The Betrayed (4 page)

Chapter Four

Danae peered out a tiny crack in the front door, watching Zach drive away. He hadn’t been at all what she’d expected when William had told her he’d hired a contractor. She’d thought someone older, someone not as adept at repair as they used to be, would be the only person interested in a job out in the middle of the swamp. The young, gorgeous man who’d just left was the absolute last person she’d thought would be interested in a job in a town like Calais.

With his light brown hair, piercing green eyes and stellar body, Zach belonged in the heart of New Orleans, charming all the ladies who came downtown looking for a good time. He certainly didn’t fit Calais and the LeBeau estate.

Frowning, she pushed the heavy wooden door shut, unable to shake the feeling that something about the sexy contractor didn’t add up. Briefly, it crossed her mind that he was running from something, but she dismissed the thought as soon as it came. He didn’t have that look of flight, and she knew that look well. She’d worn it several times herself and seen it in many others.

Finally, she sighed. Likely, it was something simple and embarrassing. If bartending had taught her anything, it was that most people had some secret that they kept locked away from others. The secret wasn’t often earth-shattering, but simply something the person felt would change others’ opinions of them. Maybe Zach had such a secret—like a gambling or drinking problem. Something that had given him a bad reputation with construction companies in New Orleans.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts of Zach and the many different things he could be hiding and tried to focus on what she wanted to tackle next. She’d arrived at the house only twenty minutes before noon, and aside from talking to Zach, she’d spent the rest of the time doing a run-through of the downstairs rooms, checking windows and exterior doors to ensure no unwanted guests could enter.

By the time she had finished her review of the downstairs, she expected Zach to arrive at any moment and had been unwilling to start poking around upstairs. She preferred instead to get her meeting with the contractor out of the way and delve more into her past when she was alone again with the memories that she couldn’t seem to access.

She had just decided to head upstairs and get a feel for the rooms there when her cell phone rang. She checked the display and frowned. It wasn’t a number she recognized, but it definitely wasn’t in Louisiana.

She answered and was happy to hear Alaina’s voice.

“I’m so sorry,” Alaina said. “I meant to call earlier, but I didn’t charge my cell before leaving, so it’s dead as a doornail. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to break away from the family and call you. I hope you didn’t think I’d forgotten.”

“No, of course not. How is your...er, mother?”

Even though she didn’t really know Alaina at all, it still felt strange calling another woman her sister’s mother. She wondered how it felt for Alaina.

“She’s doing fine, considering. My brother has a service lined up for home care until she can get around again, but they are on another job at the moment and not expected to free up for another week at least.”

A twinge of something—sadness...jealousy—passed through Danae when Alaina said
my brother
but she pushed it aside. Their stepfather hadn’t given any of the girls a choice when he’d sent them away. Alaina couldn’t help it if she’d gotten a decent family, while Danae had gotten an addict. That was simply the luck of the draw.

“I’m glad she’s okay,” Danae said.

“Me, too, but the timing couldn’t be worse. I’m so sorry I had to dash out this morning like I did. I have a million things to talk to you about. If I started now, I probably couldn’t finish by next year.”

Danae smiled. “I know.”

“But first things first—I am so glad you don’t have to stay in that house. When I thought about you staying there, my chest hurt so bad I felt like it was in a vise.”

“I’m at the house now. It’s not exactly a welcoming sort of place.”

“No, but it’s more than that. It’s...I don’t know... Oh, I’ll just say it. I think there’s something wrong in that house. I know you don’t really know me, but I promise you, I’m not a fanciful sort of person. And given my profession, my senses are better honed than many. I know something’s off. I can feel it in every inch of my body.”

Danae tensed at her sister’s description. It was the same way she’d felt since she’d walked into the house.

Alaina sighed. “I bet I sound like a crazy woman.”

“I almost wish you did, but you’re not crazy. I feel it, too. And let’s just say my survival skills are as finely tuned as your ability to recognize when things don’t add up. They’re firing on all eight cylinders here. But I have no idea why.”

“I don’t, either, and that’s what concerns me the most. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I wish you wouldn’t go there at all.”

“William has hired me to go through the paperwork and attempt an inventory of the valuables, so I don’t have a choice, and I really want to do the work. I want to discover things about our past. Things I’ll probably never remember.”

Alaina was quiet for several seconds, then finally she said, “I tried to find you—you and Joelle. I started writing letters to Purcell when I was in high school, asking him to tell me how to find you. I even tried sending him a letter on the law firm’s letterhead when I got to Baton Rouge.”

“But he never answered,” Danae finished. “He wouldn’t have. I spent months looking for that opening where I could get to him, but there wasn’t one. He was a mentally disturbed old man who only cared about himself. He never would have helped any of us.”

“You’re probably right. I understand why you want to try to find some of the things that were torn away from you, but I still don’t like the idea of you being in that house alone. Can you at least work at your cabin until I return?”

Danae felt a tickle of warmth run through her. The concern in Alaina’s voice was so sincere and passionate—something she’d never experienced until now. It was everything she’d ever wanted and something she’d never counted on getting.

“When we get off the phone, I’ll grab some files and take them home with me today. The contractor starts tomorrow, so I won’t be alone. He’s young and looks like he’d be good in a fight.”

“Well, I guess that’s all right.”

Alaina didn’t sound the least bit convinced, but Danae couldn’t exactly fault her when she wasn’t convinced herself.

“Purcell’s office is upstairs at the end of the right hallway,” Alaina said. “The room I stayed in—our childhood room—is at the end of the left hallway, right over the kitchen. The power is out in the office area of the house, so it will be dark. There’re some flashlights and a lantern in the laundry-room cabinet.”

“Thanks. That helps a lot,” Danae replied as she committed all the information to memory.

“Danae,” Alaina said, “I know this is going to sound completely odd, but I have to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Danae’s breath caught in her throat. Of all the things she’d thought Alaina might ask, that hadn’t been anywhere on the list.

Before she could formulate a reply, she heard background noise on Alaina’s end.

“I’m so sorry,” Alaina said, “but I’m going to have to go. I’ll call you again as soon as I get a chance.”

Alaina disconnected and Danae set the phone back on the counter. Ghosts? Sure, all kinds of rumors about the house and its other-than-earthly inhabitants wafted about the Calais locales, but it was the sort of thing she’d expect in a small town with a run-down, isolated house. It was not the kind of thing a reputable, hard-nosed attorney would normally come up with.

It made Danae wonder exactly how much she didn’t know about the night Alaina was attacked.

She leaned back against the counter and blew out a breath. All the work she’d done to simplify her life. No strings, no baggage—at least not the physical kind. She’d even come to Calais with an assumed identity simply to avoid the looks and questions she was sure would come. And in less than a day, her life had become more complicated than it had ever been.

This is what you wanted.

And that was what she needed to keep reminding herself. In the past, she’d kept her life simple by avoiding anything beyond surface-level relationships, but she’d come to Calais to find her family. She couldn’t have it both ways. If she wanted a family, she had to drop her guard, at least where her sisters were concerned.

She pushed herself off the counter and headed upstairs for the first time. She paused on the landing, trying to remember what Alaina had told her about the layout. Right was Purcell’s office. Left was the girls’ room—the room Alaina had been staying in when she was attacked.

Danae took one step in that direction, then froze. Was she ready to see the place where she’d spent her very limited childhood in Calais? If she had no memory of that room, then the chances of her remembering anything were so minuscule as to not exist. Not that she’d had any concrete expectation of remembering things she’d last seen at two years old, but she’d hoped for an emotional tug—something that let her know a piece of this place was part of her.

Something that let her know where she fit.

Abruptly, 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.