Not well. Her panic swelled, eating up some of her anger.She’s dying, she thought.Oh god, I knew it.“Is she . . . sick?”
“In a way.” With their reddish undertones, his eyes reminded her of the iron-rich granite that made up the surrounding mountains. She had never seen such a vicious hazel. “Something happened on her honeymoon with Ben. I don’t know what. But she came back wild and raving. Delusional. And now—she’s gone missing.”
The word speared into her like a knife.Missing. “But she’s not delusional. She’s neverbeendelusional. She doesn’t even get depressed.”Not like me, she added silently.
He watched her, not responding.
“How long?” she demanded. “How long has she beenmissing?”
“A little over a week. But most missing people turn up within twenty-four hours and if not then, eighty-six percent are eventually found.”
The long hallway swam and narrowed, the green runners seeming to undulate like a tongue.Missing for a week.Panic wasn’t swayed by statistics. Somebody had to be the victim of those extremes. “And the other fourteen?” she whispered. “What about them?”
His face shifted again. The planes of it were so harsh and unforgiving that it took her a moment to realize he was looking at her with something like sympathy.
And that was when part of herknew.
Everything started to go gray. She saw him mouth something but didn’t hear it, whatever it was. And then she saw him leap forward, just as everything winked out like a large, shutting eye.
They’re never found, a voice whispered, over the klaxons in her ears.Because they’re dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
Just like the night her parents died.
Someone had woken her up from a dream. And it had been a lovely dream, too, which was something she had felt guilty about for many years. For daring to feelgoodwhile her parents were in their death throes, burning to a crisp in a crumpled husk of broken glass and twisted metal.
After that, she’d always,alwayshad nightmares. Like she was punishing herself for that fleeting moment of happiness before her entire world was destroyed.
I deserve it.
“Nadine,” the police officer had said. “I need you to tell you something very important, okay?”
No, she thought, twisting away from the memory.No, no, NO. I don’t want this.
“I need you to be brave.”
I don’t want to be brave. I don’t want to—
“Nad,” her sister’s ghostly voice whispered. “Wake up.”
In a very small voice, Nadine said, “Noe?”
“Nad, I need you. Help me.Please.”
Nadine shot up with a gasp.
The air was tinged with the sharp sweetness of flowers, punctuated by sharp cedar notes and the faded chicory-smoke of old cigars. It took her eyes a moment to decipher the sepia blur she now found herself in. She was in some kind of parlor, reclined on a leather couch. The furniture was rich and expensive, gleaming with varnish under the amber gaslights, and Cal was perched on the arm of her seat with the watchful vigilance of a lion guarding its prey.
“Careful.” A dark heat flared in his eyes when she scrambled backwards. “You were out cold.”
“There’s no doctors here.” The feminine voice came from the far wall, where Odessa was reclining, filing her nails. She was still wearing the blouse and skirt she had been wearing in the square, one of her legs bent so her foot was propped up against the wall. “No hospital, either.”
“Really?” She swallowed hard. “What happens if you get h-hurt?”
“Don’t,” Odessa advised, her eyes on her nails.
Nadine’s eyes slid slowly to the velvet chair adjacent to her own seat, where Ben was seated like a king. His mahogany locks were tousled and unbrushed, and his jaw was tight. He had one leg crossed over the other, in a pose approximating indolence, but he kept rubbing at his palms.
