House of Dreams (25 page)

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Authors: Brenda Joyce

BOOK: House of Dreams
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Okay. She was a coward. The house was still creepy, even in the light of day.
Cass was showered and dressed in five flat minutes.
Tracey's door was firmly closed. Cass knocked quickly, intending to wake her sister up. She hadn't forgotten how weird she had acted the night before.
There was no answer. Her heart lurching unpleasantly, Cass glanced all around her, but the corridor was empty. Sunlight was filtering in from the opposite end.
“Tracey? Rise and shine.” She pushed open the door and blinked.
Tracey was not in her bed. In fact, it was perfectly made up, as if she hadn't slept there at all. Cass knew her sister would not make her bed, and even if, for some reason, she did, she would never do so like a professional housemaid.
She glanced around the room, espying Tracey's shorts along with a G-string and the tank top she'd worn earlier. If Cass had expected to see any clothes thrown around, it would have been the tiny see-through black dress that she'd worn to supper.
Suddenly Cass was alarmed. Tracey wasn't there. She clearly hadn't slept in her bed. If Cass hadn't seen Antonio fall asleep at his desk last night in the library, over a book, his glasses still on, she would have known exactly where—and with whom—she had slept. But this was so odd.
Just like her sister's behavior had been so odd last night.
Cass felt a small bubble of panic. She tamped it down. Tracey was not missing.
A thought struck her. What if it had been Tracey outside that window, not Antonio's wife?
Suddenly she had an image of her earlier that day, sitting beneath the tree, almost catatonic. Cass shivered. And she knew.
Isabel.
Isabel was somehow behind this.
She didn't want to have such thoughts, but they had come out of nowhere, so strongly that they were undeniable.
I will be your mother now.
Cass stiffened. She did not know what that absurd statement meant,
and she wished she'd never remembered it—or that Alyssa had never dreamed it.
“Damn it, Tracey, where are you?” Cass cried. “I have Alyssa to take care of, and maybe even Antonio. Goddamn it, why do I have to take care of you, too?”
The door closed behind her.
Cass jumped, crying out. She faced the closed door, wide-eyed. “Tracey?”
There was no answer.
“Tracey?” Cass asked, frightened. But why would her sister play tricks on her?
No one answered her.
And in that moment, so much flashed through Cass's mind. Her aunt's warnings. Tracey's odd behavior. Alyssa's dreams. The power going out last night. Seeing Margarita—or someone—outside.
Someone closing the door to the crypt.
Just like someone had just shut the bedroom door, now. Someone …
but who?
Was someone playing tricks on them all? Was someone merely being mischievous?
But who? And why?
Gregory.
Cass stiffened.
He had seemed a decent sort—and he was Antonio's twin brother, for God's sake. She was convinced now that she had imagined the hateful look he had given her. But what if she had not imagined it? Because what she had thought she had seen was utter malevolence.
She reminded herself that he had only arrived last night—but he could have lied. Maybe he had arrived earlier—maybe he had closed the door to the crypt.
Maybe he had messed with her laptop.
But why would he do such things?
And suddenly Cass thought about the way he had looked at Tracey. Surely Tracey had not crept into bed with him—and in any case, surely he would have thrown her out.
Surely he had not seduced her.
Very uneasy, Cass faced the door. Then she swung it open.
She did not know what she expected—Gregory, all smiling charm, or utter hostility; her sister, beguilingly serene, or angrily demanding to know what Cass was doing in her room; Margarita; Isabel.
No one was there. Cass glanced left, then right, and rushed down the hall. She pounded down the stairs, aware that her suspicions might be more than suspicions, they might well be turning into sheer paranoia. But could she truly be blamed if that was so?
A moment later she heard two male voices ahead of her, and suddenly she turned the corner and saw Antonio and Gregory ahead, trooping into the kitchen. She followed them.
“Good morning,” Antonio said, setting down a bag of groceries. He met her gaze. His brother set down another bag. “I'm glad you had a chance to rest.” He smiled—and it was as if last night had never happened. It was as if he had not been devastated by the sight of a woman who may or may not have been his long, lost wife.
She was ensnared by his eyes while her heart thudded uncontrollably, and even while she was telling herself that the five hundred obstacles that lay between them were for the best—because of her sister and because of Aunt Catherine—she knew she was lying to herself. She was fascinated. Intrigued. Lust filled. Smitten. Hopelessly so on all counts. “I had trouble falling asleep.”
“It was a long night.” Then, his tone changing, “Fuses. Tonight we shall have lights. Unfortunately, the phone man will not be here until Monday or Tuesday, but an electrician promised to make it this afternoon.”
Cass must have shown her disbelief, because Gregory said, “This is Spain, Cass. Here there is
never
any urgency.”
“I'd forgotten,” Cass said, as Alfonso set the frittata in front of her. She sat down and dug in, her appetite instantly returning, and was rewarded with the best eggs she had ever tasted. “Wow.”
“We call that a
tortilla español,”
Gregory told her amiably. “Usually we eat it as a tapa, instead of supper.”
Cass suddenly looked at him. “Have either of you guys seen Tracey this morning?” She kept her tone light and casual. She did not yet reveal that Tracey had not slept in her bed.
“I haven't seen her since supper.” Antonio was busy turning over the package of fuses. He had also stocked up on candles and matches, she saw.
“Nor have I,” Gregory agreed with Antonio.
Cass looked at the two brothers. Slowly she said, “She's not in her room. I checked. No one's seen her since last night?”
Gregory seemed alarmed. “I assumed she was sleeping late, as you were.”
“She's probably taking a walk,” Antonio said, unpacking groceries. “It's a beautiful day.”
Cass stood. “Her bed was not slept in.” And she looked Gregory right in the eye.
He looked away. Unpacking another bag of groceries.
Cass stared, amazed. He had slept with her sister—she was almost certain—and he was lying now. He was an unethical prick.
“No one has seen her since supper last night?” Antonio asked, motionless. “Her bed was not slept it?”
And his alarm made her turn. Cass thought about the fact that she had been in his arms last night. She was the last person who should be casting stones at anyone, much less Gregory, she realized with a sinking heart. “I don't think so.”
Antonio's jaw flexed and their gazes met. In that instant Cass knew he hadn't forgotten or even shut out any of the events of last night. He was merely wearing a facade, but it hadn't been hard to chip away. He spoke sharply to Alfonso, and Cass knew he was thinking about Margarita having vanished once from this very place.
“Tracey isn't gone. She'll show up,” Cass said.
His jaw did not relax. He poked his head out the open window, calling to the children. Neither Alyssa or Eduardo had seen Tracey since she had left the dining room the evening before.
Now Cass was trying not to succumb to the panic rising within her. “She'll show up,” she repeated.
“I am certain you are right,” Antonio said, but his expression belied his words. He did not believe his own assurances; he was also alarmed.
Cass managed a lopsided, fake smile. “She's probably out sunbathing or something.”
“Probably,” Antonio said.
Cass thought about her sister's flawless porcelain skin, and knew she'd never lie out in the sun in this lifetime—and met Antonio's gaze and knew he knew it too. Suddenly she said, “Earlier I went to her room. Someone shut the door while I was inside.”
Antonio looked at her.
She had to glance at Gregory, but he was buttering a piece of toast. She looked back at Antonio, thinking about the crypt, thinking about Isabel. What had he said yesterday? That the most she could do was to make them uncomfortable. That it was all in their minds. “I can't even get on the Web to do any research with the phones down,” she said.
“I'll drive back to Pedraza later and impress the urgency of the situation upon the phone company,” Antonio replied.
“Give them money,” Cass said flatly.
“I did,” he returned.
Cass felt eyes upon them both. She looked up. Gregory was staring. And she saw him flush.
“Actually,” he said, clearing his throat, “we had a drink together after supper.”
Antonio glanced at him with mild surprise. “You and Tracey?”
“When was that?” Cass shot. Thinking about the fact that initially he had lied—that she was right.
“It was about eleven-thirty.” He hesitated, glancing at Antonio, but Antonio was putting a carton of milk and eggs into the refrigerator. He sighed. “She said she couldn't sleep. We had one drink—in one of the salons. I haven't seen her since.”
Cass stared. She did not believe him. He met her gaze, and this time he did not look away.
There was no reason to doubt him. But she did. “I can't believe this.” She was grim, facing Antonio. “It's twelve-thirty. The last person to see my sister was Gregory, around midnight last night. Twelve hours ago. Antonio, I don't like this! Is it possible it was Tracey we saw outside the library window last night?'
He stiffened and paled. “No.”
Cass could not look away. She heard herself say, “It was really dark out.”
Gregory cut into their conversation, looking from the one to the other. “What are the two of you talking about?”
Cass wet her lips. Antonio walked away from them both. Cass hesitated. “So many strange things have happened since I arrived here the day before yesterday. And last night—”
“Last night,” Antonio turned, “I saw Margarita standing outside of the window.”
Gregory turned white.
 
 
Antonio was with the electrician when Catherine and Celia arrived. Tracey had yet to reappear, and although Cass had spent several hours with Antonio and Gregory in the library, sorting through Eduardo's research material, her worry had been increasing by leaps and bounds. Now she hugged her aunt, hard, thinking,
If only she had not come.
She is summoning all of us together.
Celia rushed off to find Alyssa, and Cass was left alone with her aunt in the great hall. “How was your trip?” Cass asked, studying her aunt, who looked terribly worn and fatigued.
Catherine, clad in black trousers, a matching blazer, and a mantailored white shirt, smiled wearily. “At least we did not get lost on the way here.” Slowly she glanced around the huge hall with an expression that was a combination of disbelief and perhaps distaste.
“I cannot believe you hired a driver, Aunt Catherine,” Cass said, meaning it. “If only I could have picked you up at the airport.”
Catherine glanced at her, her expression strange, and she slowly walked to the threshold of the salon and stared inside.
“Aunt Catherine?” Cass asked, worried.
Catherine did not turn. “Nothing has changed,” she said hoarsely. “I hated this house then, and I so hate it now.”
Cass stared at her. “Is she here?”
Catherine said, “Can't you feel her?”
Cass trembled. “It's her, isn't it, making this place so cold, so heavy, so tense?”
Catherine hugged herself. “I don't think I should have come.”
Antonio appeared, in a pair of trousers and a red polo shirt, the electrician beside him with his toolbox in hand. “Lady Belford,” he said, his gaze suddenly intent upon Catherine.
Cass stiffened unbearably. It was bad enough suspecting that Isabel was lurking about, that the families were somehow cursed, while being attracted to him and having to deal with her sister and his feelings for his missing wife, but Catherine's secret suddenly felt overwhelming. She prayed they would not get into the topic of what had really happened to Eduardo now.

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