Silver Hollow (5 page)
She blinked.
And then she was
lying
within the narrow strip between two brick buildings, alone.
…
“Are you sure you’re okay? I’m coming over as soon as I get done here. Or maybe you want to stay with us at the ranch for a couple of days? The horses have missed you, especially Jellybean.” Jo’s voice was filled with concern and a twinge of fear. Death had, after all, become
a very real thing with Amie’s parents’ deaths ten years before. But not even the temptation of seeing the miniature horses could turn her mind from what happened.
“Honestly, Jo, I’m fine.”
“No
,
you’re not!” the voice from the cell phone blared. Clearly Faye had taken over her sister’
s
cell.
Amie held the phone away from her now injured ear as
Faye continued her sister’s
tirade.
“Getting mugged outside your apartment doesn’t come close to being
fine
! And I thought we taught you better than that! He shouldn’t have got the jump on you!”
Her neighbors had always been big on martial arts. As long as she could remember, they had made Amie be their sparring partner. But whatever hidden mojo their parents taught them
wasn’t
like any karate or jujitsu she had seen on TV. Plus, she had never cared enough to be as proficient as her friends.
Amie attempted to interrupt
.
“Faye, I—”
“You should have stayed t
o
night like we asked you to. Just because you feel safe in that little town square do
es
n’t mean you are. We should have made you live on the ranch in the first place. I always knew something like this was going to happen. I’m coming to get you
now
.”
Amie stared at her full-length reflection in the face of her wardrobe. A broad white line of skin practically glowed against her already pale
-
skinned chest. She hadn’t told the twins everything. If she had come even close to mentioning a knife she wouldn’t be allowed to live alone again.
“Amie?” Faye’s tone was a warning when she didn’t respond.
Blinking numbly at her reflection, she let the blood
-
soaked shirt fall back against her skin. “I’m fine,” she said. Her words came out more forcefully than she intended. Taking a deep breath
,
she tried again. “Look, I promise I’ll be over tomorrow, soon as I can
,
to see your pictures. The whole thing has me shook up. I just need some time alone, okay?”
The long pause on the other line was undoubtedly a brief conference between the twins. At last Jo’s voice took over once more, “Okay. Faye is coming over tomorrow morning to check up on you, and to tell you about her date with
Ben
.
”
S
he paused
.
“You think you'll be up to it?”
Amie forced a smile into her voice and answered, “Sure. Well, I’m gonna let you go. Been a long night and I need sleep if I’m making this deadline.” After they said their goodbyes, she let her cell fall on the old quilt coverlet her parents once used.
Her fingers retraced the trickle of dried blood on her button
-
up
plaid. Had she dreamed what
had
happened? The rough hands squeezing the life from her chest, the sharp feel of the knife entering her heart and then the black eyes piercing hers, mending her torn flesh?
She knew a few things for certain. One, she had been mugged and stabbed through the heart by a psycho and two, somehow she was still standing with nothing to show for it but a strange scar.
Getting mugged was
the sort of thing that happened to people who lived in huge metropolitan cities, not historic city squares. It was the sort of thing that happened in the novels she had devoured as a teenager. This was not real.
She of all people should be attuned to the difference between reality and fantasy. After all
,
it was how she made her living. And yet her f
ather had
once
told her stories of
a
surreal
place
and it had been
home
to
her fantasies ever since. Silver Hollow was a place she always remembered with trepidation. For Father said the strange society he had been raised in was
as terrifying
as it was
beautiful
.
Goosebumps prickled over her arms and raised the hair at the back of her neck. Fear such as she had not known since her parent
s
’ death consumed her so fully, she barely felt her nails digging into the skin of her palms. Her father
had gone
to such great lengths to flee his home. Yet she had never stopped to wonder why. Why travel as far away as possible, change his name and invent a new life with a backwoods-born wife? What if he had been running from more than simple family responsibilities? What if the dark
-
eyed stranger, the man who had brought her from the brink of death, hadn’t stopped her murderer?
Plenty of novels and late
-
night news specials had taught her the sensible thing to do. Contact the police and hole up at AJSS Ranch for the rest of her life. But even if she did move in with her friends and the security they gave her, she could never really know peace. After this night she knew she’d never be the same. No one would believe her story if she gave them the whole truth and nothing but. She had no way of describing her attacker, only the one who somehow saved her.
With his magical powers…right.
She thought deep into the night,
until
sunlight began to stream through her bedroom curtains. She watched it reflect laced light over her wardrobe mirror, dance upon the dried blood and through the gaping tear in her shirt.
Her bloodstained fingertips picked up the worn yellow parchment once more. Her eyes graced the words
.
“...
In the beginning I believed I was obeying your father’
s
wishes, to keep you closeted in the dark. I know now this is folly.
To better understand I ask
you
to
come to my country estate, following the instructions and tickets I have included in this letter.
Travel safely
,
dear one. Tell no one of your plans.
Love,
Uncle Henry”
His fingers left bloody streaks upon her perfectly fashioned cheeks, blood
yet pouring
from the wound in her side. Tears blurred his vision until he could see little, until he could only see flashes of their time together in his mind…Until
—
“Richard
,
you backstabbing coward!” Lord Rupert’s shirt had been torn during their duel hours before. He had been lying dead on the battlefield the last time Richard saw him. Pale as his countenance was, thick chest heaving, how was the blasted devil still alive? Rapier brandished, he cut through the air as he continued his tirade
.
“How dare you tell me lies when all I ever showed you both was kindness?”
Richard clutched the motionless form of his love even closer, eyes boiling with rage. “Kindness?” Were they back to this again? “You named us as spies to the Emperor! We’ve been running for our lives ever since! How can you still name us your friends?”
Rupert towered over them both, ominous, spittle coating his words. “She never loved you! Have you not realized yet your precious
Mary
is the Lady Desdemona? That she lured you to her, making you all believe she wanted to betray her own countrymen, when she has been my wife these two
-
and
-
ten years?”
Richard trembled, shook as a beast roared inside of him. His voice sounded with the distant cannon yet overpowered it
.
“LIES!”
“
Bah!
”
Lord Rupert spat
.
“
Lies indeed! You only wish to believe she cared for you! It is all a game, my friend. Desdemona could care less for you than she could I! She is nothing but a backstabbing whore for the highest bidder. Were it not for me she would have turned you in long ago!” Triumph gleamed in Rupert’s red eyes.
Were it not for
Mary
’s defenseless form in his arms Richard would have already cut the dastardly villain in two.
Lord—”
Ding!
The signal for the captain’s final announcements followed the click of seatbelts and her concentration was broken again. Until this most recent interruption, Amie
had
found her words finally beginning to freely flow. After a solid three weeks of writing worthless garbage it was like a breath of fresh air to write so easily
again. It was laughable really. O
f all times, of all places, her writer’s block had to end in the middle of a
very
early mid-life crisis.
“Thank you for flying Brit
ish Airways
. Please keep your seatbelts locked until the sign goes off. Place all rubbish in the receptacle as your
flight attendant
passes your isle…”
Amie silently grumbled as she packed away her laptop, ignoring the amused smirks from the stodgy business suit beside her. The balding Brit had attempted more than one conversation during their purgatory of a ten-hour flight. She popped peanuts instead, wishing it were a hefty dose of her prescription sleep meds.
“Hope it’s not too damp out,” the middle-aged Brit grumbled, peering past her through the half closed window she had propped against.
With a roll of her eyes at his obvious request she slid the plastic screen up to uncover their view outside. Following his gaze, she gaped at the source of their turbulence.
Umbrella…she hadn’t packed an umbrella.
“Hope you enjoy London
.
”
H
e offered one last salutation in a faintly biting tone, before buckling for the bumpy landing.
Brits were all the same, their dedication to dental hygiene aside. Her father had been a master of words, saying one thing while meaning the opposite. Something as trivial as a hello could convey a dozen meanings.
So while John Thornton in seat AC4 had a smile plastered on his face, he really meant, “
H
ave a nice life
,
you bint.”
It wasn’t
her
fault he wasn’t pretty enough to join at the pub later.
Amie shuddered at the rain
pounding against
the thick Plexiglas. Hopefully the train station was close by. She hadn’t had time to plan much in her rush to meet the deadline on Uncle Henry’s plane ticket. Truth was, she would have rather shaved off the thick mane now frizzed about her head than spend
five pounds
she didn’t have
on a new raincoat.
Drumming her fingers against the glass, she tried not to think about the cell phone stuffed into her pocket. She had turned it off before the flight to avoid the endless stream of calls
pouring into her voice mail. Instead she tried to sort out whatever possessed her to do something so
bonkers,
as her dad would have called it.
M
aybe it was just writer’s madness. Whatever twisted Wonderland her
u
ncle had waiting for her in the sticks of Northern England, there was still a deadline to be met. And she wasn’t about to let her career be buried six feet under before she’d had the chance to do some
real
writing.
Shame she didn’t have the time she needed to finish the War of 1812.
I really
should think up a better title.
…
Thunder seemed not to deter the
Heathrow
A
irport population, already decked out in their coats, umbrellas ready. In her lightweight holey brown jacket and jeans, toting only one carry-on and saddlebag, it was no wonder she was
bearing
the brunt of so many stares. Or maybe she was being paranoid? Letters from a godfather-like
u
ncle
hinting
at mafia dangers tended to do that to a person.
Feeling a bit like a North by Northwest Cary Grant at the moment, she looked round for her exit.
Henry had done little to aid this leg of her
journey besides including a train ticket to the West Coast Main Line in his second letter. King’s Cross Station shouldn’t be too difficult to peg once she reached the city.
The map of London she had hocked off the
oh-so-helpful
Mr. Thornton might have been
less
confusing if the letter’s instructions were vaguer. She dared a glance down at the separate, thin parchment while trying to avoid being bumped through bumper car heaven.