The Eternal Ones (22 page)

“I don’t
want
to go back. I
have
to. Something came up, and I need to deal with it immediately,” Iain said, pulling his suitcase from the closet.

“If you go, you’re taking me with you,” Haven insisted.

“
No
,” Iain told her.

“I . . .” Before she could continue, Haven felt her eyes roll back in her head and her legs collapse beneath her.

 

For most of the flight back to New York, Haven pretended to sleep. She needed time to think—time to figure out how to deal with everything she had learned. And with the shades pulled and her face pressed into a pillow, it was easier to hide her tears.

There was little doubt now that Iain Morrow wasn’t the person Haven had hoped he’d be. His lies might have started with something as simple as a phone, but who knew how far they had gone. What scared Haven most was not how easily Iain had been able to hide the truth, but how eager she had been to believe him. She knew exactly what her grandmother would have said—that Haven was turning out to be just like her mother. She had let her good judgment be clouded by lust. And in her own way, Imogene would have been right. Haven had fallen for the same girlish notions that had seduced Mae Moore—true love and soul mates and happily ever after.

The visions of Constance’s life may have led her to Iain, but maybe it wasn’t love she was meant to find. As the plane began its descent through the clouds, Haven resolved to keep searching for the answers she needed. She wouldn’t allow a heartbreak to get in her way.

 

IT WAS TWO O’CLOCK in the afternoon when the plane landed, and three before they arrived at the little house near Washington Square Park. The street was blissfully empty. Iain’s driver carried their bags into the house and then stayed by the door, awaiting his orders. Iain charged upstairs to the bedroom and returned moments later with a black messenger bag hanging off his shoulder.

“I have to go out for a little while,” he informed Haven. “I should be back before dinner. It’s probably not a good idea for you to leave while I’m gone. James will stay with you. If you need anything, just let him know, and he’ll get it.”

The driver, a bulky man with the face of a bulldog, nodded and stepped forward into the living room. Haven struggled to find the right words to express her horror.

“I don’t need anyone looking after me,” she hissed.

“Trust me,” Iain replied, bending down to kiss the top of her head. “You do. This city is dangerous, and you’re not well.”

“Dangerous? I lived here for twenty years!” Haven argued.

“Yes, and you died here, too. We don’t want that to happen again. What if you fainted while you were out on your own? Do you have any idea what sort of things might happen to you in a place like Manhattan?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me!”

“That’s right,” Iain said firmly. “Nothing is.”

 

SOON AFTER THE DOOR slammed, Haven took a seat at the living room desk and cracked open the laptop that was lying there. She spent several minutes cursing softly to herself as she pretended to surf the Internet. James sat on the sofa, staring at a fixed spot in space as if he were trying to open a portal to another universe. Haven knew that she needed a plan. She had to get out. If nothing else, her sanity and self-respect demanded it.

“James,” Haven drawled in her most sugary Southern accent. The man grunted as his massive torso slowly twisted in her direction. “I didn’t have anything to eat on the plane, and I’m practically
dying
of hunger. Do you think you might be able to go out and pick me up a burger somewhere?”

“No problem,” James replied. Using the minimum number of muscles, he pulled out a cell phone and punched a single key. “The lady wants a hamburger.” He paused and pressed the phone receiver to his chest. “You want fries with that, miss?”

“Sure,” said Haven, feeling utterly defeated.

“Fries, too,” James barked. He flipped the phone shut and dropped it into his breast pocket.

Just as Haven turned back to the computer, she heard her own ringtone. She dove for her handbag and fished out her phone. An unfamiliar Snope City number appeared on the little screen, and Haven’s heart leaped when she realized it might be Beau.

“Hello?”

“Haven Moore!” Her mother’s voice always squeaked whenever she was upset. “How
dare
you not call me for three whole days. You know how worried I’ve been?”

“Sorry,” Haven offered absentmindedly. She was hardly in the mood for a lecture. While her mother yammered away, Haven looked at the computer and randomly clicked one of the browser’s bookmarks. A gossip blog now appeared on the computer screen. At the top of the page was the photo of her with Iain on the Ponte Sant’Angelo.

“Where have you been? Are you okay? Why aren’t you at your hotel?” Mae Moore demanded.

“I’m staying with a friend for a few days,” Haven explained. “It’s cheaper that way.”

“What friend? How do you have friends in New York? Is it someone from that Snake Club?”

“The Ouroboros Society. Yes, it’s someone from there.”

Haven’s mother sighed with relief. “Well, are they helping you at all? Did you find out anything new?”

“Yeah,” said Haven, now completely distracted. She had called up another gossip site, and the same picture was prominently featured. Iain hadn’t been exaggerating when he said it was all over the media. It was
everywhere
. Haven’s anxiety grew as she took a closer look at the photo. The caption beneath it read,
Who did Iain Morrow kill to get
this
girl?
Though the camera hadn’t captured Haven’s face, there were at least two people who would know that wild black hair the second they saw it. How long would it be before her grandmother figured out that she’d been in Rome?

Haven scrolled down, and a different picture appeared on the screen. She clapped a hand over her mouth so her mother couldn’t hear her gasp.

“Well, like
what
, Haven?”

“I’ll have to tell you about it later, Mom. Something just came up.” She had to find a way to reach Beau.

“Something more important than talking to
me
?”

“You know it’s not like that. I’ll call you later this evening. Bye, Mom.”

“Haven!” She heard Mae Moore yelp on the other end of the phone just as she hit the “off” button.

Haven stared at the computer. The new picture was blurry and poorly lit. Yet it was easy to see that it was the photo of a corpse. Jeremy Johns was dead. His body had been discovered by two teenagers cutting across an empty lot in Los Angeles, not far from where the musician had last been seen. The kids who’d found him snapped a photo and posted it online before they bothered to call the police. Though much of the body was badly decomposed, the authorities had been able to identify it by the distinctive snake tattoo on the forearm.

Every nerve in Haven’s body was now set on alert. She carefully erased the page from the browser history and pushed back her chair.

“I’m going to take a quick shower,” she informed the giant on the sofa as she casually climbed the stairs. “If my food comes, just leave it in the kitchen, okay?”

She turned on the faucet in the bathroom and tiptoed up to the door that led to the roof. In less than three minutes, she had climbed down the fire escape to University Place. As soon as there were several blocks between her and the mews, Haven ducked into a doorway on Mercer Street, pulled out her phone, and dialed Beau’s number. Hidden in the shadows, she watched people pass by in the blazing sunshine. A black Mercedes came to a halt under a nearby streetlight, and Haven pressed herself against the wall until the car disappeared in the direction of SoHo.

Beau answered immediately. “Haven! Are you okay? I’ve been worried to death.”

“I’m fine,” Haven assured him.

“Well, thank God for that.” Beau sighed with relief, and a long, awkward pause followed. “So. Tell me the truth. Are you Iain Morrow’s sex slave?”

Haven almost smiled. The teasing was a sure sign she’d been forgiven. “Wow, right to the point. You don’t waste time, do you?”

Beau cackled so loudly that Haven held the phone away from her ear.

“Oh my God. You
are
. I can hear it in your voice. My sweet little girl has become a woman.”

“Shut
up
!” Haven squawked, hoping no one had overheard.

“It
was
you.” Beau was practically gasping for breath. “You’re the mystery girl in Italy! I hope you know you don’t deserve it. Why can’t
I
find someone who wants to whisk me off to Rome?”

“Are you aware you have to leave the state of Tennessee to get to Rome?”

“Watch yourself, Haven Moore,” Beau growled. It was impressive how quickly his mood could turn. “You really made a mess of things back here. I may have to secretly hate you for the rest of your life.”

“Does that mean your dad’s going to make you go to Vanderbilt?”

“I
refuse
to discuss this subject with you. Where certain things are concerned, you are
not
to be trusted. Besides, why would I want to talk about my boring old future when we could be discussing your budding sex life? So how does it feel, Cinderella? Are you the happiest girl in the world?”

“Not exactly.”

“Why?” Beau’s laughing trailed off. “What’s going on?”

“Haven’t you seen the news? They found Jeremy Johns.
That’s
why we’re back in the States. Iain’s been called in for questioning. He must be talking to the police right now.”

“What do you mean, ‘he must be’? Don’t you know for sure?”

“All he told me was that he had to go out for a little while.” Haven started to explain and then stopped. “Look, I really screwed up this time. Iain isn’t the person I thought he was. We’ve been together for three days, and he’s already lying to me. When we were in Rome, he insisted he didn’t have a phone there—but I found out he did. Then we had to leave unexpectedly, and he wouldn’t tell me why. So now we’re back in New York, and he’s assigned one of his bodyguards to babysit me. He didn’t even want me to leave the house. I had to break out. Can you believe it?”

“Calm down, Haven. It sounds like Mr. Morrow is just a massive control freak.” Beau always relished his role as the voice of reason. “Maybe he’s trying to protect you. If all this reincarnation stuff is real, and it turns out he used to be Ethan, he probably wouldn’t want to lose you again, would he?”

“Maybe . . . or maybe he took me to Rome just to get me out of New York.” It was the first time Haven had put into words the feeling that had been nagging at her.

“Why would he do that?”

“Maybe there’s something here that he doesn’t want me to find.”

“Like what?”

“Like proof that he killed Jeremy Johns?”

“Oh, come on, Haven. You really think billionaire playboys kill people and dump the bodies in empty lots? That’s crazy. Besides, how can you be so quick to judge? Have you forgotten that just last week
you
were accused of a crime you had nothing to do with?”

“
That
was different,” Haven argued.

“Oh, yeah? Different how? I—”

“Shhh!” Haven whispered. “Wait a second.”

Two men had turned the corner onto Mercer Street. Dressed in dark suits and sunglasses, they walked with purpose, their heads slowly swiveling as though they were patrolling both sides of the street. As they passed Haven’s hiding spot, the shorter of the pair smiled straight at her. There was something about the man’s tacky, colorful tie that told her he wasn’t a threat. But even after he and his friend had disappeared, she found herself unable to relax. The fear Haven had felt on her first day in New York had returned.

“Haven? You okay?”

“Sorry,” she told Beau. “False alarm. I guess I
have
been a bit paranoid lately. When I got to the city, I was sure I was being followed, but it turned out my stalker was just some guy who was staying at my hotel. I could have died of embarrassment.”

“Nobody can blame you for being a little jumpy. You know they’ve officially labeled the fire at your grandma’s arson? The sheriff might have had a chance to catch the guy who did it if he’d listened to you in the first place.”

“Yeah. Like
that
was ever going to happen.” Haven let out a bitter laugh. “Half of Snope City probably thinks the devil himself started the fire.”

“Naw, the latest theory is that you personally opened a portal to hell.”

“In that case, it’s too bad it didn’t swallow the whole freaking town. Dr. Tidmore come up with that by himself?”

“Dunno. I’ve been boycotting church since you left. Not that it makes a difference. Dad said Tidmore’s off on vacation. But we’re getting off the subject here. What are you going to do about Mr. Morrow, anyway?”

“Nothing, I guess,” Haven said.

“
Nothing
? You’ve spent the last few minutes trying to convince me that he’s a pathological liar who murdered a musician, but you’re still going to keep hanging out with him?”