“Ma’am, we were instructed to take you to Mr. Wardlaw’s castle,” one of the men said.
“Oh, but I would like to check into the bed and breakfast first…”
“He is expecting you, and your reservations in the bed and breakfast have been canceled. You’ll be staying in the castle as Mr. Wardlaw’s guest.” The man offered her half a smile and turned back to the waiting car.
She narrowed her eyes at the man’s superior air and shook her head. A sharp demand to go to the bed and breakfast was on her lips, but she held her tongue. If she refused the reclusive business man, he might rescind her invitation for an interview. Swallowing the harsh words on her tongue, she smiled. “Thank you. It’s very nice of him to offer me lodging.” She tried to ignore the niggling voice of doubt in the back of her mind.
What harm could come from staying there?
It wasn’t like she was being kidnapped. She was merely being bullied.
When she talked with Mr. Wardlaw, he never mentioned this invitation. She had even reassured him that she would not bother him for long and she would book a room in the bed and breakfast. He hadn’t argued.
Why the sudden change of plans?
She felt forced, kidnapped—but in a nice way. The way Adair lifted his eyebrows in surprise and the snort that escaped his belly alarmed her. Was that smug satisfaction?
One of the men in black held her elbow gently to guide her to the black limo; the insistence of his grasp didn’t escape her. “What’s your name?” Miranda asked. If she was going with them, then at least she had to know their names. Wardlaw’s men didn’t speak much; they simply observed, wearing those unexplainable dark scowls on their faces.
Still, he didn’t answer her.
Fine, I’ll just call them the M.I.B.S
He pushed her gently toward the back of the limo and helped her inside, following closely behind her as if she might escape if he didn’t block her way out. Her racing mind was telling her now was the time to panic. Why the stiff, stubborn urgency for her to go and see the old man?
The four men climbed in the car, two in the front and two in the back, where she sat sandwiched between two. They all had muscled bodies and the same expression, as if they were constantly mad at something or someone. She hoped that anger didn’t spell her name. The car pulled away quickly, leaving Adair and the crowd behind. She glanced over her shoulder to get the last view of the fading crowd, burned plane, and Adair. Her stomach flipped and her nerves shook as anxiety kicked in. Adair and the plane suddenly looked safer than her new companions.
“You all work for Mr. Wardlaw?” She smiled softly to ease the tension.
Silence—scowls were all the response she got.
“Welcome, Miss Blair. I’m relieved to know that you are safe,” a gentleman’s voice greeted her.
She searched every scowling face, but their lips hadn’t moved. She definitely had not heard those words coming out of any of them; in fact, that soft voice couldn’t have come out of one of those humongous bodybuilders. It belonged to an articulate gentleman. The voice swept over her ears like warm honey. “Excuse me, who said that?”
“I’m Mac Wardlaw. I apologize for this introduction, but I had to welcome you, and to assure you that you’re in safe hands. You’ll find that, despite their appearance, my men are most professional and as tame as kittens. So there’s no need to be alarmed. I’ll see you soon. Until then, relax and enjoy the ride.” The sound of a click announced the end of his conversation as she realized the gentleman’s voice had been coming from a speaker planted somewhere in the limo. He hadn’t even allowed her to ask any questions. Miranda didn’t think the voice belonged to old Mr. Wardlaw; this seemed to be the voice of a younger man. Although he hadn’t said what his relation to Mr. Wardlaw was, the voice had a strong, commanding nature that was mellifluent and enchanting. “Who is Mac Wardlaw?” she asked.
Silence. Frown.
One of the “kittens” poured a softly colored rose wine into a shining crystal glass and offered it to her; she accepted it with a shaky hand. Another man switched on the radio to soft, relaxing music. All the while, the two men beside her stared at her sipping her wine in silence. She almost choked on her wine, remembering the voice’s description of those men as kittens; hell, maybe he wasn’t aware that his kittens had grown into huge panthers.
From the window of the limo, she saw they were on a hill near the ocean, closing in on a huge, dark wall. When the car stopped, she heard a sound of metal grinding, then of chains rolling.
Jeez, what was that?
A loud bang of a heavy object dropping echoed in the silent air.
A drawbridge!
The wooden bridge spanned a ditch leading to a gateway.
The limo continued on the wooden surface, slowly. The water underneath them flickered in blue and gray. They reached another gate, which opened onto a long, narrow driveway; shadows of trees stretched across the road. After a few minutes ride, the car stopped.
Miranda considered her situation: if she were killed in cold blood here, no one would ever know. She took a deep breath and gulped down the rest of her drink in one swallow.
The bald man beside her opened the door, stepped out, and stretched his hand to help her, but she refused politely and struggled to her feet by herself instead. She glanced all the way up the dark gray blocks of smooth, square, stone walls, noting the wide, triangular windows at the top and the few flickers of light that escaped through the stained glass.
Oh Jeez! The same castle she’d seen in her visions. She breathed in sharply. The mansion in her visions and many of her dreams had haunted her since the day she started documenting the murder case of the little boy, Marcas Wardlaw. She couldn’t help thinking of the way he died: burned alive.
She had asked for it, and she wanted to be here. Although she’d traveled as part of her research for her books before, this one seemed to be
screaming
for her to investigate.
The mansion, according to her research, belonged to his family—but what was her connection to the mansion? The intensity of her visions, as well as the frequency, increased when she started working on this story. That was the reason for her trip. She wouldn’t get rid of her nightmares until she resolved the secret.
Visiting her psychiatrist hadn’t helped. He’d wanted her to be hypnotized. “We need to uncover the past,” he had said.
Hell, what past?
Miranda enjoyed a normal childhood and loving parents. She went to school and had friends, and had lived life to the fullest. But she had been plagued by near-visions, which grew stronger as she grew up. After her father passed away, they became full visions. In them, she could vividly feel, smell and even communicate with people, unlike in her nightmares. She could handle even the most frightening nightmares more easily than these visions.
What puzzled her most was that, in those visions, Miranda was in the body of another woman. She saw herself as a beautiful brunette, tall and delicate. A feeling of sadness for a lost love and guilt clung to Miranda throughout the visions. Miranda didn’t know why she felt this way, or how these visions were related to her. One detail she could not explain scared her: the name of the woman in the visions, Rose. That was too close for comfort. It was Miranda’s middle name.
Miranda felt a strange attraction toward Rose, although they were different in many ways. Miranda was a redhead and shorter than Rose. Yet they had the same green eyes. Miranda remembered looking at her reflection in the mirror during one of her visions, and she saw piercing green eyes…Rose’s. Miranda felt as though she stared into her own soul, and that scared the crap out of her. Then the visions stopped for a while.
Why, in God’s name, had the visions come back so strongly after she started working on the little boy’s murder case? What made it even worse was discovering the mansion she’d seen in her visions actually existed. When she had foolishly told her doctor, his eyes had grown huge. He asked if she was claiming the possibility of a past life?
That day, she left his office politely mumbling, “I am not crazy.” Maybe he believed in past lives, but Miranda certainly did not.
Or maybe I am crazy, after all.
But then why, in her visions, did she feel she was living in another age, maybe the 1800s or even 1700s? Why was she dressed in a long, gorgeous ball gown?
I look like I’m a woman from two hundred years ago,
she had thought, recalling the visions.
That couldn’t be possible. Maybe I really am going mad
.
As the men guided her to the main, carved oak door, she noticed there was no bell, just a golden wolf head doorknocker the size of a basket ball with the initial “W” etched into it. The bald man pulled the knocker and pushed it, and the golden metal piece made a drumbeat noise. In a few seconds, another man wearing a black suit and white shirt opened the door.
“Welcome, Miss Blair.” He bowed. “I’m the butler, William, at your service.” His voice was
steady and warm.
“Hello, William, thank you.” She walked into the hallway, her sneakers squeaking with each step on the shiny marble tiles. The escorts disappeared in the blink of an eye. “This way, Miss Blair,” the butler said. He showed her to a winding staircase. “I heard your trip was dreadful.” A concerned smile spread on his warm face.
“I’m glad it’s over,” she replied, “but my belongings—all of them—burned with the plane.” She winced, remembering that she didn’t have anything to wear except her jeans and the shirt and sweater she had on. She didn’t even have her toothbrush.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Miss,” William said. “Everything will be ready for you in your room by the time you are ready to retire for the evening.” They walked through a wide hall on the upper story, lined with windows as tall as the ceiling and covered with sapphire, French-style draperies with frames carved with golden wolf heads. The wolf head seemed to be the castle’s theme. The light of the chandeliers spread a warm light, easy on the eyes, throughout the corridor. They turned left, and Miranda stood in front of an oak door that covered half of the wall.
“One moment, please,” the butler said, excusing himself. He knocked and opened the door with such ease it amazed her. As she waited, the fragrance of lilac hit her nostrils. She loved that smell, but she hadn’t used it for a long time because it reminded her of Rose in her visions. Rose wore that scent all the time. Miranda’s heart pumped with anxiety at the memory. After a few tense moments, William opened the door and led her in. “I’ll bring tea for you,” he said before he left, closing the door behind him.
“Thanks…” The guy was fast in disappearing.
Are they all like that?
Miranda gazed around the room. It looked like an office, with walls filled with books on shelves between two tall windows. This room was the size of a small apartment in New York. A mahogany cabriole sofa in dark blue, a mahogany writing desk…the colors were masculine and tasteful. If it were her choice of furniture, she might have chosen the same, except she would add greenery to the whole theme.
“Miss Blair, welcome to my home.” The gentleman who stood beside the window was tall, with a broad chest. He wore a robe and a pair of trousers. The office was dark except for the soft light that filtered from the writing desk, which was not bright enough for her to see his face.
“Thank you, I hope I’m not intruding,” Miranda said.
“Not at all, it’s my pleasure to have you here.” He walked toward her with steady, lazy steps; as his face came into the light, his features became clear to her.
Her eyes widened as a flash of a memory from her visions hit her. That face…his grayish-blue eyes. “Duncan…” The name slipped from her lips just as all feeling leached from her limbs.
His face blurred and the room swirled around her as she fell straight down, into his arms.
Strong arms carried her to the sofa. Miranda felt as if she were flying on a fluffy cloud. As he carried her, a fresh wave of anxiety overwhelmed her.
Those eyes, the face. Although this man was wearing a white mask that covered the left side of his face, she recognized him: Duncan. Much as she had with Rose, her first glimpses of him had been hazy and unclear, but with time, he gained substance. He became clearer with each vision she had, until his gray-blue eyes haunted her every vision.
When he had appeared in the last two vivid mental images, she had enjoyed every minute of his soft touches and kisses. She blamed this on her own inner desire for a man in her life.
She remembered one day when she was in her mother’s kitchen, two years earlier, when she’d had a vision. Suddenly, she was in a different house and area. She wore a ball gown and danced the waltz in the arms of a stranger. She felt his strength, his warmth, the crazy yearning in her soul for him, not knowing who he was, but at the same time believing he meant the world to her. Then, when she turned up to kiss him and see his face, the visual perception evaporated. She’d gotten only a faint glimpse of him and a feathery touch of his lips. His eyes were grayish-blue and rimmed with a thick layer of dark eyelashes. She’d whispered his name.
Duncan!
Miranda had not dated anyone for two years after her separation from Jack. Loneliness struck her as never before. Jack had been her first love after her graduation from Yale University.
She’d been writing about the Marcas Wardlaw case at the time of that first vision. She blamed herself for being so obsessed with the case that she invented those visual faculty—her doctor had said that was a possible result of her obsession with the case.
The second time she’d had one of her visions was when she was visiting the library near her apartment, again researching the Marcas Wardlaw case.
Miranda recalled, on that day, she felt darkness gather before it started; then the view changed, as if she were in an old movie. She wore different clothes: a hat decorated with roses and a floral, off the shoulder brocade gown with pretty, gathered, short sleeves and a fluffy skirt. In the visual perception, she was running after her father, telling him she hadn’t betrayed him and begging for forgiveness, asking him to spare Duncan’s life. She begged through desperate tears, and wept from her heart. But someone held her from behind, an older man who resembled Rose so much that he had to be her older brother. He dragged her inside a mansion, all the way to her room, and locked her in, crying. Her sadness and burning guilt pained her to the core.