Either could work in her favor.
BRIAN TOSSED HIS GUN and keys onto the bedroom dresser, then stepped into the tiny bathroom to turn on the water in the bath, wishing like hell someone had thought to update the antiquated bathrooms in the main house to include showers. Taking baths in a relic of a house in the middle of nowhere and babysitting angry women with a fear of cops—he’d reached an all-time low. Granted, this job gave him the opportunity to take a much-needed break from police work, and for that he was grateful, but it came with other complications that he was usually able to avoid.
Like angry, beautiful women with a fear of cops.
He tensed for a moment and rubbed the two-day growth on his jaw. Where had that beautiful part come from? Granted, when Olivia had told him she’d hired a historian, he’d been expecting the gray-haired-librarian sort. A dark-skinned Creole beauty with green eyes, miles of black, wavy hair and a body that was toned to perfection had never entered his mind. Not to mention there was something familiar about her. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but it would come to him eventually.
He stepped back into the bedroom and grabbed some clean clothes from his duffel bag just as a huge bolt of lightning struck outside. The lights flickered twice, then went out completely, leaving him in total darkness. He took a couple of steps to his right, trying to feel for the lantern in the inky, black room, and banged his knee on the nightstand. Mentally cursing himself for doing the very thing he’d warned Justine to be prepared for, he located the matches and lit the lantern.
He placed the lantern on the center of the nightstand and tossed his clean clothes on the bed. It was probably a bad idea to submerge yourself in a tub of water during a thunderstorm. Pulling the heavy drapes to the side, he peered outside at the rain that poured from the sky. These blinding-heat thunderstorms that blew in off the Gulf of Mexico were nothing new to him, but while normally he could ignore the storm and go to bed, being at laMalediction spurred his thoughts to all the things a storm this bad implied.
Communication would be nonexistent, and if there was an emergency, he wasn’t certain they’d be able to make it down the path to Cypriere, even in his Jeep. It was also far easier for someone to hide in a blinding rainstorm, both their movements and the noise they made, so he needed to be more alert than ever.
Brian released the drapes, but as the heavy curtain slipped back into place, he saw a flash of white across the courtyard. He yanked the drape back again and focused on the area behind the fountain where he’d seen the white object, but there was nothing there.
He waited a couple of seconds and was just about to chalk it up to debris blowing in the storm when he saw it again, this time clearer. It was a tall figure wearing a long, white robe. He couldn’t see a face, but he had no doubt the object was human. The person stood just at the edge of the woods, motionless in the storm as the white robe whipped around him.
Brian dropped the drape and reached for his gun. No way was someone standing out in that rainstorm to bring a housewarming gift. After his conversations with John and Olivia, he’d anticipated trouble, but not necessarily so soon. He shoved his gun into the waistband of his jeans, grabbed a flashlight and knocked once on the connecting door before entering Justine’s room. She sat in a chair at a writing table and stiffened as he entered the room, her expression both aggravated and indignant.
“That wasn’t much notice,” she complained. “What if I’d been dressing?”
“There’s someone outside in the storm, standing across the courtyard. I’m going to check it out. I need you to lock both doors to your room and do not come out until I tell you it’s clear.”
Justine’s eyes widened and she glanced out the window into the storm. “Someone’s out there in that? But that’s crazy!”
“Exactly my point,” he said as he opened the door to her room and slipped into the hallway. “Stay put until I get back.” He pulled the door closed and rushed out of the house and into the storm.
Chapter Three
Justine rushed to lock doors as soon as Brian left, then pulled her gun from her suitcase and checked the clip. Placing the gun within easy reach on the writing table, she took a breath and tried to process what Brian had told her. It was so unbelievable, she was still having trouble wrapping her mind around it.
She knew that standing in front of the window during a lightning storm was a dangerous thing to do. Not only because of the lightning, but because she’d left the drapes open earlier to watch the storm, and the lantern would cast her silhouette onto the window. Even the most amateur of shooters would find that an easy target.
Not that she had any reason to believe that someone was trying to kill her, but she had every reason to believe that someone was trying to scare her. A well-placed shot through a window would be a good way to scare someone, but could also result in disaster with the high winds of the storm. Edging across the room, she stopped just before the window and leaned over to peer outside.
The storm was raging and she had to strain to make out Brian as he slipped behind the automobiles in the courtyard. After that, the fountain came into clearer view and she got her visual bearings. Scanning the courtyard, she looked for anything out of place…like someone standing in the middle of a torrential downpour just asking to be struck by lightning.
Across the courtyard, just beyond the woods, she saw what had sent Brian running outside. She dimmed the lamp to barely an ember to remove the glare from the window, and looked outside again. The figure was still there, wearing a white-hooded cape that whipped around in the storm. She strained to make out a face or even to tell if the figure was a man or a woman, but the head was bent, as if staring at the ground.
Suddenly the figure raised his head, and Justine would have sworn on everything holy that whatever was out in the storm was looking directly at her. Two red eyes glowed inside the white hood and her heart began to race. Her skin tingled and her hair stood on end as a wave of fear like she’d never experienced before washed over her.
She drew back from the window, her body flat against the wall, and struggled to breathe normally, her heart pounding so loudly she thought it would burst. What in God’s name was out there? And where was Brian? She hadn’t seen him at all. Had that…that thing gotten him?
You’re panicking. Get a grip. It has to be a trick.
She sucked in a deep breath and slowly blew it out, then leaned over and peeked outside again. But this time the courtyard was empty. No white-hooded figure. No red eyes.
No Brian.
She scanned beyond the courtyard, past the caretaker’s cottage and the storage shed and into the woods. Surely Brian wouldn’t have gone into the woods. He was armed, but if someone was playing a trick on them, they were obviously prepared, and Justine had to assume, better equipped to disappear, even in the storm. What Justine had seen required planning and setup and careful deliberation. Certainly not the sort of thing kids would pull off, as the sheriff had suggested to Olivia.
She scanned the courtyard once more, looking for any sign of Brian, and her hands clenched involuntarily as every square inch she could see turned up empty. How long did she wait? Hours? All night? What if he needed help?
Justine was an excellent tracker, but in a storm like this, even she would have trouble determining whether the telltale signs of a presence in the woods were due to a man passing or the winds and rain of the storm. Footprints wouldn’t remain for long in the downpour.
Frustrated and antsy, she blew out a breath and paced the length of the room. On the second pass, her nose wrinkled and she stopped to sniff the air. Something was different…acrid.
Smoke!
Blood rushed to her head and she clutched the desk to remain steady. The room went out of focus for a moment, then seemed