House of Dreams (45 page)

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Authors: Brenda Joyce

BOOK: House of Dreams
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He grabbed her wrist, whipping her around. “Listen to me!” he shouted.
“Let me go! I have to find my daughter!” Cass realized the slip of her tongue but could not care less. What mattered was finding Alyssa now. That was all that mattered. Tracey would never harm her. Not even with Isabel preying upon her. Alyssa was her daughter, for God's sake.
But Antonio had seized both of her arms and he held her immobilized. “Stop, Cassandra. I am sorry.
I am sorry!”
“We don't have time for this,” Cass said, but she did not pull away. She was about to begin crying. She could feel the tears burning her lids.
“No. We must make time. Listen. She is trying to divide us. I can hardly think clearly. I keep seeing Margarita and I feel such despair and such rage … We must not let her come between us. If there is any chance of ever resolving this, we must stand strong, together.
Do you understand what I am saying?”
Cass felt a tear slip down her cheek. She somehow nodded, even though she was dazed, numb. “She's dividing us,” she whispered. “Divide and conquer.”
“The way she divided me and my wife, your aunt and my father, my grandfather and grandmother!” He was shaking her.
And Cass met his gaze. “Tracey wouldn't hurt Alyssa … would she?”
He cupped her face in both of his hands. “I believe Isabel is far stronger than your sister will ever be. Cassandra. Listen carefully. I love you. I need you. We need each other. Don't leave me now.”
Cass did not move, her heart hurting, pounding, and she stared into his eyes.
“Trust me,” he said.
Cass's brain felt so strange, it felt dazed, numb, almost incapable of all rational thought, almost incapable of anything but hysteria and panic, yet she knew he was right, she did, and she started to nod.
And his expression changed.
His lips pulled back into a menacing snarl, or an equally menacing leer. His face stretched and tightened, the skin became alabaster-smooth, and his eyes blazed blue with hate.
Cass screamed.
“Cassandra?” It was Antonio holding her, shaking her, now. “Cassandra! I need you! Be strong! Don't let her get to you! Can you understand me?”
She stared at him, one single refrain echoing inside her mind.
Trust me.
Cass somehow pulled out of his grip. She stared in shock and fear, waiting to see some resemblance to Isabel there in his face, his eyes.
Trust me.
“I have to find Alyssa.”
“Good.” He nodded, satisfied. “Let's split up. Downstairs or upstairs?”
“Down.” Cass did not wait for him to reply. She could not get the image of him grotesquely becoming Isabel out of her mind. She could not wait to escape. She turned and ran into the great hall, all the while calling for her niece.
I love you. I need you. Trust me.
She could not.
It was a trap.
 
 
The children were not downstairs, not in the courtyard, not in the cottage, the garage, or even hiding in the cars. If only Antonio had already located them upstairs. Cass, standing just outside the front of the house, turned slowly around in a wide arc, not wanting to leave any stone unturned. Her glance settled on the chapel.
It was the only place she had yet to search. A square structure two stories high, it had a red-tiled roof and it was attached to the house. Cass stared. The outer door had been stoned up centuries ago, although Cass did not know why. There were only two windows on the second-story level, both dark stained glass, with a cross in the center of each window. A huge cross had also been engraved on either side of what had once been the front door.
Cass felt the hairs on her nape prickling. She slowly walked back into the house. The chapel could be entered only from an inside door.
As Cass reached for the rusted iron handle on the door, it clicked in her mind that something terrible was going to happen, that she should not open the door. But Cass inhaled, and slowly she swung it open.
Nothing in the world could have prepared her for the sight of her sister, on her knees, praying in front of the altar.
The chapel was ablaze with hundreds of small red candles, and incense that was sweet and cloying, incense that was floral, incense that was unmistakably the fragrance of violets, was burning. Cass was paralyzed.
And Tracey was murmuring aloud, words Cass could not understand or distinguish. Was Tracey praying in a foreign language?
Was she praying in
Latin
?
Cass blinked at stared at her sister again, who was now genuflecting.
Tracey did not have a single religious bone in her body—or so Cass had thought.
I am
your sister now.
Cass was afraid. She could not seem to move. Here, then, was proof of their worst suspicions and fears.
Tracey stood up.
“Trace?” Cass managed, a raw whisper, standing with her legs widely braced, ready to run.
Tracey whirled, eyes wide, clearly taken by surprise.
Cass remained dazed. Her mind just would not work; it was as if someone had pulled a switch, shutting it down. “Are you all right?”
Tracey stared at her. Cass did not recognize her sister's eyes—even though she was determined to. “Tracey. What are you doing?” How casual her tone sounded to her own ears.
Tracey stared. “I am praying.”
“Since when? I thought you were an atheist.” Cass could not move. She took in the entire scene again, the few rows of ancient, tired, scarred wood pews, the smooth, uneven stone floors, the altar with it burning candles, the huge crucifix above.
I am your sister now
.
Cass felt violently ill.
“I am not an atheist,” Tracey said, her jaw tightening. “Do not accuse me of atheism. I have never been an atheist. Jesus is the eternal Savior.”
Cass could only stare, trembling. She finally said, carefully, “Are you now a Catholic?”
Tracey stared back. “No. I have never been a Catholic.” Her chin lifted almost belligerently. “But this place will do. It is a house of God.”
I am your sister now.
Was Cass speaking with Tracey—or Isabel? “It will do for what?” She could not smile, not even uneasily.
Tracey looked at her with one arched brow. “Maybe you should pray,” she said quietly. “It might bring you
peace
.”
Cass began to shiver. “Where did you find the incense?”
“The incense?” Tracey looked around, then gestured at the altar. “It was there.” She smiled.
Cass did not smile back.
Suddenly Tracey came forward. Her strides were swift, assured. “I'm finished now.”
Instinctively Cass stepped back, keeping herself just out of her sister's reach. Their eyes met and held. “Do you know where the children are?”
“No, but I am sure they are safe.”
Cass let her sister walk out of the chapel first. “Where did you take Alyssa earlier? And where is Eduardo?”
Tracey paused in the corridor. “They are safe.”
Cass's pulse accelerated. “But where are they? How do you know they are safe?” she begged.
“I know.”
“Is it because you are Isabel?” There—she had done it. And Cass braced herself for the worst possible answer.
Tracey finally looked at her. She said, “All has changed, has it not?”
Cass did not move. She could not. She was, in fact, sweating. “What?!”
“I am speaking about you and Antonio.”
Cass went rigid. “I don't understand,” she said, trying to buy time.
“I think you do understand. You are his lover,” Tracey said, her eyes unwavering. It was not a question.
Cass almost choked. Was she talking to Isabel—or wasn't she?
“And you're my sister?” Tracey laughed.
Cass gripped her own head. Sisters. This was her
sister.
Not some damnable ghost. She was speaking to her
sister
. Her temples were throbbing, loudly, like drums, there inside her brain. It hurt. “We're just friends,” Cass whispered. “Trace, I love you. I do. I never meant to hurt you. I would never hurt you deliberately. And there's nothing between me and Antonio, there can't be. There just can't be.” And there was so much guilt.
But he had said,
I love you,
just minutes ago.
Tracey looked at her as if she did not believe a single word and then she walked away.
 
 
Was Isabel in possession of Tracey?
And if so, where did Tracey end and Isabel begin?
Cass stood beside the fire, which was roaring now, hugging herself. The children had vanished. They were nowhere to be found. Tracey had not told her where they were—if she even knew. And Cass wasn't sure that she did know, because she was so strange now, as if in a limbo, caught between her own self and Isabel.
Antonio had used a first aid kit which he'd located in the kitchen to bandage the huge gash on Alfonso's head. The older man was conscious, but lying on the sofa and terribly weak. His head must hurt terribly because he was moaning softly. Celia was also hovering over him, holding his hand. Her maternal instincts were always strong, and she had made a rapid recovery from the mental state she had been in earlier the moment she had seen that Alfonso was hurt.
“How could you have let her get away!” Antonio said angrily, pacing.
Cass felt dazed. She stood by one of the windows, staring out into the night. “That's not fair,” she began. Now they could not find Tracey. By the time Cass had followed her into the great hall, she had been gone. A quick search of the house had yielded no results.
“My son is gone! My son and your niece.
That
is not fair!” he cried.
How surreal it had all become. Cass felt removed and detached from herself. And she still could not decipher the conversation that she had had in the chapel with Tracey. Whom had she been speaking with? Isabel or Tracey? Or both?
“She just walked away. I'm sorry. But she said they were safe.”
“And you believe her? Tell me again, everything that she said,” Antonio said, standing in front of her, blocking her way.
“We've been over this ten times,” Cass said, aware of becoming angry. “I don't like being interrogated. I don't like being yelled at.”
“She knows where the children are,” he returned grimly. “But you let her just walk away!”
“So now it's all my fault?” She was in disbelief.
“Did I say that?” he returned. “How I ever involved myself with that insane woman, I just cannot even begin to fathom it!”
She stiffened. “She is not insane,” she said dangerously. “You yourself agree, it's Isabel who is controlling her.”
“How can you defend her after all she has done?” He whirled. “Damn it. Where is Gregory?” He paced.
“I can defend her, I will defend her, because she is my sister.”
Their gazes locked.
He eyed her. “I think she has gone to wherever it is that she has hidden the children.”
“She doesn't know where the children are,” Cass insisted.
“And you believe that?” he mocked.
The urge to strike him was sudden, vicious, and overwhelming.
“Don't try it,” he warned dangerously.
And just as Cass was about to give in to the urge to hit him, hard, with all of her anger, words he had spoken earlier echoed in her mind.
I love you. Trust me.
What was she doing?!
“Oh, God,” Antonio whispered, in anguish. “Cassandra—”
“She's doing this to us! She is making us hate one another!” She gripped his hand.
He pulled her close. “This is my fault, for I know better. I don't hate
you. But the moments of hatred are so pure and so strong. Jesu!” He glanced around, waiting, and wondering, Cass knew, if Isabel would appear. A long moment passed. Isabel did not materialize.
But Cass knew she was present, not far away, watching them. “Antonio,” she said, low, still holding his hand. “I can feel her.”
“I can feel her, too. She is toying with us.”
“But why?” An image of Tracey on her knees, praying before the altar, filled her mind. An image of her serenely denying all knowledge of the children's whereabouts followed. She tightened her grip on his hand. “I have had enough,” Cass suddenly flared. “I want to try to communicate with her.”

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