Ellie curled her feet under her and leaned back tiredly as Nissy jumped up to sit on the arm of the sofa and kneaded it with her paws. She had already thought… and thought and thought. “I’ve been over this a hundred times now. I think it would be best to turn it down.”
“No!” Vic’s response was instant and grating.
“No?”
“I mean—” Vic took in a breath, loud enough to hear down the phoneline. “—Please just think about it. For me. For all these years, I’m asking you.”
“Vic—”
“It would be your due diligence anyway. You wouldn’t want to make a mistake because of a knee-jerk reaction. You need to think it through properly.”
That stung. God. Vic got her right in the soft, perfectionist part of her heart. “Okay,” she agreed tiredly, “I’ll give it one more look. We still have a few weeks to consider the offer anyway.”
“A few weeks. I didn’t realize we still had that long to wait,” Vic muttered.
“Yeah, we got an extension because of my accident, but honestly—” Ellie swallowed the rest. Muffled in the background of Vic’s call, almost too quiet to hear, and presumably notintended for her to hear at all, a masculine voice said something that sounded a lot like, “Too fucking long.”
Ellie dropped her feet to the floor and sat up straight. What was too long? Was it the sale? Who was with Victoria during their conversation? No one else was supposed to know about the offer. And, even more worrying, she thought she’d recognized the voice. “Is Warren there?” Ellie asked.
She’d never liked Vic’s on-again-off-again ex. He was always quick with a backhanded compliment, showering Victoria with attention one minute, then cold and jealous the next. He put Ellie down whenever he could: if she ever had to hear him call her Ellie-belly again, she wouldn’t be held responsible for her actions. And Nissy had hated him—which was enough of a veto for Ellie. But, even worse, he had definitely cheated.
She’d been glad when they had finally broken up for good. At the time, it had been awful. She’d told Vic what she’d seen, and it had devastated her friend. But their friendship had survived—intact, if a little cooler—and Vic had let Warren go. Thank God. It was worth the time it took to get their friendship back on track if it meant Vic was safely away from Warren.
“No,” Vic answered quickly.
That was weird. “I thought I heard him….”
There was a second of silence before Vic chuckled a little too loudly. “You didn’t. I… I leaned back and accidentally turned the telly on. Don’t worry; it’s off now.”
Ellie paused uncertainly, trying to listen, but there was no other background noise. Just Victoria’s voice as she moved on to talking about plans for the next day.
Vic had visited her in the hospital. She had stood beside her when her family was nowhere to be found. Vic held her hand when her heart was broken by her first serious boyfriend, and Vic bought the champagne whenThe Shadowbound Riftwentlive. Ellie trusted her. Hell, Vic was in her will as principal beneficiary. If Ellie died, Vic would get everything.
But she still felt strangely unsettled. As if she had to choose her words carefully as she navigated the rest of their conversation. By the time they said goodbye, Ellie was exhausted. Her ribs ached, and so did her heart.
She put down her phone and picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of her gown, listening to the wind. Then she pulled out the television remote and flicked through channels, scrolling listlessly. But nothing held her interest, and she turned it off again in disgust.
Nissy walked over to her and put a foot on her lap. But before she decided to sit, she sneezed delicately, whiskers twitching. Then she shook her furry head and sneezed again.
“Bless you,” Ellie murmured, kissing her on the head. But Nissy narrowed her eyes and glared at Ellie as if she was responsible for her sneezesandall the ills in the world, and then stalked away to sit with her back pointedly turned.
The rejection stung, and Ellie picked up her book, trying not to feel abandoned. She read two pages. And then realized she hadn’t concentrated enough to understand the words, and put it back down rather than starting again.
She was agitated and unsettled and she wanted… something. Someone.Him.
No. That was mad.
She stood, pacing restlessly before giving up and striding back into the hallway. She stepped up to the mirror. Closer and closer. Until she could rest her fingers on the smooth surface. Her eyes locked on the reflected hallway behind her and she bit her lip, half afraid that he would be there, half afraid that he would not.
The mirror was cold beneath her fingertips. The tiles in the hall chilled her feet through her socks. A door rattled as the wind moaned softly through the nearby woods.
And the hall stayed empty.
Chapter Three
There was darkness.And there was a voice.
The voice spoke sometimes, a rambling dialogue interspersed with the occasional huff of irritation or snort of quiet laughter, as if the speaker were talking to herself. The melody rising and falling soothed him. It held him. Kept him company in the darkness.
