The cradle was rocking.
She blinked, then blinked again, sure that her eyes were playing tricks on her. But it really was rocking. Not only that, but the crying was louder now, as if it were right in front of her. Loud wailing that wasn’t really loud at all. It was all around her, but almost as if she were hearing it on the inside of her head. She stood there mesmerized watching it move back and forth, back and forth, and as she did she felt herself reaching out to touch it…then a hand slammed down on her shoulder and a blood-curdling scream ripped from her throat.
Thirteen
“I
t’s just me!” Rob said as Carrie whipped around, losing her balance and falling against the bureau she’d been looking behind.
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” she shrieked, giving him a shove.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding his hands up to ward off another attack. “I called your name three times and you didn’t answer me. I came back here to see what you were looking at but I tripped on a table leg.”
From behind them he heard the thud of footsteps on the stairs, and turned to see Tony descending two steps at a time. Following him by only a few seconds was Alice, who once again was dressed all in black.
“What the hell happened?” Tony and Alice said at the same time, then turned to each other in surprise, as if they had completely missed one another on the stairs.
“Nothing,” Rob said. “I just surprised her.”
“Surprised me? You scared the crap out of me.”
“I told you, I tripped.”
“Did you see it?” she demanded.
“See what?”
“The cradle. It was rocking. And I could swear I heard a baby crying.”
Uh-oh. Had he scared her so thoroughly that she had lost touch with reality? “What cradle?”
“Back there.” She pointed to the spot behind the bureau she’d been staring at when he fell into her.
He peered behind it, and though the light was dim he could definitely see the outline of something small and low to the floor, wedged between the bureau and the wall.
“Is it still rocking?” she asked.
As far as he could tell it wasn’t moving. “Let me see if I can…” He leaned over the bureau, his stomach resting on the top, reaching…
He grabbed the side of the cradle and pulled it up off the floor. It was light, and looked to him to be almost small enough to be a child’s toy rather than a functional piece of furniture, but as he held it up to the light he could see that it was handmade and very old.
Her concerns suddenly gone, Carrie started making her way back to where Tony and Alice stood, gesturing him to follow. “Bring it over here!”
He had never known Carrie to be anything but level-headed and rational, but she was neither right now.
He held the cradle up over his head and carried it through the maze of furniture. When he reached the other side, where the three of them stood waiting for him, he set it on the cold concrete floor. It was simple but functional, and looked surprisingly well-kept considering its age, but probably not very safe by modern standards.
“Watch it!” Carrie said excitedly. “I swear it was rocking all by itself. And I heard a baby crying.”
“A
human
baby?” Rob asked, which Carrie’s exasperated look would suggest was a stupid question.
“Of course a human baby,” she said. “Didn’t anyone else hear it?”
Rob shook his head, and they both turned to Tony and Alice, who were ignoring them and busy giving each other the once-over. Rob realized that they hadn’t been introduced yet. “Tony, this is Carrie’s friend Alice, from New York. Alice, this is my cousin Tony.”
“A pleasure,” Alice said, shaking Tony’s hand, a catlike grin curling her lips.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Tony said, and they looked utterly enthralled by one another.
“How about a drink?” Alice said, her eyes never leaving Tony’s.
“I’d love one,” Tony said, gesturing to the stairs. “After you.”
As they disappeared up the stairs, Carrie turned to Rob and said, “What the heck just happened?”
Rob shrugged. “I guess they liked what they saw.”
“In that case, maybe it’s a good thing that you made me scream.” She looked down at the cradle, which as far as Rob could see, wasn’t moving at all. Sounding defeated, she said, “It’s not going to do it for you.”
“It might.”
They stood in silence and watched it for several minutes, but nothing happened.
“I swear it was moving,” she told him.
“I believe you. If doors can open by themselves, why would a self-rocking cradle be such a stretch of the imagination?”
“Either that, or I’m losing my mind.”
“It
was
a little weird that you wouldn’t answer me. At first I thought you were upset about something. And then I thought maybe you were getting sick.”
“Eew,” she said, nose wrinkling.
“But as I got closer, it seemed as if you were in a trance or something.”
“I guess I sort of felt like I was. And when you fell against me, I think I was reaching down to touch it. But I wasn’t doing it consciously. Does that make sense?”
“Not really.”
“I could see my arm moving, but I didn’t feel as if I was controlling it.”
“Are you saying that you were possessed?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I was. I sure didn’t feel like myself.”
If she were anyone else, he would think she was either nuts or looking to get attention, but that wasn’t Carrie. She was one of the most down-to-earth, sane people he’d ever met, despite all her hang-ups. A genuine straight shooter. She looked so damn adorable in her skinny jeans and a UCLA sweatshirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that bounced when she walked. And he wanted her just as much as he had in the hotel bar that night. He’d racked his brain trying to come up with a way to make her see that she was wrong. He didn’t deserve better than her, because there was no one better. Not that he’d ever met. The problem was making her believe that.
“I guess we should get back upstairs,” she said.
“You want me to bring the cradle up?”
She looked at all the furniture piled there, then at the forlorn little cradle on the floor. He thought of the children who might have slept in it and actually felt guilty for leaving it down there. It looked so small and lonely.
Small and lonely?
Where the hell had that come from? Now
he
was acting possessed.
“Bring it up,” she said. “I’ll clean it up. Maybe someone can get some use out of it.”
He lifted the cradle off the floor, and as he did, he could swear he felt a rush of cold air brush past him. Clearly he was imagining things.
He followed Carrie up the stairs, holding the cradle, and when they stepped through the door, she pushed it closed behind him.
Just before he heard the knob latch, from the basement below, he could swear he heard the sound of not a baby, but a woman crying.
“They bailed on us.” Carrie held up the note she found stuck to the refrigerator and showed it to Rob.
Went for a drink. Back later.
“I guess Tony forgot that we came here together in his car,” Rob said.
Carrie wasn’t thrilled by the idea of being stuck with Rob, and even though it was a setup, she couldn’t muster the will to be upset with Alice. She’d been cooped up in the house for three weeks. It would do her good to get out and socialize. She needed this. And maybe she and Tony would hit it off. Alice could certainly benefit from meeting a nice guy for a change. Not that Carrie knew Tony all that well. But if he was anything like the rest of his family, she had nothing to worry about.
She had the sudden vision of her and Alice both settling down in Chicago, and a double wedding with Carrie and Rob and Alice and Tony tying the knot.
A double wedding? Seriously? Where the heck had that come from?
She shook away the ridiculous notion.
“I’m sure they won’t be too long,” she said. At least she hoped they wouldn’t.
“Where do you want the cradle?” Rob said, and she realized he was still holding it.
“The living room, I guess, until I figure out what I’m going to do with it. It just didn’t seem right to keep it in the basement.”
“I know what you mean,” he said, carrying it into the living room for her.
“You do?”
He set it down by the couch, then sat down. “Weirdly enough, yes.”
The fact that she’d felt that way was weird, but his feeling it, too? That was downright creepy. Maybe, instead of cleaning it up, she should hire an exorcist.
She sat in the chair. “Do you like old furniture?”
“Not particularly.”
Neither did she. She didn’t dislike it, but her preference was a more modern look. But the cradle, there was just something about it….
“Maybe that’s why the door kept opening,” Rob said. “Maybe whatever is down there wanted you to find it and bring it up. Maybe that’s why it touched you that first night.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you serious or just making fun of me?”
“I heard it, too,” he said.
“The baby crying?”
“Just before you closed the basement door. But it didn’t sound like a baby. It was a woman.”
The hair on the back of her neck rose. “Wow, that’s really creepy.”
“I have to admit that it is.”
“Speaking of creepy,” Carrie said, “something happened at work last night that I thought I should mention.”
“Don’t tell me doors are opening by themselves there, too,” he said, with a grin so adorable she wanted to eat him up.
“This is about a door that wouldn’t open, actually.”
She told him how she had caught Rose trying to break into his father’s office, and how his secretary conveniently called at the last second.
“You think she was lying?” Rob asked her.
“I’m usually pretty good at reading people, and I definitely had that feeling. But that doesn’t mean I’m right. I just thought I should tell you.”
“I’m glad you did. Just between us, there’s something about her that bothers me.”
“Me, too! She’s so quiet—not that quiet people are bad—but it always seems as if she’s up to no good or hiding something. Do you know what I mean?”
“I do. She and my sister have become pretty good friends. Megan bought an apartment and Rose is going to be moving in the end of this month.”
“You’re worried?”
“Yeah. Her mom worked at Caroselli Chocolate for years as
Nonno’s
secretary, so when she showed up looking for a job, my uncle Leo felt obligated to hire her.”
“In what position?”
“At first, just general office stuff, but then she offered to digitize all our old records, and that’s been her job description ever since.”
“So she has access to a lot of company information.”
“You think she’s a spy?”
She shrugged. “It does happen.”
“I think I’ll do some digging. See what I can come up with.” He looked at his watch. “If Tony ever comes back.”
It was obvious that he didn’t feel like hanging around. She didn’t know if she should feel relieved or disappointed. “I can drive you home.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Consider it my thanks for moving the furniture.” It beat having him stuck there until God knew when, driving her crazy. “I’ll get my coat.”
* * *
It was snowing lightly as she backed out of the garage. She still wasn’t crazy about driving in the snow, but it wasn’t half as bad as she’d expected, and the compact SUV she’d leased totally kicked ass.
“Are we supposed to get much snow?” she asked Rob.
“They said something about six inches tonight.”
“So,” she said, glancing over at him, “average?”
He laughed and shook his head. “That’s what I hear.”
She could really go for six inches tonight. Or in Rob’s case, seven or eight.
What?
No! Did she really just think that? She had to get her mind out of the gutter and stop flirting with him. This is why she didn’t like to see him outside of work. She forgot how to behave. And being in such a confined space with him, the scent of his aftershave was doing funny things to her head.
It was making her fantasize about things. Bad things, like what he would do if she took her hand off the steering wheel and laid it on his knee, maybe slid it up his inner thigh…
Don’t even think about it.
This is why it was such a bad idea to see each other socially. She had no self-control.
“Make a left here,” Rob said. “My building is two blocks down.”
They couldn’t have gone more than half a mile from her place. “I knew you were close, but I didn’t realize it was this close.”
“If it wasn’t so cold, I would have just walked.”
The area was an eclectic blend of old restored and new buildings. Rob’s was a converted warehouse. “Beautiful building,” she said. “What floor are you on?”
“I have the penthouse.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It’s open concept. Very modern. Want to come up and see it?”
Hell no. “Um…sure.”
What?
No, you don’t!
If she got him alone in his place, she wasn’t sure if she could be responsible for her actions. In fact, she knew she couldn’t.
“Do you have a roommate?” she asked.
“No, why?”
She shrugged. “Just curious.”
She needed to come up with an excuse as to why she couldn’t go inside. But as he pointed out a parking space just a little ways down the street, the car seemed to drive itself there.
This was a
really
bad idea. But that didn’t stop her from getting out of the car and walking with him to the building. It was as if she was having an out-of-body experience, watching the scene from above but not really participating.
The lobby was clean and modern and even better, toasty warm.
“How long have you lived here?” she asked while they waited for the elevator, hoping that idle conversation would keep her from doing something crazy like throwing herself at him. She’d actually had sex in an elevator before. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. But with Rob, there was no such thing as bad sex. Or even mediocre sex.