A woman didn’t want to think of herself as an obligation, or a string, to any man. He clenched his teeth, waiting for the explosion. It wouldn’t be tears with Rachel—no, she wasn’t that type. It would be anger or—he shivered at the thought—calm, cool, female manipulation that he had absolutely no idea how to combat.
“I’m guessing that redhead at the fundraiser, right? Fiona Murphy. She just opened a little antiques shop in Wicks Hollow. Wasn’t there something about a skeleton?”
Gideon swallowed back bile in his throat. This was going to be worse than he expected. “What makes you think that?” he asked casually.
She laughed again, and this time it sounded more natural. “It was pretty obvious, darling Gideon. You were practically drooling all over her right in front of everyone.” —He thought he detected a little bite at the end of her words.
“Drooling?” He tamped back his irritation, knowing that he needed to keep his cool if he were to make it out of this scene with his dignity. Still, he didn’t like to think he’d made a spectacle of himself in front of his colleagues.
Her laugh was beginning to grate on his tightly-strung nerves. “I think it’s wonderful, Gideon. She—even though she did look at me with a bit of a catty eye—seemed very…engaging. But I suppose I would have done the same thing in her shoes. Give me the catty eye, I mean.”
There was a long silence as Gideon tried to figure out what that meant. Was she not angry? Did she not get that he was trying to end things? Or was she refusing to acknowledge what he thought he was making very clear?
Or was this the manipulation he’d expected, and had no way to identify?
“So…are you trying to tell me that our arrangement is…defunct?” she asked lightly.
“Yes.” Tension seeped from his shoulders to his neck and the back of his head.
“All right.” She sighed, frowning slightly. “I knew we couldn’t go on this way forever, but I guess I thought it would end…differently.”
“Oh.” Running a hand through his hair, Gideon knew he couldn’t just leave it as it was. They’d been together—well, sort of together—for three years, and he did care for her. “Rachel, I hope you…I hope you’re all right with this.” They’d exited from the highway and stopped at a light at the end of the ramp, so he turned to look at her.
She nodded. “I am—I’m happy for you. I hope this is something…good for you.” She wiped her eye with a forefinger, and Gideon felt his heart sink.
The blare of a horn behind them jerked his attention to the front, and he saw the green light. He jabbed the accelerator and they leapt forward. “Dammit, Rachel, I’m sorry. I—”
“No, Gideon, it’s not you. Honest. I’m sorry—I’m just…emotional.”
“What’s going on?”
She rested her head back against the headrest and spoke through a definitely weepy voice. “I’m just under a lot of stress from the press related to the award and all the new business coming from it—don’t get me wrong, it’s great, but it’s just, well…to tell the truth…I always thought it was going to be me who found someone and wanted to end it.” And with that, she burst into tears.
* * *
Fiona forced her eyes open to darkness broken only by irregular shafts of light. Her head screamed with throbbing pain, just above her left temple, and the rest of her body was one big ache. And she couldn’t move.
She was tied, trussed like a turkey, arms behind her back, ankles lashed together, and on her side…somewhere.
Something disgusting filled her mouth—a cloth—sopping up every bit of lubrication she might have had or mustered, and she couldn’t spit it out even if her tongue could have worked, for something like tape was stuck from jawbone to jawbone.
She closed her eyes, nausea flooding her, and prayed desperately that she wouldn’t have to vomit. Deep breaths, she told herself, repeating the mantra over and over, and tried to pull in soothing gulps of air, sprinkled with dust, through her nose. She didn’t allow herself to think of anything else until the danger of puking was past.
When her stomach finally settled, it was some time later. In fact, she may have weaved in and out of consciousness a few more times. The ache in her head had lessened, but the pain was now centered in her shoulders and wrists from her arms being pulled back. Fiona blinked several times while her eyes focused in the darkness. The same slashes of light fell awkwardly across the floor and over the wall, and that was when she recognized where she was.
Chills crept up her spine when she realized she was in the very spot where the skeleton had been found, and only the fact that there was a faint light reflecting into the small alcove under the stairs told her that she hadn’t been boarded up in the darkness herself.
Gulping back terror, her throat scratchy and dry, Fiona cleared a path through her addled mind and tried to calm down. She was alive, basically unhurt, and in her shop. Since there was filtering light, she knew she wasn’t enclosed in the closet. Whoever had done this must be gone, for there wasn’t enough illumination, or any sound, to indicate that someone might be there.
Using her elbows, she shifted and squirmed, rolling over to her other side. Now she could see out into the shop from under the stairs, and could see that all was still. She had no idea what time it was, but if the deep darkness that hung around the edges of the shop was any indication, it was the dead of night. The lamps she had come in to turn on were off, and only one light cast a pool of warmth into the shop…and it was, of course, The Lamp.
Fiona closed her eyes as terror welled inside her—cold chills sending wracking tremors through her body. She knew without a doubt that whoever had left her here had done so in the dark.
She knew that with the same certainty that she knew the lamp was not plugged into the wall, even though it was illuminated.
Yet, nothing happened—nothing was going on. There were no breezes, no clinking of chandeliers, no flickering lights, no scent of roses…all was still. Almost peaceful.
And, she told herself, grasping at one logical aspect: it was no ghost who’d bashed her on the head and tied her up. That had been the work of something very human. Her shivering eased and she forced herself to breathe more slowly.
