The Protector (Lone Wolf, Book 1) (26 page)

For some strange reason, I didn’t
like Magdalena talking about Layne like that.
 
Like she was some sort of commodity like a nice new designer purse or
designer dog, mentioning her
musculature
.
 
And frankly, I couldn’t imagine Magdalena having even the most
cursory knowledge or acquaintance of a hard-working fisherman, like Layne’s
father.
 

I was about to ask how she could
have possibly known him when her face brightened, and the limo slowed
down.
 
“Ah, perfect timing…we’re here!”
she all but chirped.

Out of the tinted windows of the
limousine rose a very sizable mansion.
 
It was actually a little bigger than my father’s—which is, apparently,
something that you’re judged on in those types of well-to-do circles, believe
it not.
 
Yes, they do actually compare
the size of their mansions.
 
I glanced
up at the sprawling, five-story house that had turrets, too, and looked pretty
old, like it’d been constructed at least a hundred years ago, if not more, with
the Victorian extras like the curling brackets along the doorways and
arches.
 
It was a lovely house, built of
thick, red stone blocks and wide windows with a lot of diamond-pane glass.
 
It was close to the street, and was situated
more in Boston than my father’s house, so there wasn’t room for a lawn out
front.
 

Magdalena’s driver pulled up to the
edge of the curb, threw the limo into park and ran around the side quickly to
open the door for us.

When the door was open, Magdalena
unfolded her long legs and rose out of the limo effortlessly, glancing back at
me with a small, unimpressed frown as I tried to grapple with my violin case,
my crutches and my bag, and was the exact opposite of her:
 
all pretty graceless and a little clumsy as
I tried to angle my crutches under my arms and still hold the violin case
without banging it against the side of the crutches.
 
Magdalena seemed to be impatient with my efforts, and leaned down
and peeked back into the limo, offering me a hand with a wide smile that she
pasted on a second too late for me not to see her frown.

“Thanks,” I managed, and, despite
the fact that I didn’t want to accept her help—there was just something about
her sneer-turned-smile that made my stomach sour—I leaned forward and took her
proffered hand.

She was as cold as ice.

She was so cold, in fact, that it
felt like she was burning my fingers with chill when she closed her hand around
mine, grasping it tightly and pulling me up so quickly I practically fell like
I’d flown up to a standing position.
 

“James,” said Magdalena to her
driver, “take her things, please.
 
And
then with an apologetic smile, Magdalena leaned a little closer to me after
dropping my hand.
 
“Can I help you in?
 
Those look a little unwieldy…” she murmured,
her face full of fake concern as she held the crutches out to me as if they
were more than a little repulsive to her.
 
Her nose actually wrinkled while glancing down at them.

I took a step backward, trying to
gain balance on my one good leg as my thoughts whirled.
 
She was as freezing as Layne was hot to the
touch.
 
I stared at her, brows knit
together, but she took a step forward then, laughing as she secured a freezing
arm around my shoulders and helped me toward the red stone steps.
 
“I really have to talk about getting that
air conditioner fixed,” she said, still laughing like it was the funniest thing
in the world, when it was really just awkward and uncomfortable.

It was ten steps up to the front
door.
 
I counted them, because steps
were still pretty difficult to navigate with the crutches—I really couldn’t
tell you how ready I was to be done with crutches altogether.
 
But her help wasn’t actually all that
helpful.
 
By the time we reached the top
of the steps, I was shaking from how cold her skin was against me.
 
The cold was insipid, had seemed to burrow
into my body, taking up residence in my bones and my blood.
 
It was that deep type of cold that makes you
wonder if you’ll ever be warm again.
 

“James,” said Magdalena coolly to
her driver.
 
“Can you get the door?”

As he moved past us, I was struck
by the fact that on this relatively sweltering day—the chill of Magdalena aside
(and the inside of the limo, whatever she might say about the air conditioning,
had actually been warm)—he was wearing leather gloves.
 
He unlocked the front door and held it open
for us, staring straight ahead.
 
I
couldn’t make out his eyes from beneath the glasses, but I had this weird
thought that I knew him from somewhere.
 
He looked familiar.
 
I couldn’t
shake the strong feeling that I’d seen him before…

As we passed from the sunny day
into the cool darkness of the entryway, it felt strange.
 
The warmth of the day faded away and was
replaced only by the insipid cold as my brain kicked into overdrive, trying to
shake the bad feeling that had been growing within me on the entire limo ride
here.
 

But the bad feeling didn’t
leave.
 
It deepened.

And it dawned on me with sick,
stark realization just as Magdalena ushered me into the foyer, and the door was
shut behind us.

James, the man who had driven us
here in the limo, looked
exactly
like the man who had rammed me from
behind.
 
It was an odd thing to
remember, the man who rams you, but I’d seen his face in the rearview that
perfect, split second before everything had happened, and that face was one
that if I lived to be a hundred, I could never possibly forget: his face was
forever outlined in the darkest corners of my head and popped up in my
nightmares where I was driving a car, and suddenly it was spinning out of
control and hitting the guardrail because I’d been rammed from behind, over and
over again all through the night because the nightmare would keep repeating, of
course, as all bad nightmares tend to do.

I turned back, horrified, gulping
down air, but Magdalena’s arm was wrapped securely and too tightly about my
shoulders, and I couldn’t glance back.
 
Her grip was actually a little too familiar for comfort, and as I
politely tried to disentangle myself from her grasp, I stopped trying to look
behind me, and actually glanced forward at the impressive entryway.

And I stopped cold.

My very first thought was that this
couldn’t possibly be real.
 
That maybe
I’d had another accident, and what I was currently experiencing were the odd
hallucinations and half dreams that come with being knocked unconscious.
 
But no—Magdalena’s cold arm around my
shoulders brought me back to reality with a crash when she tightened my grip.

What I was seeing was real.

The entryway was beautiful.
 
Perfect, really.
 
It was classic in design, with Roman columns and a bright,
sweeping oaken spiral staircase up to the second level.
 
There were old paintings on the walls,
taller than a person, with gilt gold frames and filled with bored looking men
and women in Victorian garb and very large hats.
 
There was a bust of Beethoven by the entrance to another open
room that that had an antique piano in the very center of the room and an old
oriental rug.
 
The tiles underfoot in
the entryway were black and white—very classic.

But all of that didn’t matter.
 
It faded into the background like it was
sketched in or the background of a painting.

Because the very first thing I
noticed was Layne.

She was wearing her white tank top
and jeans, but that’s where the normalcy of the moment ended.
 
Because Layne was standing spread eagled
between two of the Roman columns.
 
There
was silver rope tying her arms to each column, and her feet to each column.

And she looked very,
very
hurt.
 
There was bright red blood
flowing from her nose, from one ear and from a gash in her head that looked
fresh and jagged and utterly ugly on her handsome face.
 
She also had two gashes along her neck that
slowly and almost silently dripped blood onto the pristine black and white
marble floor.

She was staring across the space
between us with a grimace, staring into my eyes with such vibrant intensity
that I took a step backward and collided with Magdalena.

The spell of horror and silence was
broken, and I found my voice.

“Layne,” I whispered, and then I
was yelling my head off:
 
“Layne!”
 
Her head bowed forward like she’d
momentarily lost her strength, and then it raised and her eyes flashed with
fire as she took in the sight of Magdalena’s arm clamped around my shoulders,
and me suddenly struggling against her.
 
Because I
was
struggling—but Magdalena didn’t let me go.

Instead, Magdalena’s hand darted
up, and then it was deep into my thick hair, tugging my head backward.
 
My violin case fell out of my hands with a
thump,
along with my bag and crutches, and when she pulled me backwards, I crumpled,
screaming in agony as her other hand darted out and gouged the wound in my leg
that had been carefully stitched and partially healed.
 
She dug her fingernails deep into the wound
like they were daggers.

“Be quiet,” said Magdalena
companionably, and then she dropped me, crumpling to the ground, and left me writhing
on that beautiful black and white marble tile as she clicked in her high heels
and stood with her hands on her hips in front of Layne, who hung limply between
the columns, staring at Magdalena with bright, unreadable eyes.
 

Magdalena clucked her tongue,
shaking a head and wagging a finger at Layne as the smile spread across from
face.
 
“Really—and after you gave my
girls such a fright, too—you were really
so
easy to bring in,” she
purred, and quicker than I could imagine anyone being able to move, her hand
darted forward and slowly, caressingly, she traced her finger over the blood on
Layne’s neck in a long, sensual motion.

Was I currently in an episode of
the Twilight Zone?
 
Through the haze of
pain at having my wound torn at with impeccably painted and wickedly sharp
nails, I clutched at my leg and I stared at the bizarre scene in front of me.

I stared, my eyes widening, as
Magdalena brought that bloody finger away from Layne’s neck, and then slowly,
carefully, as if she were tasting a dollop of cream, she licked the blood off
her finger.

Layne stared at her, breathing slow
and long and deep into her gut, staring up at Magdalena still with those
unreadable eyes, bright and unwavering and glittering in the darkness of the
entryway.

“Disgusting,” said Magdalena mildly
licking the blood off her lips with a long sigh and shaking her head.
 
“But then, I’ve always found the blood of
animals
repulsive.”

Layne began to breathe heavily, the
silver ropes holding her up beginning to creak as sweat sparkled on her
forehead.
 
She gazed at Magdalena
through her jet-black hair that had fallen in front of her eyes, then lifted
her face further, tilting her chin up.
 
Her voice came out like a croak:
 
“What are you going to do with the Grayson girl?
 
Hold her for ransom?”

The Grayson girl?
 
Me?
 
What the hell was she talking about?
 
Frustration eating through the haze of pain, I managed to pull myself up
to one knee, grabbing one of the crutches and propelling myself up to my feet
with a series of awkward tugs of my leg.

“What the hell is going on?” I
asked then, my voice a little shaky, but loud enough to get Magdalena’s
attention.
 

She turned a little, leaning back
and pivoting on her left heel, her head to the side like she was a puppy trying
to understand a very difficult command.
 
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head and wagging a finger at me like
I was a kid.
 
“But you’re to be seen and
not heard, young lady.
 
This is your
final warning.”

“Elizabeth, don’t,” said Layne
quietly.
 
Her face was serene and
cool—she even had a little arrogant sneer on her lips as she gazed back at
Elizabeth, but the sheen of sweat on her forehead had grown more pronounced.

She was in tremendous pain.

I took a step backward, and then
another one, angling toward the door as I felt for my cell phone in my
pocket.
 
It was a tiny, half-formed
plan, but I was going to dart outside, press “911” and hope that someone picked
up before Magdalena caught up with me.
 
But the plan disintegrated before I could even put the first step into
action.
 
James walked through that door
at that moment and shut it closed quietly behind him, standing impassively in
front of those wide, double doors and staring straight ahead, his sunglasses
making it impossible to see his eyes.
 

And out of the shadows, like it was
an odd family reunion or something, stepped the repairwoman, rounding one of
the Roman columns.
 
The name stitched on
her jumper had been Sheila, I remembered distantly as she smiled at me that
terrifying, incredibly fake smile.
 
Her
teeth were razor sharp, all of them, like a nightmare.
 
She wasn’t wearing a jumper anymore, but
black slacks and a pretty black cardigan that was buckled around her waist, her
hair pinned perfectly in place and completely incongruous with her horror-movie
mouth.