she turned and headed in the opposite direction, to her stepfather’s office.
Coward.
Ignoring the voice in her head, she increased her pace. Plenty of time existed for her to see her childhood bedroom, she argued. She had no reason to try to force it all into one afternoon. When she was comfortable with the house, she’d go to the room.
Or when she was ready for the disappointment.
Sighing, she pushed open the last door in the hallway and reached inside for a light switch, hoping the power had been miraculously restored. No such luck. She stepped inside the room and flicked the switch up and down to no avail. It figured. First thing tomorrow, she’d ask Zach to look at the electrical problems, starting with this room.
The light from the balcony was the only source of illumination in the office. The lack of windows and cherrywood bookcases that lined every wall made it so dark it was impossible to see more than the dim outline of office furniture. She cursed under her breath at her lapse of logical judgment. Alaina had told her about the flashlights in the laundry room. She should have grabbed one before coming up here.
She backed out of the room, but as she started to turn, she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. She froze and stared into the darkness at the far end of the room, where she’d seen the flicker of movement. Nothing moved there now, but everything in Danae screamed at her that she was not alone in the house.
She whirled around and ran all the way downstairs and back into the kitchen, where she’d left her purse. It was still on the kitchen counter, and she snatched it up. From the inside pocket, she drew out the nine millimeter she was never without.
Let that be a lesson.
With the distraction of Zach Sargent, and her first visit to her childhood home, and her conversation with her sister, she’d forgotten to keep protection within arm’s reach. Her sister’s attacker was dead and gone, but more than one danger could exist.
Even in the same house.
Clenching the pistol, she eased down the hallway and across the entry to the laundry room. Two flashlights and a lantern were located right where Alaina had said they’d be. She clicked on a flashlight to make sure it worked, then headed back upstairs to the office.
She crept down the hallway toward the office and paused just before the doorway, listening for any sound of movement inside. Not even a breath of air swept by, so she stepped into the doorway and turned on the flashlight, shining it in the corner where she’d seen the movement.
The corner was empty, but the last bookcase appeared to have an odd angle to it—one that didn’t fit with the other wall. Clenching the flashlight in one hand and her pistol in the other, she stepped across the room to the back wall, where she was surprised to find a narrow opening at the back of the wall. When looking into the room from the doorway, the opening was almost hidden by the bookcase.
The room was pitch-black, and for a moment, she wished she’d brought the lantern as well as the flashlight. Shining the flashlight across the room, she realized this must have been her stepfather’s bedroom. The office entrance was the last doorway in the hallway, so at some point, her bizarre stepfather must have closed off the main entrance to the bedroom, leaving the office as the only access to his private quarters.
Just how crazy was he?
At the first opportunity, that was a question she’d explore with William, and perhaps pay a visit to Amos, the caretaker, while he was recovering at his niece’s house. She stepped into the room and slowly cast the thin flashlight beam across the room, moving left to right. On the left, at the back of the room, she saw another door and the light fell across a claw-foot tub beyond it. Then she scanned over his bed, still made up with sheets, and paused at the nightstand, with its collection of pill bottles and a half-empty glass of water still standing next to them.
Clearly, Alaina hadn’t spent much time, if any, in this room. Not that she blamed her. The room was unsettling. The air was stiller, as if she’d stepped into a vacuum, and not a single sound echoed through the exterior walls and into the bedroom.
Like a tomb.
The thought ripped through her, and despite the heat of early fall, she shivered. The thought was too accurate for comfort. Her stepfather had locked himself away from society, then practically barricaded himself in this room and died. It was something a sane person simply couldn’t wrap their mind around.
She lifted the flashlight beam from the nightstand and continued along the back wall to the right, where she almost missed a wooden door, carved to match the paneling. Closet, maybe?
She didn’t want to take another step into the room, but she would be working just outside this room and had to know that it was secure. Her heart pounded as she inched across the bedroom, feeling as if every step took her farther and farther away from safety. When she reached the door, she placed the flashlight on the nightstand, the light shining onto the ceiling and casting a dim glow around her.
She tightened her grip on the pistol and slowly turned the doorknob and eased the door open. As the light filtered into the opening, she frowned. The clothes she’d expected to see were nowhere in sight. Instead, a steep flight of stairs led down to the first floor.
A shock wave of fear ran through her and she released the doorknob and staggered back a couple of steps. During her tour of the first floor, she’d found the servants’ stairwell close to the laundry room, but she’d assumed the entry would be off the hallway upstairs. She’d never considered that the stairs would lead straight into the master bedroom.
Someone could have been here.
She grabbed the flashlight and hurried out of the room and back downstairs, rushing across the entry to the back of the house, where she’d seen the exit for the servants’ stairs. The door was closed, but before she could think about all the potential dangers, she yanked it open, pointing her pistol inside.
She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until it rushed out in a whoosh. Get a grip, she told herself as she pushed the door shut, noting that it didn’t make a sound as it closed. If someone had passed this way earlier, she wouldn’t have heard them exit. But the big question was, if someone had been in the house, where were they now?
The laundry room was at the end of the hallway, just a few feet beyond the servants’ stairs. She hurried to the laundry room to check the back door. The knob turned easily in her hand, and she pushed the door open and looked out into the backyard that had been swallowed up by the swamp. Vines and moss clung to every branch of the cypress trees that loomed above, while moss and weeds choked out any remaining sign of lawn.
She stared at the tangle of foliage and decided it made her just as uneasy as the master bedroom. It wasn’t just here, either. The swamp surrounding her cabin felt equally as ominous—as if it were a living entity and resented her trespass. For a girl who’d lived in some of the toughest neighborhoods across the country, it was unnerving to get such powerful feelings from a bunch of trees and brush.
She pushed the door shut and locked the dead bolt, her mind made up. Someone had been in the house. They’d stayed hidden upstairs while she was searching the first floor, then used her trip upstairs as an opportunity to slip out of the house unseen. They probably thought she’d dismiss the unlatched back door as an oversight, but they were wrong. Street-smart women like Danae didn’t have “oversights” on things as important as exterior doors, and she was certain it was locked when she’d examined the first floor earlier.
In the past, when her safety had been threatened, she’d simply packed up and moved on. She’d had no roots and nothing of value to keep her tied to any one place, especially a dangerous one. But now she had something to lose. Something huge. Running was out of the question, so she hurried back to the kitchen and pulled out her cell phone.
For the first time in her life, she was calling the police.
Chapter Five
Zach paced the tiny caretaker’s