CHAPTER 35
She felt as if she hadn’t slept more than five
minutes at a stretch. Thoughts of Justice, her sisters, and
Harrison filled her head most of the night. She listened to him
softly snoring not three feet from the edge of the couch and
wondered what it would be like to make love to him every night, to
feel his arms surrounding her, keeping her safe, and then to wake
up the next morning, his body warm, his eyes sleepy, his smile so
crookedly irreverent, they would make love all over
again.
Silly fantasies,
she told herself and rolled off the couch to sneak into the
bathroom, where she flipped on the light and caught a glimpse of
her reflection in the mirror. She was pale, her hair a mess, and
her lack of sleep was evident in the dark smudges beneath her
eyes.
Not exactly a sexy
seductress.
She felt a twinge in her abdomen and
frowned, then used the toilet, feeling slightly better before
returning to the living area.
The rooms weren’t completely dark. The
sun was rising, dawn slipping through the windows, gray light
seeping inside.
Harrison wasn’t on the
floor.
His bedding was mussed, but he was
missing.
She felt a breath of cool air and
noticed the sliding door was open a crack. Harrison, barefoot and
shirtless, wearing only low-slung jeans, was outside on the patio,
on his cell phone. His hair was at all angles, and it wasn’t helped
by the fact that he was raking the fingers of his free hand through
it as he spoke in low tones.
He was staring toward the west, his
back to the house’s open doorway. Laura watched for a moment,
noticing how his skin stretched taut over broad shoulder muscles,
then tapered over his back to disappear below the waistband of his
battered Levi’s.
She caught a glimpse of white, a strip
of flesh that hadn’t been tanned, and her stomach did a slow,
sensuous roll. She imagined running her finger down the cleft of
his spine, then pressing moist lips to the same path. . .
.
Stop
it!
He cocked his head into the phone and
muttered something under his breath as she stepped through the
doorway.
“Okay. That’s it then,” he said and
turned, catching her in his gaze before he hung up. For just an
instant, his expression remained dark and guarded. Sexy as all get
out, his chest bare, dark hair visible over the rock-hard muscles,
his abdomen a washboard, the top button of his fly left
open.
So damned male.
As if he read her mind, he grinned, his
teeth a slash of white in his beard-darkened jaw.
“Important call?” she asked, the back
of her throat dry as the Sahara.
“Umm. Making sure the follow-up story
on the bandits made it in.”
“And . . . ?”
“We’re golden.” He slid the cell into
his pocket. “And why are you up at the crack?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Too much on my
mind.”
He cocked a dark brow. “I could make
coffee . . . or . . .” His eyes glittered in the
half-light.
“Or?”
To her surprise, he slid his arms
around her waist, the T-shirt bunching, and he rested his forehead
against hers. “Well . . . it’s still early. We could go back to
bed.”
“Back to the couch and the floor,” she
reminded him, and he snorted a little laugh, his breath warm
against her face.
“Not the best situation.” The tip of
his nose touched hers.
“And then there’s Didi and Kirsten,”
she said a bit breathlessly. “They’ll be getting up
soon.”
“I can be incredibly
quick.”
She smiled. “That’s just what a woman
wants to hear.”
“Foreplay is so overrated,” he said but
chuckled deep in his throat, and his hands slid up her bare arms,
silently telling her he was kidding, that their lovemaking could
last for hours.
Her blood was running hot.
And then he really kissed her, gathered
her closer still and pressed his lips to hers. They were warm and
supple, promised sensual pleasures that made her head spin with
images of wet skin, and hot desire. She thought of where he would
touch her and how she would return the favor.
Closing her eyes, she let herself go
and leaned closer, felt the length of his body against hers, the
heat from his torso permeating the thin cotton of her
T-shirt.
Don’t do this,
her mind warned. This is dangerous, Laura. You know
that you’re already treading in emotional and perilous
waters.
But she couldn’t stop and let herself
get lost in the feel of him. His male scent filled her nostrils.
One hand twined in her hair; the other pulled her tight to
him.
She responded, opening her mouth,
feeling his tongue slide deftly between her lips. Her breasts
tightened, her nipples stiffening, desire pulsing deep
inside.
“Lorelei,” he whispered, and she
groaned softly, felt her knees weakening.
Before she could say a word, he’d
scooped her up and carried her through the open door.
“Mommy?”
Didi’s voice was like a splash of cold
water.
Harrison froze.
Laura scrambled onto her feet,
straightened her T-shirt, and turned to the kitchen, where she
grabbed the coffeepot and switched on the water just as the sound
of tiny feet hit the floor.
Three seconds later Didi appeared,
dragging her blanket. Chico was on her heels. He glanced up at
Harrison, then made a funny, snarling face before streaking
outside.
“Hey, kiddo,” Harrison said and scooped
her into his arms. “Got a kiss for your favorite
uncle?”
“No!” she said, scowling at him, but he
blew a horse kiss on her arm, and she began to giggle, her bad mood
disappearing.
“What gives?” Kirsten stumbled out of
her bedroom and glanced at the kitchen clock. “It’s only six,” she
groaned.
Harrison said, “I thought people who
worked in a bakery were up at two in the morning.”
“Old school,” she mumbled, yawning and
stretching one arm over her head. “Coffee on?”
“Just about.” Laura, sensing that her
cheeks were hot, turned toward the cupboards and poured the carafe
of water into the coffeemaker. Kirsten was already digging in a
cupboard near the stove. She came up with a filter, lined the
basket, then found beans and measured some into a grinder on the
counter. With a press of a button the grinder shrieked into action.
She poured the ground beans into the coffee machine, hit a button,
and in less than a minute coffee began to drizzle into the glass
pot.
“Now we’re cooking,” she said, then
plucked her daughter from Harrison’s arms. The aroma of freshly
brewed coffee filled the room as Chico returned and Kirsten closed
the door behind him. “So what about you?” she said to her daughter.
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“Pancakes!” Didi said
brightly.
“Big surprise. Get dressed and I’ll
make a batch.” She glanced at her brother, then swung her gaze to
Laura. “For all of us.”
Didi was off like a shot, and with a
nostalgic smile twisting her lips, Kirsten said, “Oh, to have her
energy,” slanting Harrison a knowing look. “And your damned
passion.”
Laura flushed, but Kirsten waved off
any protests and warned her, “Just be careful.” She found three
cups in the cupboard and set them on the counter, near the slowly
filling carafe. “My brother is a helluva guy who has this problem
thinking he has to protect everyone close to him.”
“That’s a problem?” Harrison
said.
“That you don’t know it, that’s a
problem,” Kirsten said.
Savvy Dunbar drove past the motel that
Madeline Turnbull had called home before Justice’s vicious attack
on her that had sent her to the nursing home. The place was a
shambles, individual cabins falling in on themselves, porches
sagging, the fence barely existent on this cliff overlooking the
sea. The land had to be worth a fortune; the dilapidated buildings
were not worth a plug nickel.
She pulled into the once-gravel drive.
Now weeds and beach grass choked the rutted lanes, and her squad
car bounced and jostled through the potholes. No other police
cruisers were nearby; there was only so much surveillance possible
on the department’s limited budget. Twenty-four/ seven just wasn’t
in the cards.
After checking the grounds and peering
into the few windows that weren’t boarded over, she drove along the
highway to a turnout where she could spy the lighthouse where
Justice had squatted before his incarceration. It had been
abandoned for years, aside from harboring the killer a few years
back. Now, from the shore, it appeared empty again, a lonely,
graying tower on a rocky island in a white-capped sea, a solitary
reminder of an earlier era that brought up thoughts of clipper
ships and wrecks upon the rocky shoals.
“Where are you, you miserable son of a
bitch?” she said as the wind, fresh with the scent of the ocean,
caught her hair and slapped at her face.
She was tired, as was everyone working
for the TCSD these days. With their increased workload, the
officers were running on empty.
And still Justice Turnbull ran
free.
Somehow, someway, she and the
department had to catch him.
Before he started killing
again.
The sun was climbing high overhead when
Laura finally stood at the gate of Siren Song. Her heart was
pounding, her nerves stretched tight. Harrison was leaning against
his car, eyeing the grounds beyond the wrought-iron
barrier.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked and
she forced a smile.
“I’m not sure about anything,” she
admitted. I wasn’t even sure about spending last
night at your sister’s house, with you staring at me from the floor
. . . and then that kiss . . .
She cleared her throat, dragged her
gaze from his. “But this is where it all started,” she explained.
She’d decided she couldn’t let Justice rule her life. For most of
the past week, she’d been dodging him, fearing him, calling him,
then running away.
No longer.
She couldn’t stand being terrorized,
and it wasn’t fair to everyone inside these gates. After breakfast,
she’d asked Harrison to drive her here. He hadn’t argued, only
insisted that they stop and assess the damage to her house before
they drove to Siren Song.
Neither of them had mentioned their
kiss and what might have happened if Didi hadn’t come bouncing in
from the bedroom. Laura figured it was just as well. She wasn’t
going to pretend the kiss and her response to Harrison hadn’t
happened; she just didn’t want to think about it too
much.
For now.
At her little cottage, he’d come up
with the name of a glass company that would drop by later to
replace the shattered window. He figured he could replace the lock
on the door himself. Laura had left a message for her landlord on
his voice mail; then they’d driven the remaining miles to the
lodge, and now she stood on the outside of the gate, wondering what
answers lay on the other.
“I guess it’s now or never,” she
said.
Since there was no bell to call the
inhabitants, she wrapped her fingers around the thick wrought-iron
bars and jangled the gate and chain, while calling, “Catherine!
Catherine!”
Before the words were out of her mouth,
Isadora appeared at the front door. Long skirts rustling, she
racewalked across the porch and quickly along the stone path to the
gate. “Lorelei,” she whispered, clearly distraught as she unlocked
the chain and yanked hard on the bars. With a groan the gate
opened, and she flung herself into Laura’s surprised arms. “We
heard what happened,” Isadora said, her throat obviously thick. “I
was so worried . . . so . . . oh, dear God.” She was shaking under
the canopy of trees, light from a pale sun piercing the leaves to
dapple the ground.
The ground was still damp, smelled of
earth and water, and the scent of the sea wafted through the old
growth that surrounded the lodge.
“I’m fine,” Laura said. “Really,
Isadora, don’t worry.”
“I can’t help it. He’s a madman!” As if
realizing they weren’t alone, Isadora looked over Laura’s shoulder
to spy Harrison standing near his car. “Oh . . .
sorry.”
“Harrison’s trying to
help.”
Isadora shook her head. “No one can.”
Her suspicious gaze cut to Harrison as he walked forward and
extended his hand to her. “Harrison Frost.”
Isadora reluctantly took his fingers in
her own. “You’re the reporter.”
“Yes.”
“But more than that,” Isadora said
aloud as she let her hand drop and her pale eyebrows slammed
together thoughtfully. “He’s the one Cassandra talked about. The
truth seek . . . ?” she started to ask before seeing the warning
glance in Laura’s eyes and let her voice fade. Isadora had been in
the room when Cassandra had made the prediction. She’d also heard
about the pregnancy, and Laura fervently willed her sister to be
quiet.
“I need to see Catherine,” Laura
insisted and was vaguely aware of the sound of tires crunching on
the sparse gravel of the lane, the sound of a smooth
engine.
Isadora looked up and cried, “Justice .
. . !”
Harrison and Laura both stiffened,
staring down the drive.
“Come inside,” Isadora instructed.
“Hurry!” To Harrison, “You, too!” She was already stepping through
the open gate, intent on slamming it shut, when the nose of a Jeep
appeared through the trees and Laura saw a tall man behind the
wheel, a man with dark hair and a grim expression, the shadow of a
beard darkening his strong jaw.
Not Justice.
A woman sat in the passenger seat. She,
too, appeared worried, and before the Jeep slammed to a stop and
she climbed out, Laura knew who she was. This woman was related to
her, her sister. Fascinated, she noted the newcomer’s large hazel
eyes. Streaked blond hair. Firm, pointed chin. And that certain,
indefinable resemblance in her carriage.
The gate was creaking shut when Isadora
suddenly stopped the motion. “Becca?” Isadora whispered, her eyes
rounding as Catherine walked from the open door onto the
porch.
“Isadora?” Catherine called out to
them.
“Who’s Becca?” Harrison
asked.
“One of my sisters,” Laura said as the
man behind the wheel climbed out and rounded the Jeep. She’d never
met Becca before, but she knew she was her sister. She’d read about
Becca Sutcliff and Hudson Walker a couple of years earlier, during
Justice’s last bloody rampage.
Becca, who had been adopted away from
Siren Song before Catherine had closed the gates forever, had never
lived at the Colony, nor had Catherine ever spoken of her, but the
sisters had whispered between themselves about those who had grown
up on “the outside.” Even though Becca had been adopted, Justice
had discovered her and she’d been the object of his deadly rage
once already.
Now, as sunlight pierced the towering
fir trees, Becca lifted a hand and flashed an uneasy smile, her
hazel eyes worried. The man with her, presumably Hudson Walker,
opened the back door of the Jeep, and Becca reached inside only to
retrieve a curly-headed girl of about two who had been strapped
into her car seat.
He smells them when
they’re pregnant.
Justice’s terrifying claim sizzled
through Laura’s head, and she felt a new, chilling fear. Had Becca
been pregnant with this little dark-haired girl when Justice had
been tracking her down? Was that why she’d been his primary
target?
Laura’s blood turned to ice as she
looked at the toddler. Pale. Wan. Listless. Oh, God . .
.
Becca gathered the child in her arms,
but her gaze found Laura’s and she stopped dead in her tracks.
“You’re Lorelei,” she guessed. “You’re the one he’s
after.”
“You know?”
She hesitated, seemed to want to lie,
then finally nodded. “I have visions,” she admitted carefully. “I
saw him chasing you . . . Lorelei. . . .”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Harrison asked her.
“We all have ‘gifts,’ ” Becca said.
“Didn’t Lorelei tell you?”
“Well . . . yeah, but . . .” He looked
nonplussed.
“She’s not the only one.” Becca was
walking forward again.
“Isadora!” Catherine yelled. Spying the
group gathered at the gate, her back stiffened and her face lost
all color. “Oh, Lord!” Holding her skirts high, she stepped off the
porch and marched purposely toward them, her linen-colored dress
rustling, her hair pulled back in a silver knot pinned at her nape.
“What is this?” Anxiety twisted her features.
Laura sneaked a peek at the house and
saw the faces of her sisters in the window—Ravinia and Cassandra.
Lillibeth had wheeled her chair onto the porch, her face turned
toward the gate.
A prisoner.
Of the chair.
Of Siren Song.
Of fate.
Catherine came blistering through the
gate. “What’re you doing here?” she demanded, her face a mask of
concern as she glared at Becca. “Don’t you know he’s loose again?
Haven’t I warned you that you can’t come here? That it’s not
safe?”
“We couldn’t wait.” Holding her
daughter protectively, she glared at Catherine.
“It’s more dangerous now than ever,”
Catherine declared.
Becca was shaking her head. “You’ve
stopped me long enough. I don’t care about your secrets.” Catherine
tried to say something but Becca wasn’t finished. “Too many have
died already, Catherine. Too many of us, too many others. This has
got to stop!” She was shaking, fighting tears. “And now . . . and
now Rachel,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut as the child stirred
in her arms.
Catherine glanced at the little girl
and her face softened.
“I know you want to protect us but it
hasn’t worked!” Becca visibly gathered herself, dispelling her
tears and glaring at the older woman. “I’ve been here time and time
again, trying to get answers, and you’ve shut me down. Sent me
away!” Her voice was rising with injustice. “And now . . . now my
daughter is threatened again.” Clinging to her child, she
whispered, “Let me in, Catherine. We need to talk. We all need to talk.”
“I don’t think—”
“Now!” the man with Becca said, his
eyes flashing blue fire as he stepped forward. From over six feet
he stared down at her, and he, too, was racked with emotion, pain
in his eyes.
Catherine hesitated, then glanced again
at the sluggish child. “Fine,” she said to Becca. “But no men.
Bring your child with you. Just hurry up.” She glanced at Laura.
“You, too.” Standing in the path of the men, she ordered, “Stay
here. This is between us,” then she and Isadora guided Laura and
Becca and Rachel inside Siren Song’s grounds with the others,
closing the gate behind them.
“Bullshit!” Harrison said, trying to
shove himself forward, but Hudson placed a staying hand on the
crook of his elbow. “I’m not leaving Laura to—”
“Let it go,” Hudson said.
“The hell with that.”
“We’ll be right here,” Hudson called
after Catherine. His lips were a thin blade. “If there’s trouble,
we’ll warn you.”
“What the hell is this?” Harrison
demanded of Hudson.
“Let’s just see if they can help my
daughter,” he said. “I don’t have any problem waiting at the gate
in case that sick bastard should show up.”
Catherine gave a curt nod to Hudson and
seemed suddenly ten years older than her years. Becca, holding
Rachel close, walked briskly up the path, and Laura wondered how
desperate she was to bring her child here, knowing that Justice was
nearby. Waiting. Lurking. Breathing death for every one of
them.
Sliding her key into the hidden pocket
in her skirts, Catherine shepherded them along the path, keeping
one eye on the gate, as if she expected to see Satan and his
legions marching up the drive.
Once inside the house, introductions
were made quickly. Becca met her sisters as if for the first time.
She explained that the man who was with her was, indeed, her
husband, Hudson Walker. The women who greeted her offered up their
names: Isadora, Cassandra, Ravinia, Ophelia, and Lillibeth, all
blond or ash brown, all blue-eyed, all curious. There were still
others, too, and some like Laura and Becca, who hadn’t spent all
their lives here; some dead, some missing, but all ghosts who
seemed to be a part of these old timbers.
This time Catherine didn’t shoo the
younger girls upstairs but led the visitors into the large
gathering room off the front hall, opposite the dining room and
dominated by a stone fireplace that rose two full stories to the
gallery above. A fire was banked, the smell of smoldering ashes
heavy in the air. The furniture was old, a hodgepodge of pieces
gathered over the last hundred years. Everything from Victorian
settees to sleek midcentury sofas.
Catherine closed the heavy drapes and
waved them into the ancient chairs and sofas that were spread
around the room. She turned on a few lamps, old Tiffany style,
which gave off muted, colored light, then stood near the grate.
Lillibeth hung near the doorway, and Ophelia, whom Laura hadn’t
seen the last time she was here, took a seat on the hearth. Her
eyes were round with fear, and she rubbed her arms constantly, as
if chilled from the inside out.
Catherine’s gaze fell upon the girl in
Becca’s arms. Rachel’s hair was darker than her mother’s, but her
eyes were a deep green, her skin white as porcelain. Her expression
softened. “You’re concerned because Rachel is fussy and feverish,”
she guessed, “though there is no medical explanation for her
condition.”
Becca nodded, surprised and encouraged.
“Everything was fine for the first fifteen months of her life and
then . . . then things changed. Now she can’t sleep at night. I
find her staring off into space during the day. She . . . is warm
to the touch. . . .” Gently she brushed a strand of Rachel’s hair
off her chubby cheek.
“But you suspect that she might be like
you. Or one of your sisters,” Catherine whispered, and Becca, tears
forming in her eyes, nodded again.
“Yes.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“I just want my daughter to be safe and
happy,” Becca said. “It would be difficult if she were different.
I’m not sure Hudson would understand, but more than that, I just
want to know, I mean we both want to know, that she’s all
right.”
“Of course she is,” Catherine said, her
voice strangely soft. “She has the gift, that’s all.” She smiled
with a bit of melancholy. “She’ll be fine.”
“I need to know more,” Becca urged as,
cradling Rachel, she lowered herself onto a worn claw-footed settee
that looked as if it was nearly a hundred years old. “You’ve tried
so hard to keep the secrets here, but now . . . because of Rachel,
I have to know everything.”
“It’s best that you
don’t.”
“I have questions and she will,
too.”
Catherine sighed.
“I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid,
he’ll find her.” Becca’s voice broke and
Laura felt a pang of guilt. “I need to know what happened to my
mother. How did Mary die? And I don’t even know my father’s name.”
Becca glanced at the women who were her sisters, and all of them,
including Laura, turned to Catherine, hoping for
answers.
“Harrison . . . he’s the man outside,
read the history that apparently a man named Herman Smythe wrote,”
Laura said.
“So did I.” Becca was nodding. “But
there’s so much that isn’t in those pages.”
Catherine restlessly walked to the
windows, parted the draperies, and looked through the glass. “I’ve
dreaded this day. I’ve only kept the secrets here at Siren Song to
protect you, and I can’t explain everything. There isn’t enough
time, and I don’t even know all the truth. What I can tell you is
that you all have the same mother. My sister, Mary. You know this.
She . . . was . . . promiscuous.” Her lips tightened. “And perhaps
. . . not completely sane. I don’t know who your fathers were. I’m
sorry. Mary probably knew, but she didn’t love men. She used them.”
Catherine gazed through the slit in the draperies, but, Laura
guessed, she wasn’t seeing the grounds outside or the wall
surrounding the complex, but was staring at something in the middle
distance, something only she could envision . . . images from a
different past. “And not long after the youngest of you was born,
she died. Mary was walking out on the bluff, which she’d done
often. She took a misstep and fell onto a rocky ledge about twenty
feet down. The fall shouldn’t have killed her, but she struck her
head on an exposed root or rock. By the time we realized she wasn’t
returning, that she was missing, it was late, and dark. We found
her, but it was too late. She’d already passed.”
There was silence for a moment while
they absorbed this information. Then Becca said, “I couldn’t find
an obituary. Or a death certificate.”
“Because there were none. We buried her
in the family plot, here at Siren Song, with the previous
generations.”
Becca stated flatly, “I think that’s
illegal.”
Catherine shrugged. She was rarely
threatened by what was legal and what wasn’t in the outside world.
“You mustn’t keep digging into the past, looking for answers,
uprooting scandals.” She looked at Becca. “There’s no reason for
it. No good will come of it.”
Laura remembered Mary’s grave. She’d
seen it as a child, a moss-and lichen-covered, graying tombstone
marking the final resting place of the woman who had borne her, a
woman she barely remembered.
“I’d like to see the cemetery,” Becca
said, but Catherine closed the draperies tight and shook her
head.
“Right now we have to concentrate on
staying safe, making sure Justice is captured. I’ve known him since
he was a boy and probably realize better than any of his doctors
just how sick he is, how twisted.” She worried the draperies’ edge
with her fingers. “Rebecca, you and your daughter can stay here.
You, too, Lorelei. He’ll suspect you’re here, but this place is a
fortress.”
“Even the strongest fortress can be
breached,” Laura said. “And what do we do? Just wait? Hope the
authorities catch him?”
“What else?” Catherine asked, her gaze
finding Laura’s.
Laura shivered inside, wondering if
Catherine suspected that she not only had the ability to “hear”
Justice’s mental rantings, but that she could call to him as well,
taunt him, flush him out. “I don’t know.”
“I can’t just hide here,” Becca
argued.
“No one asked you to come, Becca. You
insisted,” Catherine reminded her.
“I had to come. Not just because of
Rachel, but . . . Justice and all of this. I’ve been having visions
again, and this time it’s Lorelei he’s after.” Becca regarded Laura
a bit guiltily. “And then I knew he’d attacked you and . . . I
should have come earlier.” She held her daughter closer. “I was
just so frightened for Rachel.”
“I’ll be all right,” Laura said. She
was already feeling pent-up, as if they were all huddled in a storm
cellar, waiting for a devastating twister to threaten them all. She
knew she couldn’t just sit here and wait.
Should she tell Catherine that she
could talk to Justice? That it was possible to goad him into some
kind of trap? Catherine and her sisters might believe her, whereas
the sheriff’s department wouldn’t.
She walked to the settee where Becca
was seated and placed a hand on Rachel’s forehead, which was a
little warm, perhaps, but smooth as silk. “I’m a nurse,” she said.
“If there’s anything I can do . . .”
Becca smiled. “Just tell me she’s going
to be all right.”
“Of course she is,” Laura said, though
they both knew, as long as Justice Turnbull was alive, it was a
lie.