
“Alix always did have a tendency to overdramatize. It was my responsibility to keep an eye on you, as I did not trust Alix to do so. She is…well, self-absorbed would be a charitable way to put it.”
Raine winced at the casual contempt that Victor’s tone revealed.
He went on. “I set up red flags in the Lazar Import & Export computer system to alert me if anyone using any of your aliases ever made a move to contact me. Imagine my pleasure when I logged on one morning and saw the automatic message in my inbox. Raine Cameron had sent her résumé to my personnel department. How fascinating.”
“I suppose you wondered why I didn’t just contact you directly,” she said cautiously.
“Lazars tend to be subtle and devious,” he said with a winsome smile. “It’s a family trait. Naturally, I assumed that you wished to learn more about the events of that terrible summer when Peter died.”
Her stomach clenched. Victor’s smiling face revealed absolutely nothing. “You’re not angry?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. It’s a tribute to my brother that you care enough to look for the truth. I’m proud that my only niece is courageous and enterprising.”
Her mouth was so dry it was sealed closed. She stared at his smile, probing with all her senses for the trap that had to be hidden beneath his gentle, approving words.
Behind Closed Doors (The Mccloud Series Book 1) Page 24