Page 21 of Possess Me

“Um, okay.” I have no idea what she’s talking about.

She reaches up, then fiddles with something behind her neck. For the first time, I notice the delicate silver chain upon which I assume a pendant is hanging, now hidden beneath her tank top. She pulls the chain free, revealing a small, silver crucifix that I recognize immediately.

“How on earth did you get that?” It was Vivien Lorraine’s crucifix, and Syl had bid on it at the auction, but lost.

Syl casts a sideways glance toward the boat. “Jackson wanted to surprise me with something I wanted, but since it was an auction, he decided to hire someone to bid on whatever I bid on.”

I laugh. “In other words, he paid way more than he needed to.”

Delight dances in her eyes. “He said it was worth it to surprise me. That, and all the money’s going to a good cause.”

“Well, that’s true. But—wait a second,” I say, recoiling as she extends the necklace to me. “What are you doing?”

“It’s not from a movie,” she says. “It was Vivien’s when she was a little girl. The story is that her mother gave it to her on her deathbed and told Vivien it would protect her. She lost it not long after she moved to Catalina—or she thought she did. It was found in Carlton’s safe deposit box after his death.”

I frown. “He took it from her?”

“I don’t know. But everyone says she wore it every day after her mother died until they moved here.” Her eyes meet mine. “Until she moved into that house.”

The house didn’t want it. The house made Carlton take it away.

I push back, shocked by the force of the words in my head.

“Nik?”

I shake my head, fighting the urge to recoil from the thing. “I can’t take that. Jackson got it for you.”

“Just a loan. Just while you’re on the island.” She meets my eyes. “Please. I can’t explain it. I just—I just really want you to wear it.”

I want to wear it, too, but somehow I can’t seem to reach for it.

And that makes me want it all the more.

“Nik?”

“I—” I’m fighting for the words. Wanting the necklace. Hating the necklace.

Needing the necklace.

“I have a terrible time with those kinds of catches.” I swallow, then meet her eyes. “Can you put it on me?”

She studies me for a moment, then nods. “Sure.” I watch her walk around the table, a sense of dread building. Fear that she won’t be able to manage. Fear that she’ll drop it. That it will somehow end up in the surf, washed away, never to be found.

But then her fingers touch my neck, and I feel the cool metal on my skin, then the weight of the pendant as it tugs the chain down once she’s fastened it.

Vivien’s crucifix. Her totem. Her protection.

Relief washes. Over me. It’s mine now.

But some small voice inside my head only laughs, and tells me that it’s come too late to do any good at all.

9

Damien holds my hand as we walk the path back to the cottage, neither of us speaking. It’s a comfortable silence, and at the same time, it feels charged, sparking with things left unsaid, like the air before a storm.

A storm, I think, then shiver.

The storm has yet to come.