She turned the flashlight on her backpack to see if anything looked disturbed, and that’s when she heard a noise downstairs. Standing stock-still, she listened, hoping to hear the sound again, but there was only silence. Frustrated, she blew out the breath she’d been holding.
It’s an old house. It makes noise.
But what she’d heard wasn’t the normal creaking and settling of an old house. It was a whooshing sound. Like someone was moving something big—maybe the exit panel to the hidden passageway attached to her room.
Damned if someone was going to get away with spying on her. She hurried into the bathroom and pulled on her shorts and T-shirt, not even bothering to dry off, then grabbed her nine millimeter out of her backpack and slipped out of the bedroom and into the pitch-black hall. She paused a couple of seconds until her eyes adjusted somewhat to the dark, and then lifting her gun next to her shoulder in a ready position she crept down the padded center of the hallway.
At the end of the hallway, she crouched down and peered between the wrought iron banisters of the staircase. The entry was empty and she squinted into the black, trying to make out movement in the sitting room. Nothing.
Holding her breath, she strained to hear, hoping the sound she’d heard earlier would repeat. One second. Two seconds. Three. There it was again.
Now or never.
She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, then, staying low, she eased down the stairs and slipped behind a life-size gladiator statue in the entry. She peered into the sitting room, and for a moment it looked as if a piece of the back wall shifted. And that’s when she heard it—the shuffle of footsteps on ceramic tile.
An entryway that opened to the kitchen stood on the opposite end of the sitting area. She tightened her grip on her pistol and slipped around the corner and into the sitting room. Staying as close as possible to the wall, she made her way around the room and stopped at the edge of the kitchen entrance to listen again.
For a moment there was nothing, then she heard the footsteps, the sound so faint it barely registered. Her pulse was already racing and she felt her heart beating in her chest when she realized the footsteps were getting closer. She flattened herself against the wall and took aim at the entrance. Then the footsteps stopped.
Her heart beat so loudly she was certain it would give her away. She’d stopped breathing altogether. Did she stay put or confront the intruder? Surely, whoever was sneaking around wasn’t expecting a woman with a gun. The element of surprise should be on her side. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer. Then before she could change her mind she slipped around the corner and into the kitchen.
And that’s when he grabbed her.
HE WAS FAST—faster than she would have believed someone could be and still not make any noise. Before she could even zero in on him, he’d disarmed her and had one hand over her mouth, holding in the scream she tried to let out. She felt her heart in her throat and for the first time in her life wondered if this was how it was all going to end, just like a scene out of one of her books.
Suddenly the lights blinked on and he spun her around to face him, one hand still gripping her shoulder.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, his amber eyes blazing.
The man was probably mid-thirties, tall and despite the hooded jacket he wore, Olivia could tell he was built for action. Olivia yanked her shoulder out from under his hand and took a step back, glancing at his hand that held her gun. “I’m the person with a key. Who the hell are you?” Olivia shot back, hoping her voice didn’t sound as shaky as she felt.
“The caretaker. You’re trespassing on private property.”
“I’m not trespassing. I leased this house, and if you were really the caretaker, you would know that. Who hired you? Wheeler?”
The man’s eyes narrowed at her. “You know Wheeler?”
“Look, I’ve already told you I have a lease. What I don’t have is an answer from you. Now, do I have to call the police?”
He let out a single laugh. “Go ahead and try. The landline in the house hasn’t been hooked up in years and cell phone service went out as soon as the storm hit.”
“Rest assured, as soon as I can, I’ll be calling someone about you.” She held out her hand, forcing herself to keep it steady. “I’d like my gun, and I’d like for you to leave.” She couldn’t even breathe, waiting for him to react. This was it. If he wanted to harm her, he had every advantage.
He studied her for a moment, then placed the gun in her hand. At first it surprised her that he’d returned her weapon without an argument, but then she remembered how he’d disarmed her with complete ease and in a pitch-black room. Her stomach clenched, and she realized that even with the gun in her hand she wasn’t the least bit safe. She waited for him to leave, but he just stared at her as if he was sizing her up.
“You always walk around in the dark, half-dressed and carrying a gun?” he asked.
Damn it. Olivia suddenly realized she was standing in the bright light of the kitchen, soaking wet and wearing only a thin white T-shirt and cotton shorts. She crossed her arms and he smirked. “When I’m supposed to be alone,” she said, “and I hear someone downstairs, then yeah, I walk around in the dark, half-dressed and carrying a gun.”
“Well, you’ll be all alone in about five seconds. I suggest you find someplace to park yourself until morning before you shoot someone.” He whirled around and left through a back door, slamming it shut behind him.
Olivia stared after him, her heart still racing. What in the world? The only caretaker the attorney had mentioned was supposed to be eighty years old. There was no way the angry hulk of a man who’d just left was the person the attorney had described. She crossed the kitchen and locked the door behind him, then hurried upstairs.
She locked the bedroom door, pulled the antique desk over in front of it, and set the chair on top of it for good measure. Stepping back to study her handiwork she bit her lip, then glanced around the room. Ugly green vase in corner. Perfect. She grabbed the tall, hideous vase from the corner and stuck it on top of the chair. Granted, with its weight, it didn’t exactly add anything to securing the door but at least if someone tried to enter the bedroom that way, she’d hear them coming.
There was no way to easily dry her clothes so she toweled off the worst of the bathwater from her hair and body and slipped into bed, propped upright, gun in hand and every single light in the room blazing.
Chapter Two
John Landry let the kitchen door swing shut with a bang as he stepped out into the storm. What the hell was going on? The attorney had never mentioned someone leasing the house, and even if he’d known someone was taking up residence in the little mansion of horrors, the last person he could have imagined was the petite, mouthy, gun-toting spitfire he’d accosted. What kind of woman leased a derelict of a house, hidden away in a bayou, whose locally given name quite literally translated to “the Curse”?
The last thing he needed right now were complications, and women were always a complication. This woman could ruin everything.
The rain poured down and he pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head. He walked the length of the house, shining a flashlight behind the bushes that lined the exterior wall. Nothing. Finally, at the edge of the house, he saw them—a set of footprints in the mud just below a window in an empty downstairs room. He scanned the window and saw the wood chips at the bottom of the frame and the broken lock inside. Someone had pried it open, but there was no way to tell how recently.
He turned his attention back to the ground and followed the footsteps to the edge of the woods that surrounded the estate, where they disappeared in the brush. Damn it! From his window in the caretaker’s cottage he’d seen a light downstairs in the main house maybe fifteen minutes ago. It was small and erratic in movement like a flashlight would be, and since the house