Twisted By Love, Reincarnation Tales, Book 1 (26 page)

The day had gone well, ending at three,
earlier than he’d expected. He could move forward with the plans
now.

When they broke for lunch, he’d asked
Gillespie about the rock house and the Taylor sisters. Though he
knew of the house, Gillespie had no idea about its origins. They’d
learned far more from Rowdy Reed and Livie’s search through the Red
Cliff library system.

He and Wade had driven separately to the
plant, and he’d parted ways with his brother half an hour ago. He
hadn’t called Livie; she’d still be in her seminar. He hadn’t
headed home either. He’d turned in the opposite direction, straight
back to Red Cliff’s main street. Stopping at the hardware store,
he’d purchased a bolt cutter.

He was all kinds of a fool. He hated that
house. He hated the sense of unease with which it had infused him
from the moment he’d seen it. Maybe those were all the reasons he
had to go back, to confront his nightmare.

He parked the car at the gully, swapped out
his dress shoes for a pair of runners and his suit for jogging
pants and a hoodie from his workout bag. He zipped his cell phone,
keys, wallet, and a small flashlight into various pockets. He’d
have to carry the bolt cutter.

The padlock was old and rusted. It would
probably break with a single twist, but he’d bought the cutter just
in case.

The climb was easier this time, when he
wasn’t worrying about Livie falling. At the rock,
their
rock, he stopped. He could feel the sexual tension in the air, as
if the place had imbued itself with their coupling. As if they’d
met here so many times in the very same spot.

Didn’t take a genius to figure it out. If he
believed that their feelings meant something, Myra was having a hot
and heavy affair with her sister’s husband. Except it had been
more. He could
feel
how much more. Their emotion emanated
from the very rock. He’d loved Myra. He’d hated Betty. He’d married
the wrong sister.

Hitching the bolt cutter over his shoulder,
he continued the climb. It was after four o’clock by the time he
made it to the top. He thought about calling Livie. Her seminar
would have ended by now. But she’d ask where he was. He didn’t want
to lie. Instead, he’d call her when he was back on the road.

The lock fell away with one snap of the bolt
cutter. He hauled up the ancient, rusted tin doors. Thicker and
heavier than he’d imagined, they rested back on their chains like a
pair of open wings. Fetid air wafted up at him.

He’d mastered his unease of small spaces. He
rode crowded elevators with barely a twinge. But his entire body
tensed as he stood at the top of those cement stairs. The sunlight
streamed down only so far, then the steps disappeared into the
darkness.

His mouth was dry. His ears started to ring.
He unzipped his pocket and pulled out the flashlight. Its light
revealed six steep stone steps and a half moon of dirt floor.

Get on with it.

He marched down like a man with a mission,
bending his head to pass beneath the underside of the wall. It was
cold. It was damp. It smelled like death. Bern shivered. But he
made it to the bottom.

In the flashlight beam, the room was small,
only about ten by ten, but it was larger than the prison of his
dreams. There had been no stairs in his nightmare, just a dirt
floor and a metal door. Rotted wood shelving covered the stone
walls, all except the back one. That was bare and constructed of
brick.

He could hear that scrape-slap-smack, over
and over and over. Like bricks being laid.

He should examine the wall, but for long
moments he couldn’t move. The dank cellar was too small, the air
rotten. Bile rose in his throat. He felt the sun at his back, its
light barely penetrating the darkness. And he wanted to scream. He
wanted to run.

Yet he gritted his teeth, took three steps
deeper into the cellar, and shone the flashlight on the brick
wall.

It was a poor job. The spacing wasn’t even,
and the mortar between the bricks was crumbling. It hadn’t been
mixed properly. He hacked at the center of the wall with the metal
end of the bolt cutter. Mortar showered down. Setting the
flashlight on the steps, he aimed the beam at the wall. Then he
went at it with both hands on the bolt cutter, chopping,
hacking.

In fifteen minutes, bricks and crumbled
mortar were scattered at his feet, and he’d forged a two-foot gap
in the wall. Beyond it, he found a metal door. Shaking with effort,
fear crawled between his shoulder blades like spiders. He knew what
lay beyond that door, a room within a room, much smaller, dark, no
way out.

Jesus, he needed a few breaths of clean air,
sun on his face. Water, too, except that he’d forgotten to bring a
bottle. Just a few minutes, then he could tackle the hole
again.

Turning to sunlight, he climbed the stairs,
rising up into it, and as he took the last step, he closed his eyes
to let his body drink in the fresh air and light.

Instead, he was met with blinding pain, his
head exploding with it. Then he was falling back down into the
darkness.

* * * * *

It was seven and Bern hadn’t called yet.
There was no way his meeting had run that long. Livie had left
three messages on his phone. It rang several times before sending
her to voice mail. Was he having a business dinner with Wade and
forgot to call her? But he still would have answered his phone.

Livie sat at her desk in the empty office.
She’d come back after the seminar to catch up on anything she’d
missed during the day. Everyone had gone home. Bern hadn’t said
exactly what time he’d call, just that he’d be home between eight
and nine. It was only seven, she told herself, no big deal. But she
couldn’t help worrying. In the silence, she could hear the clocks
ticking. Like a warning. Time was running out. It was irrational,
but when you didn’t have anyone around to talk you out of it...

She tried looking up Wade’s phone number. He
was unlisted. Jake was unlisted. Their mother was unlisted.
Everyone in the whole damn world was unlisted. She looked at the
traffic reports on the Internet. There were no trouble spots,
certainly nothing that would have kept him from answering.

She thought about calling hospitals. But
where? She couldn’t call every one between here and Freedom.

It was hopeless. Why hadn’t she gotten his
family’s phone numbers? But she’d never dreamed she’d need them.
And really, this was stupid. Men forgot the time when they were
talking business. She’d punch him when he got home. She’d—

Her phone rang. Livie almost screamed, then
jumped on it.

But it was Toni. Livie felt sick. “Hi, hon.”
She tried to sound normal.

“You know, we didn’t talk about our Wednesday
dinner, if we were going to meet.” It sounded like she was driving,
her Bluetooth on.

“Oh no. I’m still at work.” She hadn’t given
a single thought to Toni.

“Okay, that’s fine. Just checking.”

“Next week, okay?” She wanted to get off the
phone. In case Bern called.

“Yeah. Sounds great. Bye then.”

Livie hugged the phone to her chest.
Call,
please call
.

Then she didn’t care that her worry was
idiotic because it was
only
seven o’clock. She didn’t care
that men often forgot the time. Something was wrong. She felt it in
her bones.

She hit Bern’s speed dial one more time,
waited for the message beep. “Look, I don’t know where you are or
why you’re not calling me back, but I’m worried and I’m driving up
to your brother Wade’s house to find out what’s happened. So if
you’re fine”—there was a definite edge in her voice—“then I’ll turn
around and come home when you call me back.”

She knew he wasn’t going to call.

* * * * *

Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Toni smiled. Livie hadn’t asked where she
was. Of course, Toni would have lied. She was such a good actress.
Maybe she should move to Hollywood and start a new career.

Toni changed lanes to get around a
ridiculously slow driver. Someone honked, and behind her, a car
swerved, then straightened. “Shouldn’t have been in my blind spot,
bud,” she muttered.

On the car seat beside her, Bern’s cell phone
began to ring.

She picked it up. Livie again.

“He’s not going to answer,” she singsonged
and let the call go to voice mail.

Chapter Twenty-five

“
I’m enlisting. And when this war is done,
I’m not coming back to you.” He shoved clothes in a duffle. He
didn’t care what he took.

Beside the bed, she leaned heavily on her
cane, her breath a wheeze. Sometimes he wondered if it was all an
act, a way to tie him to her. Because for all her ill health, her
whining, her moaning, her self-pity, she managed to snarl at him
with the strength of a she-wolf. “I know you’ve been screwing her.
My own sister.”

He hadn’t realized she’d even heard the word
used in that context before. “I screwed you,” he snapped. “I made
love to her.”

He wasn’t going to lie or sneak around
anymore. Life had turned on a dime two days ago when the Japs
bombed Pearl Harbor. He was enlisting. And when he came back, he’d
come back for her, not the bitch he’d married.

I love you. He said the words in his mind,
hoping she could hear them across the miles.

He’d leave a letter in their secret place,
the little hollow in the rock. He’d explain. If she hadn’t gone to
San Francisco for a week...but she’d had to get away from the
bitch’s constant demands and constant belittling. He couldn’t wait
for her to return. He had to go now.

“
You can’t leave me,” the bitch screamed.
“Everything you have belongs to me. You don’t have a cent.”

“
Where I’m going, I won’t need
one.”

He’d been living in hell for three years.
Now was his chance to get out. He yanked open the armoire, but
wondered why he bothered taking anything at all. All he needed was
the picture he’d tucked in his shirt pocket close to his heart. It
would have to carry him through.

He closed his eyes, saw her in his mind.
Then the world exploded in a blinding flash and he wondered how the
hell the Japs could have made it to the West Coast. And God help
him, she was in San Francisco, so far away. Helpless

Then his world went dark.

It was black as pitch. His head pounded, and
his stomach threatened to rebel. Jesus, he was going to be sick.
His fingers found dirt and tiny rocks, and he slowly rolled to his
stomach, pushed himself up, tried to stand. That set the world
spinning. He belly-flopped, breathed deep trying to keep everything
from rising up his throat. The smell was rank and set his stomach
roiling all over again. But he knew where he was even without the
light. The cellar. How had the bitch gotten him down here? Of
course. Her cane, her pitiful calls for help, all lies to keep him
tied to her, to bind him with guilt. Lust as he’d suspected.

He touched the back of his head, and it came
away wet the way he’d known it would. It wasn’t Jap bombs; it was
the bitch’s cane. He hated her, knew she was evil, but he’d never
suspected she was capable of murder.

He would not die down here. He’d get out even
if he had to scratch through the walls.

Once again, he tried to rise. He made it to
his hands and knees. Then he retched.

When he had breath again, he spoke aloud. “I
will not let you beat me.”

His arms shook, his legs quaked, but he
grunted and pushed and strained, and finally made it to his
feet.

“I will have vengeance on you, bitch.” His
voice felt stronger now, but he swayed in the darkness, his head
spinning, the pain an incessant throb. He didn’t call out; there’d
be no use in that. There was only the bitch, and she was waiting
for him to die down here.

He put out his hands, shuffled forward, his
shoe hitting something solid. Not the wall. Raising his foot
slowly, he followed the solid line of the object. Until he realized
it was a step. He reached out to find the edge of the stairwell. He
wasn’t in the old wine cellar. He was outside it, in the main root
cellar.

Then he knew it all. He wasn’t George. He
wasn’t married to the bitch. He wasn’t going off to war. And he
wasn’t dying. At least not yet.

That all had been...a dream. No. Not a dream.
A memory.
His
memory from another lifetime.
Myra.
He
suddenly knew it was the name that had been on the tip of his
tongue in that first moment he’d seen Livie. Myra from a past
life.

But in
this
lifetime, he was still
trapped.

Unlike George, he could make a simple phone
call. He slid a hand down to his pocket. The cell wasn’t there.
He’d zipped the pocket, hadn’t he? He couldn’t remember. His keys
were there, but nothing else.

He squatted on the dirt floor, passed his
hand over the broken bits of brick, mortar, and rock. The phone
wasn’t there.

He knew it wasn’t anywhere down here.

He returned to the stairs. Leaning forward,
he tested with his hands, found another step, then another, slowly
climbed them until his head brushed the old tin doors. He pushed.
They moved barely an inch then flopped back down with a thud. He
used both hands, but the angle was bad and he couldn’t lift them.
They couldn’t be locked. He’d cut the lock.

Turning, he put his back into it, straining
until the pain seemed to explode inside his head. He retched over
the side of the stairs. But the doors had shifted only slightly
more than they had before. He slumped down, exhausted and weak,
breathing deeply a few moments.

Then he tried again, shoving, pushing,
straining, until suddenly his foot slipped over a few pebbles on
the stair. He tumbled down the steep steps, scraping his hands as
he tried to catch himself. His head hit something with a crack, and
he fell down into the darkness with one last thought:
Jesus.
She’s killed me twice. In the very same place.