Seduced by a Dangerous Man (8 page)

“Impressive,” I said.

He’d pulled out a penlight and now he flicked it on, sweeping it around the outdated but large kitchen. “My hunch is we’ll find his office either in that room behind the den or upstairs in one of the guest bedrooms.”

We did a quick sweep of the first floor. The house smelled like Henry. Faintly, the result of years of exposure, no doubt. Still, it made me feel like he was there, watching, and I shuddered.

We went up to the second floor. I paused in front of the master bedroom. It was spacious and tidy. Henry had a large bed, rather low to the floor, with cherry tree print bedding. It was surprisingly pleasant. I had to admit I was a little jealous.
 

I hurried to catch up with Rob, who was methodically working his way down the hall.
 

“Was the place so clean when you were here before?” I asked.

Rob opened a door, looked in the room, closed the door again. “Can’t remember,” he said. He paused. “But I don’t think so.”

We stared at each other as the meaning of that hit home. “It’s still pretty early,” I said. “Dinner, drinks… it takes time.”

“Unless she’s a sure thing,” Rob countered. We sped up our pace.

“Is he dating someone seriously?” I asked as we finally found the office.

“No idea.”

My eyes darted around the small room. Big, solid desk with an outdated desktop computer, two dark wood filing cabinets. Behind the desk were three matching bookcases, two tall, a short one between them. Atop the shorter one were old photos of Henry in uniform.
 

If only there were a sign that said “Proof of illegal activities here!” The office wasn’t nearly as orderly as the more date-centric parts of the house. That would make it easier to hide our tracks.

“You look through the filing cabinet,” I said. “I’ll set up one of the cameras.”
 

Rob nodded, put the flashlight between his teeth and crouched. I flipped on my light and mentally calculated the best angle to cover the computer as well as the majority of the desk. I turned the camera on and wedged it between two gilded, leather-bound tomes. It wasn’t ideal; the glare from the large windows might wash everything out during daylight hours. But I didn’t know for sure.

The motion detector alert vibrated.

“Hush,” I said. Rob stopped flipping through folders and looked at me expectantly.

I tapped the receiver hanging from one of my belt loops.

He shook his head, his eyes wide. He hadn’t heard a vehicle either. We were quiet a few moments longer, listening for slamming car doors.
 

“I’m gonna check,” I said. I hurried down the hallway toward the side of the house and quickly ducked into two different guest bedrooms, peering hard at the long driveway outside.
 

No car, but I caught movement, a flash of white. Deer.
 

Well, at least I knew the sensors were working.
 

Since I was there, I took a fast moment to look for anything that seemed like it might yield something useful, but I came up empty. I went back to Rob.

“We’re clear,” I said.

“So I figured. Haven’t found anything yet.”

“I’d better set up the other camera. What about the dining room table—you think he works there?”

“Sorry. It would be a guess.” He gestured at the file cabinets. “There’s a lot to go through here.”

“I’ll be back in a minute.” I dug out a bit of putty and headed downstairs. As I crept through Henry’s deserted house, it suddenly hit me… this was payback, and it felt damned good. Henry had violated my space several times, and now I was evening things out, correcting the imbalance. Yin and yang.

There wasn’t a lot to work with in the dining room. I considered fixing the camera to the back of a lampshade, but suppose he jolted it while turning the switch? I surveyed the dining room again. The walls were mostly bare except for several obligatory framed family photos and a few flat mirrors.

But I liked the idea of having one camera on each floor. Even if I couldn’t catch anything on video, the audio might pick up something interesting.

Or disgusting. I’d have to remember to fast forward through the first few hours.
 

I contemplated the modest glass chandelier hanging above the table. It was the best bet. I rolled out a bit of putty and patted it over the back of the camera. It was already switched on. I stood on a chair and looked up, daunted. The ceilings were freaking high, and I had to stand on tiptoe to reach the chandelier. Finally I placed one of my feet on the table.

My belt loop vibrated, startling me so much that I swayed and nearly fell to the floor.

A flash of headlights cut through the white, sheer curtains, sliding along the edges of the drawn blinds. I heard an engine, not quiet. Henry’s old pickup. I was so used to seeing him in the stalkermobile that I’d forgotten about his truck. The slam of a filing cabinet drawer told me Rob had heard it, too.

I collected myself and quickly positioned the camera. I didn’t dare leave without checking how well it was camouflaged. My beam of light swept across it. Not bad.

I hopped down as I heard a door slam. A second slam followed. Henry wasn’t alone. I brushed off the seat of the chair and carefully slid it back under the table.

“Rob,” I whispered in a hoarse stage whisper. I knew he’d heard the vehicle, so where was he? I started up the stairs but then heard voices along the side of the house. Henry must have parked halfway up the driveway.
 

Not enough time to make it upstairs and then out the front door.

Remembering the alarm, I ran for the front. My fingers were so slippery, and oh, the beeps sounded loud as firecrackers. The alarm engaged moments before I heard the jingle of keys. The voices outside were still relaxed—or so it seemed, because I was sprinting for the back.

I wasn’t going to make it. They were going to see me… the house was too freaking big. But I did, somehow, and I stood in the kitchen, waiting for the alarm to disable again so I could sneak out.

But it didn’t. It kept flashing red.

And then lights turned on several rooms away. Henry was inside.
 

With a panicked flash of awareness, I realized he must have had it wired so he could disable only one entrance if he wanted.
 

I didn’t dare punch in the code again. Too loud. I crept back as I heard heavy footsteps coming toward me.

They paused, and Henry said, “I’ll take it.” The footsteps faded.

I needed to hide. It was like being six years old. I’d
hated
playing hide-and-go-seek. If I couldn’t see light, I would freak out within seconds.
 

There was the kitchen table, but hiding under there would only work if they didn’t actually look at it. I didn’t dare go into what I assumed was the basement. No way.
 

A narrow door, ajar, was next to the basement door. I eyed it. It was a pantry, likely deep enough to hide me, but I didn’t want to go in there.

“Wine it is,” Henry said. His smarmy voice spurred me into action.
 

I slid into the narrow pantry and eased the door partially closed after me. A little light came in to keep me company. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Long wooden poles leaned against the wall next to me. Mop and broom, I assumed. I was lucky I hadn’t knocked into them when squeezing in.

The kitchen light flashed on brightly, throwing too much light into my hiding space. I squinted against the painful burn in my eyes and held my breath.

Henry stood not far away, looking in the other direction. He straightened the chairs in front of the kitchen table, and I saw him swipe the tabletop with the side of his hand. If he looked this way…
 

But he stepped out of sight. I didn’t heave a sigh of relief because I had simply stopped breathing several minutes earlier. Or at least it felt like I had.
 

And then the door slammed the rest of the way shut.
 

I was so startled that I lurched, and one of the wooden poles slid loudly against the wall, crashing into the shelves behind me.

This was it. Henry was going to find me. Once he did, it was over. I was going to jail, and it would be legitimate.

Whatever happened, I needed to keep Rob out of this. Henry wouldn’t hesitate to call the cops on both of us, and I couldn’t allow Rob to go down with me.

I watched the sliver of light that peeked through the bottom of the closed pantry door—my lifeline, the only thing separating me from a panic attack—and I waited for it to turn dark with Henry’s approaching shadow.
 

But he didn’t open the door. I heard him moving around the room, opening a cabinet, the clink of the bottoms of wineglasses touching a counter, the sound of a cork being wrested from the tight mouth of a wine bottle.

“You want something to nibble on?” he yelled out.

A woman’s voice said something incoherent.

“Can’t hear you!” Henry yelled back. Lazy bastard.
 

Footsteps approached. “Maybe crackers or something,” she said. She sounded… not insane. That surprised me. But then, what did an insane person sound like? “Thank you,” she said.

“To new friends,” Henry said. Their glasses clinked, and I rolled my eyes so hard that it actually hurt.
 

A hand brushed the door. I tensed my muscles, ready to bolt. With a little luck, I could make it out the back door before Henry pulled himself together enough to react. He would see me, sure, but I would just deny everything.

“Forget the crackers,” the woman said.
 

“You sure?”

“Yes,” she purred. “I’d rather nibble on you.”

I heard slurping kissing sounds, a low male growl, a woman’s giggle. Then the light clicked off.
 

Their footsteps faded.

The second they were gone, I felt a scream building in my chest. I wanted them to come back! Only the fear of what would happen to Rob kept me quiet.
 

I felt woozy. The adrenaline overdose from nearly getting caught was running headlong into my fear of enclosed, dark spaces. Henry and his date might still be in the living room, but I couldn’t wait.

I pushed my fingers on the handle, doing my best to keep quiet even though I wanted to shove the door open and run.

The door didn’t open. I pushed harder.

It was… locked.

The breath I gulped in wasn’t nearly enough to stop my vision from going spotty. Immediately, I tried to convince myself that I was fine, that I was in the open and had merely closed my eyes.

But this darkness was different. It attached to my skin, my lips, the inside of my nose and mouth, my lungs. Millions of cloying little demons with suckers for mouths. It had weight, and it was suffocating me as surely as if I had been shrink-wrapped.

I had no control over the high-pitched whimper that escaped my throat. My eyes squeezed tighter, and the constricting darkness squeezed, too, like an enormous snake, waiting for me to exhale, then taking advantage.

Snake. It made me think of Corbin, of rattlesnakes and king snakes. Corbin. Corbin…

My chest suddenly loosened, just a notch, but enough for me to pull in a breath. I knew what was coming next… more breaths, faster and faster until I hyperventilated and passed out.

Which wouldn’t be so bad, to be passed out and freed from this. Except… Henry.
 

I slid down carefully as my chest expanded suddenly. The fresh air went straight to my head. It was dizzying. Somehow, I ended up on the floor, propped up against the wall. My flailing brain retained just enough of a handle on the situation to realize that I hadn’t made too much noise.

My hands cupped over my mouth. They were a poor substitute for a paper bag, which had never worked anyway. I dredged up the memory of poor Mrs. Rico, the anxiety specialist who had tried her best to help me as a child—but it was too late for that. This was worse than being in a car in a snowstorm.
 

I was locked in a dark closet.
 

And I needed to get a grip.

Corbin’s voice came faintly toward me. “Are you afraid of the dark?”
 

It was a memory, I knew, but I latched onto him with every ounce of strength I possessed. I could see his soft, full lips, the corners raised in a pleasant smile. “Are you afraid?” he repeated softly.

~~~

“It’s not a difficult question.” Corbin turned toward me, smiling gently. He had pulled off his overcoat while we were checking in, and he tossed it lightly over a handsome wingback chair.
 

“No,” I scoffed. “Are you?”

“No,” he said evenly. I had the impression that if the answer had been different, he would have admitted it. “So what is it that freaks you out so much?”

During a leisurely dinner at a bistro, conversation had turned toward my panic attacks. I’d told him that my last two were when my car crashed and the first time he’d handcuffed me for rough oral sex. He’d dropped it, but apparently he hadn’t forgotten.

“It’s not the dark, though…” I shuddered.
 

Corbin set down the backpack that we’d been using in lieu of a suitcase. This was our last night out, and we would start making our way back to his mountain home the next day. The day after that, he would leave me, and I would return to my crappy, jobless life and try to be patient for the month he would be gone.

He unbuttoned the top of his black flannel shirt. I stared at the bit of hard male chest and wished he would undo a few more. He didn’t.

“So if I tie you up, you won’t panic?” he asked.

“You? No. But we’ve been playing with that.” I frowned and tried to look calm, as if this were a purely hypothetical conversation, but I couldn’t be sure it was. “Is this about tying me to the bed and… you know.”

One of his dark eyebrows hitched up. His dark hair had fallen in a messy swoop across his forehead, blown there by the wind during our post-dinner stroll. His face was still slightly reddened, windburned, giving him a roughened aspect. I imagined mine was as well. I didn’t care. I appreciated every minute I spent with Corbin, no matter how wrecked I looked.