Ghost Aria (4 page)

“The mother in me wants to tell you to stay home safe, but I lived that life and it nearly killed me.” Her mother's voice reflected the exhaustion and depression of her married years. Unlike her ex-husband, she was careful never to criticize Christy's father, except in oblique references. “So my best advice is this: Listen to your instincts. Trust your gut. Trust yourself.”

“Okay.” She paused, feeling like she should be honest. “I ran into Roman Sanclaro.”

Her mother's end of the line went icy.

“We went out to dinner a couple of times.”

The connection crackled.

“Mom?”

“I don't like him. You know that.”

“I think he might be different now. He's more mature.”

Her mother heaved a weary sigh. “I'd tell you to stay away from him, but I know you won't. So just . . . be careful, okay? Don't take everything he tells you at face value.”

Christy laughed. “So trust myself but don't trust anyone else?”

“Yes.”

And the connection was lost.

M
onday flew by without a pause.

Over the weekend, the cops had cleared the lower level for staff access again. Rumors ran thick and fast, but nothing else of note had happened. And nobody had any new news—just endless rehashes of the details everyone already knew.

With Matt's efficient help, Christy triumphantly checked off cataloging an entire storeroom. It was a little strange to see the blinking red eyes of the video cameras now installed in every room and at most major hallway intersections. Whether due to those or the partner method, nothing strange happened all day.

Christy felt herself relaxing.

This she could do. Even Carla's “emergency” request for a particular set of curtains seemed to be a challenge instead of a crisis.
Make her look good
. Matt scored the find on those—right before five o'clock, too—and insisted on doing a touchdown dance.

Still laughing at his wild interpretation of an appropriate victory dance, Christy unlocked her office door and dumped the BNoD on her desk. A few more weeks and the thing would be history. She and Matt should make a little bonfire of it.

She pulled open her drawer and jumped back a foot.
Snakebit!
her aunt Isadore would have said.

Another rose. Crimson and in lush, full bloom.

Another note.

With no thought of preserving this one, she crumpled it in her fist, a little panicked noise escaping her.

“Pretty flower.” Carla leaned in the doorway, her arms folded. “Got yourself a boyfriend, huh?”

“I don't know.” Christy waved her hand, trying to look breezy. “Secret admirer, I guess. You know how it is.”

“No. I don't, actually. That stuff only happens to the cheerleaders and prom queens.”

The sharp edges of the vellum note pricked her palm. “Well, I've never been either.”

“The concept still applies.” With a close-lipped smile, Carla shrugged up from her leaning position. “Good job finding those curtains—or was that all Matt?”

“Matt definitely gets the prize for that one.”
A good manager always gives credit where it's due.
But the praise, faint as it might be, showed that her mom's technique was working.

“And the flute—who helped you with that?” Carla's gaze dropped to the rose and she picked it up, spinning it in her fingers and inhaling the wine-dark scent that already pervaded the little office. Her eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses were hard as marbles.

“N-no one.” Dammit, she never stuttered. Christy shrugged, put her hands in her pockets, and tucked the note deep inside. “Just got lucky in the Mozart room.”

Jeez, that sounded bad.

“I'll bet you did. Find anything else interesting?”

Strange question. “Like what?”

“Call it curiosity.” Carla shrugged and held out the rose. Christy took it, not really wanting to touch it again, but she couldn't very well tell Carla to toss it on the desk. “Have a wonderful evening.”

Christy clenched her fists in her pockets, the note digging into her palm, while she glared at Carla's departing swagger. That woman couldn't possibly know anything. How could she? And how had the phantom gotten into her locked office?

She checked the door to the adjoining room—also locked.

It's my opera house
.

Well, she sure as hell wasn't his. No way was she meeting him. Tossing the rose in the trash and taking her things, she turned off the light and locked the door.

And left without a backward glance.

If she walked at a faster clip than usual, that could be blamed on being excited to be going home for the day. And it wasn't possible to feel eyes following her as she walked down the hallway and out the door. It felt weird having those video cameras everywhere. Who wouldn't get paranoid?

Her rubber soles didn't click on the concrete floors the way her heels had that first day, but each step seemed to blare an alarm. Resisting the urge to run, she rounded the last corner and hit the exit bar on the doors with a bang, emerging into the balmy evening with shredding relief.

The dirt and gravel under her tires spit and hissed on the underside of her car when she backed out with a bit too much spin, and again when she peeled out, passing through the gate.

And nearly ran down Carla.

The tall blonde stood in the middle of the road leading out of the lot, hand up flat like a traffic cop. Of course Christy braked. She barely entertained the notion of running her over. Nice people didn't think that way.

Carla came around to the driver's side, pantomiming for Christy to roll down her window. “Can you come back in for a few minutes? I need some help moving a few things.” She leaned down, peering at Christy's things on the passenger seat. “Did you forget your posy?”

It took Christy a few seconds to process that the old-fashioned–sounding word meant the rose. “I wanted to keep it at the office—more cheerful.”

“It will die without water.”

Christy stared at the woman, her eyes hidden by the glare on her glasses from the lowering sun. “I guess that's a chance I'll have to take.”

“Your deal.” Carla straightened and knocked a fist on the hood. “Come help me. It'll only take a few minutes, and everyone else is gone.”

Christy flexed her hands on the steering wheel, so close to telling Carla to go screw herself. Which wouldn't be following her mother's advice—nor would it mesh with the story she'd given her father about her desire to prove herself to the staff. Above, the soaring roof of the opera house glowed white and gold against the deep blue sky. A shadow fluttered in one corner, and disappeared again. Her heart clutched.

But she couldn't tell Carla she was afraid. She parked her car again and turned off the ignition with a deep, sinking sensation. Carla actually smiled at her, and they walked back in together. That was important; they'd be together. And there were the cameras. In another few minutes, she'd be in her car and gone again.

She followed Carla to the prop shop, where two freshly painted totem poles stood waiting next to a handcart. “You can dump your things there.” Carla indicated a tall workbench with her chin. “I can move these with the dolly, but I need you to help me maneuver it on there. I'm glad I caught you—two-person job, and the glazers get in two hours before I usually do. They'll have a fit if these aren't in place and ready to go. I really didn't want to get up at four a.m., you know?”

Christy hesitantly smiled back at the unusually relaxed and chatty Carla. Another point for Mom on how to get along at the new job. Together they wrestled the totem pole onto the flat ledge of the handcart, and Christy steadied it while Carla tilted the cart back, letting the statue settle into its cradle.

“Perfect! I'll go drop this and be right back for the other.”

“I'll come with you—”

“No need! I can scoot it off easily enough and be back in two minutes.” With that, Carla was already in the big freight elevator, the doors grinding closed.

Christy was a heartbeat from running after her, like a timid kindergartner chasing after her big sister. Two minutes. No big deal. The elevator cables clattered, then were silent.

She surveyed the empty prop shop, the off-duty stillness of the opera house settling like a heavy cloak. Shadows deepened in the corners, taking on the darkness of the unlit hallway. A grating sound, like metal against glass, scraped across her nerves. She turned in a slow circle, looking for the source.

Nothing.

She decided to text Roman to pass the time. He had meetings, he'd said, but maybe they could meet for a drink in between or something.

But her bag was gone.

She spun in a slow circle, her heart climbing through her ribcage like a tarantula. The workbench stood empty. Carla hadn't returned. The blank eye of the video camera over the door returned her stare, the red light off.

The sound again. A sparkle of light as a prism fell, spinning in slow motion until it crashed and shattered on the concrete. Her eyes flew up.

Above her, on one of the high shelves, an enormous crystal chandelier teetered, then plummeted.

Her thoughts flashed, a flock of birds changing direction with a thunderbolt clap of wings.

A shadow appeared, seizing her in iron arms, lifting her.

“Christine.”

Like a curtain closing across her mind, she lost consciousness.

C
andlelight, golden and gentle, greeted her when she woke.

She shifted, the glide of warm velvet under her cheek, the brush of a soft fur blanket covering her. So peaceful and cozy. Her lashes looked like black lace against the warm light. Sighing, she snuggled in, drowsy and peaceful.

With a bolt of panic, she sat up, the throw falling away, and tried to absorb her surroundings.

It was something out of a dream.

She sat on an antique chaise, sort of a carved wooden fainting couch, covered in emerald velvet with throw pillows in satin jewel tones. The fur blanket felt real, soft as chinchilla, in a dazzling light pearly gray, nearly a luminescent silver. The rest of the room held similar furniture, an eclectic assortment of Victorian-style lines and fabrics, breathtakingly elegant. Plush Oriental carpets easily worth tens of thousands of dollars covered the floor, one bordering another in a stained-glass pattern of color.

On every surface, white pillar candles glowed, their flames straight and true in the draftless cavern. For a cave it was, rough rock walls a disconcerting backdrop for the lovely pieces. As if she were some sort of exotic animal, displayed in a zoo habitat created by some well-meaning but misguided keeper—who couldn't disguise the impression that the abandoned lion's den of rocks and crags had been hastily converted just for her.

Little doubt who her captor might be. Or that Tara's fate might yet be in store for her.

The stark terror she'd felt in the prop shop had chilled now, coating her insides with a fine frost. Her mind felt crystal clear, sharp and incisive. Some part of her recognized this as an adrenaline high. This was the state that allowed mothers to lift cars off their children or soldiers to continue fighting with fatal injuries.

Fight or flight.

If escape wasn't an option, she would fight. Laura Moon's daughter wouldn't go down without one.

Resolved, she explored the room. Most of the furniture sat at least an arm's length from the cave walls, which allowed her to walk behind the credenzas, desks, and settees, even the tall bookshelves. Though the candles didn't provide much penetrating light, her investigations showed no doors, no tunnels, not even a mouse hole.

She circumnavigated the room twice. Then a third time, just to be sure. The only egress appeared to be the chimney. The fireplace seemed to have been dug out of the wall, large enough to stand in and deeply inset. Behind a gleaming brass screen, logs burned with fierce heat, any smoke whisked up the chimney. No telling how high it might be.

“Christine.”

She'd been ready for this, so she didn't startle. Instead, she reached for the fireplace poker and slowly turned to face her captor.

He'd apparently dressed for the occasion, the black cloak swept back to frame his broad shoulders, clothed in a billowing white shirt with poet's sleeves, a waistcoat of swirling gold brocade fitted to his narrow waist. The black half mask obscured his face but not his ice-blue eyes or his sleekly groomed white-blond hair.

In his gloved hands, he carried a tray with a crystal carafe and a plate of some sort of food. His gaze touched on the poker and moved back up to her eyes, his sharp-edged lips curving. “Does the fire need stirring?”

“You think I won't use it, but I will.” Her voice sounded even and confident. “You're not raping me without losing some important soft bits, mark my words.” She eyed his crotch significantly, which was maybe a mistake because the tight fit of his black trousers left little to the imagination.

“I won't be raping you at all. I told you before, I have no wish to frighten you.”

“Breaking news—kidnapping and imprisoning someone is frightening to them.”

“I did not kidnap you. You fainted in my arms. I could hardly leave you alone in the hallway.”

“Then I can leave whenever I wish?”

“That is always within your power, if you truly want it.”

“Like Dorothy, I only have to click my heels and wish to be home?” She snickered. “That's hardly a realistic answer.”

He shrugged, the liquid in the carafe sloshing. “What is real?”

She flexed her fingers on the poker. It felt solid. The fire warmed her skin. But her dreams had felt this vivid, too. “I don't think I know anymore,” she replied, finally.

His lips curved. “I receive little company, so I would love for you to stay and continue to talk with me for a while.”

“Oh, is that what we're doing?”

“Yes. A clever woman like you should recognize a conversation when she's in one.” He turned away and set the tray on a low table of glossy wood with frivolous legs that ended in dainty carved hooves.

She lifted the poker. With his back turned, she could strike him over the head. Quick and clean.

“Don't.” He said it softly, with stern command, never looking at her. He poured the blood-red liquid from the carafe into a glass and brought it to her. “If you try to attack me, I will tie your hands. I'd prefer you to accept my ropes under other circumstances.”

The words sent a pulse of heat between her thighs and her once-clear thoughts whirled. She didn't know what to think or do.

“Come sit,” he said, in a much gentler tone, warm and coaxing. “Have some wine. Eat something. We'll talk.” He eased the poker out of her hand, set it back in the stand, and wrapped her fingers around the wineglass. Clearly unconcerned that she might disobey, he turned his back and moved to an antique French chair, unfastening his cloak and setting it aside. He settled himself on the chair and stretched out one leg, as if it pained him, his muscular thigh twitching.

Christy clutched the wineglass. Her self-defense instructor had never said what to do in this kind of situation. Or maybe she had. Make him see you as a person.
Trust your instincts.

“Won't you sit, Christine?” He sounded a little weary.

Forcing herself to move, she took the chair opposite him, at the other end of the long table. In her jeans and Sarah Lawrence sweatshirt, she felt grubby and graceless. She tucked her sneakered feet under the chair, holding her knees pressed tightly together. After an awkward moment, she set the full wineglass on the table and, for lack of something to do with her hands, folded her arms.

“No wine for you?” He always sounded so amused by her.

“I can't help but notice you aren't drinking any. I'm really not interested in being drugged into submission.”

He stilled, intensity burning through him. “I'm not interested in using drugs to entice your submission, Christine.”

She had to look away. Jesus, why did those things he said eat through her like that? Shifting a little in her chair to ease the ache between her thighs, she caught him watching the movement with avid interest.

With deliberate care, he poured himself a glass of wine and lifted it to her in a graceful toast. “To new beginnings.”
To the most beautiful girl in the room
. A shiver ran through her.

He drank from the glass, like a flesh-and-blood man, to all appearances, then cocked his head at her. “You won't seal the toast either?”

“No, thank you.”

“I want to earn your trust, Christine.”

“Why?”

“So I may pay my court to you.”

That stopped her. A frisson of shock, fear—and, curiously, pleasure—ran over her skin. It all felt like stepping into some old story. A fairy tale.

“I don't understand.” It came out as a whisper.

He set his wineglass on the table, a bookend to hers, leaned his elbows on his knees, and laced his fingers together. “Surely in even such a modern world, a young woman understands what it means to be courted. I want to woo you, Christine. I want to seduce you, to unfold your petals and open you like the sensuous flower of womanhood you are. I want to peel away every layer of resistance until I hold you trembling and naked in my arms, until I know you more intimately than any other being on this earth.”

Her nails were digging into the wooden arms of the chair. Somewhere in that speech she'd unfolded her arms and leaned toward him, helplessly entranced by the images he created in her mind.

It was all so strange, as in the dreams. The urge to go to him overwhelmed her. He held out his gloved hands, opening his arms. “Come to me, Christine. Give me a kiss.”

“No.” She clutched the chair, as if it would anchor her there. “I won't. I can't.”

“But you can. Am I such a monster?”

That cleared some of the spell. “I don't know—if you murdered poor Tara, you are. And perhaps I simply don't want to.”

His lips curved, making her wonder how he'd feel and taste. “You want to. You are as drawn to me as I am to you. You're too intelligent to delude yourself on that point. You want to kiss me now, to taste me as I wish to taste you. All you have to do is ask.”

Christy shook her head, both in refusal and to dispel the desire his voice created in her. “Gotta point out here that you didn't respond to the part about Tara.”

“I didn't kill that girl.” Anger rippled through his voice. “It grieves me deeply that you could think it. Have I done the least thing to harm you?”

Christy shrugged elaborately. “No. Not a thing. I suppose the rape, torture, and murder part of our program is still to come.”

“Beneath this mask and these clothes, I may be scarred, but I do not possess the twisted soul to do such a thing. I promise you that.”

“Okay, then how did her body get there? And so conveniently after you ambushed me in that hallway?”

He adjusted the mask, showing a touch of uncertainty—the first she'd glimpsed in him. “I don't know.” He said it softly, a confession.

“How can you not know?” she demanded in a tumult of emotion. “You're the theater ghost! You see all and know all! You come and go like the wind and no doors are locked to you!” Her voice rose perilously high and she strained forward in the chair even as she clung to the arms, as if she might launch herself at him. “Tell me how any of this is possible!”

He regarded her somberly. “I am bound by flesh and blood. I am only a man, Christine.”

“I don't believe you,” she hissed.

“No?” He stood abruptly and came around the fragile barrier of the coffee table in a single stride. She shrank back in her chair, but he only held out a black-gloved hand. “Touch me and see.”

She knotted her hands together. “I don't want to.”

“Give me that much.” He sounded equally distraught. “Let me at least prove to you that I am not a ghost.”

“And then you'll let me go?”

“It is always within your power to come and go, if you want to. Touch me. Trust me.”

He stood over her, so tall, his fair hair shining in the candlelight. Hesitant, she laid her hand in his, the leather soft and supple from his body heat. He drew her to her feet with great care, so she stood close enough to smell him. Like cedar chests and pine smoke, warm leather and man.

Taking her hands by the wrist, he laid them flat on his strong chest. Then let go and stood at her mercy. She flexed her fingertips on the brocade waistcoat, feeling the contour of muscle beneath. His breath rose and fell, his strong heart thumping. She trailed her hands down, over his flat abdomen, enticed by his masculine form. But the fabric, stiff and scratchy, got in the way. He wasn't watching her but instead stared steadfastly over her head, concentrating on not moving, perhaps. She unfastened one of the elaborate gold frogs and his breath caught.

Only a man
.

That small response, more than anything, emboldened her. One by one, she unhooked the closings, then spread open the waistcoat, freeing the white linen crushed beneath. It was damp from the sweat of his skin, fragrant with his scent. Intoxicated, she ran her hands up his hard belly, ribs, and pecs. All man. When she reached his collar, her fingers found the button there and set about to undo it.

His hands came up, clamping her wrists, holding them there.

“No.”

She stared up into his intent, icy eyes. “Why not?”

“I don't want you to see me. Some of it is . . . not pretty.”

“Is that why you wear a mask?”

“Yes.” He searched her face with a kind of yearning. “Can you look past that?”

“I want to see.”

“Not yet.”

“Then I want to touch. I'll close my eyes.”

He hesitated.

“You asked me to trust you. Trust me.”
Trust your gut.

He breathed a humorless laugh. “Such a simple thing to ask, is it not? And so terribly uncomfortable to give.”

For the first time, she felt she might understand him. A ghost pain from her own scars sparked across her belly. “You also asked me to touch you. Let me.”

His gloved fingers flexed on her wrists. “I want to blindfold you. Will you let me?”

It seemed the room spun around her in a long, slow whirl, a carousel of exotic beasts whispering to her of dread and exhilaration. The few logical thoughts she could muster all muttered that this was a bad, bad idea.

But something deeper and stronger overrode them. She wanted this.