His jaw tightened and antagonism bristled from him, but he didn’t say a thing. What was it costing him to keep silent? She was starting to understand just how much Rita Meadows meant to him, how far he’d go to protect her. How could Valerie reassure this many-times-bitten pit bull she meant no harm?
“Eleven will be fine.” Valerie injected light and air into her voice. “My photographer will also need access to Valentina’s room and the living room, as well as the grounds.”
“Yes, of course,” Rita said.
“We’ll keep our visit as short as possible.”
“Take all the time you need. I want Valentina’s story retold in all its details. You never know what will trigger someone’s memory.”
As Rita explained what she wanted to accomplish by airing Valentina’s story, Nick stared at Valerie until the room was sucked dry of air and her head grew light.
“Nick! Nick! Watch me!” A splash of water.
“I have better things to do than watch a baby play.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“Are, too.”
“Well, forget it, then. I’m not telling you my secret.”
A lakeside gazebo with green-and-white striped awnings. Green water. Green trees. Eye-hurting blue sky. Valerie remembered seeing a picture of Nick and Valentina sipping lemonade at Rita’s feet on a dock. Why was that picture coming back to her now?
“May I ask you a personal question?” Rita asked Valerie, changing subjects.
“Sure.”
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty next May.” By then she’d planned on being in New York, working as a producer for a major network in the news division—at least according to the life plan she’d drawn up when she was eighteen. Come to think of it, she’d only checked one item off that long list. “That probably sounds as if I don’t have much experience—”
“Oh, no, dear, I don’t doubt your qualifications. How tall are you?”
Wow, where was this coming from? And what did it have to do with her ability to shoot an interview? “Five-four. ” With three-inch heels. “My mother’s short. That’s where I get it. The shortness, I mean.” Oh, good, now she was babbling. Definitely time to get solid food in her.
Rita’s face crumpled. Her body curled into itself and spasmed in time to a coughing fit. The red agenda she clutched in her lap fell to the ground, spilling its contents. A photograph fluttered and landed upside down at Valerie’s feet.
“Rita?” Moving with speed and athletic grace, Nick knelt at his employer’s side, a glass of water in hand. “Here.”
Rita sipped the water Nick offered her, but the coughing only worsened. Nick gently stood her up.
Not knowing what to do to help Rita, Valerie picked up the agenda and put the pages back in place.
“Stay here,” Nick ordered, glaring at her, then escorted Rita out of the library.
Valerie picked up the photograph, turned it over and gasped. The hairstyle was wrong, and the smile was too stiff, but otherwise, the picture could be hers. “What in the world?”
Why did Rita have her picture? And why didn’t she remember posing for it? What kind of twilight zone had she walked into?
After ten minutes of waiting for Nick’s return, questions running laps in her mind as she studied the photograph from Rita’s agenda, the coffee Valerie had had on the car ride up was putting pressure on her bladder. The tinkling of water in the brass tranquility fountain on an accent table didn’t help.
A middle-aged woman entered the library, looking more like a shadow than a person with her black dress, gray hair and pale skin. Did no one in this house believe in the health benefits of a touch of sun? She carried a silver tray of tea and shortbread cookies—no toast, Valerie noted—and studied the unwelcome guest with decided wariness.
The woman clucked, her dark-brown eyes troubled. Her voice, when she spoke, was soft, but unfriendly. “Ms. Meadows will be down shortly.”
“She was coughing.” Valerie stuck the photograph behind her back. “Mr. Galloway took her up to her room.”
“Oh, no.” The woman’s silver braid snaked over her shoulder as she slapped the tray onto the coffee table and hurried away, her feet making no noise on the rose-adorned carpet.
“Is there a bathroom nearby?” Valerie called after her.
The woman waved a hand vaguely to her right. “Around the corner.” The woman stopped her flight. Her small hand clutched the door frame as if her nails were fangs. Closet vampire? “It’d be best if you left now.”
“I want to be sure Ms. Meadows is okay.”
“No good will come of you digging up bones.”
“We’re taping the segments at Ms. Meadows’s request.” Valerie was starting to feel like a broken record.
“Your act,” the woman warned, shaking her head. “It won’t wash. Nick’ll see right through it.” She turned and vanished into the dark hall.
“Good to know I’m so wanted.” What was going on here? Had Higgins set her up for failure so he would have a good reason to promote Bailey over her? Something wasn’t right. Not just with the room, but with the whole house.
She glanced around the library with its floor-to-ceiling stacks, its comfy chairs and cozy fireplace. Nothing about the elegant decor triggered her unwarranted fear, but she couldn’t help the chill crawling up her spine.
Maybe she should leave and come back in the morning when everybody had calmed down and she’d had some food.
First, though, she had to find a bathroom.
Valerie slipped the photograph into her portfolio. She wanted to study it further, see if she could remember when it was taken. She stepped into the hall. At least this time the walls didn’t ripple. The first door she tried opened into a laundry room that smelled like summer rain. The next door opened into a dark room that looked like a closet, but smelled of rose potpourri and water. Valerie fumbled for a switch and found one in the hallway. Ah, finally, a bathroom.
She relieved herself and admired the painted mural that made it seem as if she were in some enchanted garden—a watercolor background of mossy-green with pink roses, golden grasses and birds. A single blue butterfly hovered on one side of the mirror as if it were going to drink a sip of water from the sink while she washed her hands. She’d always liked butterflies, especially blue ones. As she reached to touch the gossamer wings, the lights went out, leaving her swallowed by darkness.
She sucked in a breath and wrapped her hands around the cold marble of the sink to anchor herself in the pitch-black space. Blinking madly, she tried to orient herself. A power failure? It happened a lot in old houses, didn’t it?
Tamping back her irrational fear of small, dark places, she forced her frozen fingers to let go of the sink. She turned with small baby steps to keep her balance, then groped blindly for the door.
Out of the darkness, a slice of light materialized and crept into the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. She frowned. The power was still on in the rest of the house?
A board creaked outside. She froze. “Hello?” Is anybody out there?”
She stared at the paring of light, but no shadow rippled across its path.
“Just an old house settling into its bones,” she told herself, but the shaky sound of her voice didn’t reassure her. Open the door and get out of here.
Her trembling fingers bumped against