Whispers (36 page)

“
I swear it,” he whispered into her mouth and then he kissed her.

There’d been passion between them before, but this kiss sealed a commitment that neither voiced but both understood. His strong arms circled her back and she molded her softer frame to his. When he lifted his head, it was to stare into her eyes. “Trust me,” he said.

And she did.

Long after he and Bill disappeared down the stairs, she remained rooted to the same spot, thinking of that.

The sounds of footsteps above reminded her that everyone else was busy with one task or another. But with the rest of them off on their assigned missions, Gracie was left downstairs with Juliet and a lot of questions. Could there be someone else in the Diablo? If so, that might explain a few of the weird things that had been going on. But with the explanation came a new level of concern. If the choice was a ghost or a murderer, Gracie would take the ghost. There was still the very real possibility that Jonathan had committed suicide, but if he’d taken his own life, why? Why come all the way to Diablo Springs to kill himself? And if that was the case, what had driven him to it? Something must have happened.... Could it have had anything to do with the reading he’d done in Grandma Beck’s room?

Then, despite her best efforts to keep it away, her mind formed the thought she’d been avoiding. If he hadn’t taken his own life, and there wasn’t someone hiding out here, that meant that one of the other people staying at the Diablo killed him. Bill had said Jonathan tried to hurt Chloe intentionally, and Bill was nothing if not devoted to her. How faithful was he? Committed enough to kill for her? And what of the look she’d intercepted?

She took a deep breath and tried to get a rein on her thoughts. She could drive herself crazy thinking like this. She needed to take her own advice and do something constructive because, truth be told, she didn’t like being down here alone. Not now. A shiver danced over her spine.

Lost in thought, she didn’t hear Zach come into the room until he asked, “Where is everyone?”

Gracie let out a yelp of surprise and turned to find him standing right behind her. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, though it was still warm enough to make her skin feel damp and sweaty. His blond hair was flattened, his sea-green eyes framed in red.

“
Good Lord, Zach. You look awful.”

He gave a halfhearted smile. “Thanks. I’ll try not to breathe on you.”

“
Have you taken anything?” she asked him.

“
Tylenol, a while ago.”

She nodded. “How about fluids?”

That earned her another smile. She was acting like his mother and it embarrassed her. But she’d rather be embarrassed than have him go into a coma or something from severe dehydration.

“
Seriously. You look really bad, Zach. You need to make sure you’re getting some fluids in.”

“
I am. In fact, I’ve been so thirsty I think I’ve drunk a gallon of water.”

She nodded, not reassured in the least. Did excessive thirst mean anything serious?

“
Are you hungry?”

“
Nah. I just needed to get up for a while. I’ve been passed out since I talked to you. Where is everyone?” he asked again.

Reluctantly, Gracie told him about Jonathan.

“
In the cellar?” Zach repeated. “Shit. Didn’t anyone hear it?”

“
Apparently not.”

The sound of footsteps stopped him before he asked his next question. Reilly stepped into the room first. His face was gray and streaked with dirt. Sweat had dampened his shirt and made it stick to his chest. Behind him, Bill looked surprisingly fresh.

“
Well?” Gracie asked.

“
Nothing,” Reilly said. His eyes showed relief and Gracie realized just how worried he’d been about what—or who—they might find.

Bill gave Zach a dismissive glance and said, “Is Chloe still upstairs?”

Gracie nodded. “I haven’t seen her since she went up.”

“
Please excuse me for a moment,” Bill said and left to check on her.

“
Did you find anything at all?” Gracie asked.

“
Just things I can’t explain. The saddles, the clothes we saw earlier. It looks like there’s bloodstains on the clothes.” Reilly shook his head. “Everything’s so old, though. It could be cherry pie. I need something to drink,” he said, heading for the kitchen.

Zach asked, “What chest?”

Gracie told him about the saddle and the chest they’d found.

“
And that’s it? A whole cellar and that’s all that was in it?”

“
All that I could see. That and a dead man.”

Reilly came out of the kitchen with a glass of water and seemed to notice Zach for the first time.

“
What happened to you?” Reilly asked him, frowning.

“
I died,” Zach said. “Unfortunately, my body doesn’t know it yet. Don’t worry, I’m not breathing on anyone.”

“
Good to know. Why don’t you quarantine yourself?”

“
Reilly,” Gracie said. “He’s sick.”

Reilly ignored her. “You should be in bed, Zach. You look like you’re going to fall over and there’s no way to get you to a doctor until the storm passes.”

“
Thanks, Dad,” Zach said. “I didn’t think you cared.”

Beneath the dirt and grime on his face, Reilly’s skin darkened. Zach gave a small grin and then gathered his blanket around him and started up the stairs.

Chapter Thirty

REILLY didn’t like having everyone scattered around the house, but he needn’t have worried. Gracie gathered up her tribe and camped them where she could see them. Ten minutes after Zach had gone back to bed, her daughter, Brendan, and the dogs were all seated in the front room. A few minutes later, Bill came down with Chloe. She gave Reilly a long, accusing stare, which he did his best to ignore.

“
Why haven’t you asked her?” she demanded after a moment.

Gracie’s head came up like a deer scenting danger. She watched Reilly as he searched for a response.

“
You must ask her,” Chloe insisted. Bill set a calming hand on her shoulder, but Chloe didn’t back down. “Ask her about—”

“
Gracie,” Reilly interrupted before Chloe could blurt anything else out. “Can we go in the kitchen for a minute?”

“
Mom said she wanted us all together,” Analise said.

“
You are all together,” Reilly answered. “And she’ll be with me. Just give us a few minutes.”

Analise got a stubborn look on her face, but Gracie said, “I’ll be right back Analise.”

The kitchen door closed behind them, locking them in the dim, fragrant kitchen. The smell of meat permeated everything now. It smelled good and yet, it didn’t. Somehow the scent of roasted meat was tainted by the simple fact it shouldn’t exist.

Gracie sat at the small table and looked at him expectantly. He took a deep breath, wondering where to start. At last he tried, “Gracie, have you ever heard of Chloe before last night? Did Carolina ever mention her?”

She frowned. Not the question she’d been expecting, obviously. “She didn’t like to talk about the past, but I told you what Jonathan said—that Chloe had come here before to give my grandma a warning. It was hard to make sense of what he said, though. I told you he talked about someone named Jimmy too. My grandfather, I think. I’m still not sure if this Jimmy died in the explosion or just vanished when they killed the springs.”

“
I never knew that’s what happened to the springs,” Reilly said. “You never heard of this Jimmy guy before?”

“
Never. When I’d ask about my grandfather, she’d always say he was killed in the war. It never occurred to me to question the truth of it until today.”

Reilly thought on that for a while. What would make Carolina Beck lie about Gracie’s grandfather?

“
Maybe she lied because she wasn’t married to this guy. Maybe she just told everyone she’d married a soldier who was killed to hide the truth,” Reilly offered.

“
It’s likely. She was so private. She would have hated all the gossip of having an illegitimate child. Of course that backfired with my mother. All of us, I guess. People have been talking about the Beck women forever.”

He nodded, hearing the note of pain in her voice and knowing there was really nothing he could do to make it go away. In fact, he was going to make it worse. A better man might have chosen not to, but Reilly didn’t see a choice.

“
Chloe seems to think your family and hers are connected.”

“
Did she say why she came to see my grandma? Because she wasn’t welcome. I got that much out of it.”

“
She said she came more than once. The first time she told me about was to warn Carolina that your mother was going to be murdered.”

“
She wasn’t murdered. It was an accident. And how did she know my mother?”

“
She said she had a vision. She claims that she told Carolina where to find you afterward.”

“
That’s crap.”

Reilly nodded. “She said she also came to warn her about the rape.”

“
You mean, me?” Gracie looked at him, her eyes dark, filled with emotion like the earth was with water. Overflowing because they could absorb no more. “How could my being raped have anything to do with her? Another vision?”

Reilly held up a hand. “I’m the messenger here. I’m just telling you what she said.”

“
Yeah, well you’re what I’d call a selective messenger.”

He took that hit without a volley. She was right and wishing she wasn’t didn’t make it so.

“
Chloe seems to think you’re in danger. She thinks these connections are generations old. And, she thinks there’s more to come.”

“
What, she senses it?”

“
She says her grandmother and your great-grandmother started it all. Don’t ask what that means. I don’t think she even knows. I don’t believe in all her bullshit either. I think she’s a nut job. But she’s got some ... hell, proof, I guess. You know the picture over the fireplace? She says one of the men in that picture is her grandfather.”

Gracie listened with quiet disbelief as he explained Chloe’s history—how her grandfather had raped and tormented her family.

“
According to Chloe, her grandfather is the man in the picture.”

Gracie’s eyes rounded, but it was anger that glinted in them. Not sympathy. Not shock. She pushed from the chair and strode into the front room. He knew she was going to look at the picture. He didn’t follow. He waited.

It took a long time before she returned. “Why did she tell you?”

“
To explain—”

“
No, Reilly, why did she tell
you?”

“
She wants to have a séance tonight. She wants you to be part of it.”

“
No.”

“
I told her that.”

“
Did you? Then why are you spinning this tale for me now?”

He stood, reacting to the accusation in her voice. “You’d rather I just kept it to myself? That would be better, to not tell you what’s going on? Let you find out from someone else and know that I chose not to let you in on Chloe’s little secret?”

“
That’s exactly what you did. Chloe already told me about it. Now she’s sent you in to see if you can change my mind.”

“
You know that’s not true.”

“
Do I? In all honesty, Reilly, I don’t know anything when it comes to you.”

That pissed him off. Whether it was true or not, whether she had a right to feel that way or not, it made him mad.

“
I think you do, Gracie. I think you know more about me than anyone else alive. If you don’t like it, let me know and I’ll walk away. But don’t play games.”

Her jaw dropped and he had a moment to regret the harsh words but he didn’t take them back.

She narrowed her eyes and said, “You think a couple of kisses and we’re all in tune with each other? You think you’ve romanced my common sense away? You’re a user, Reilly. You always have been. You may have changed in some ways, but not in that. I don’t know why, but for some reason you want her to do this séance.”

“
You don’t know what I want,” he said.

“
No, Reilly,
you
don’t know what you want.”

The truth in that hit him hard and low. It took the sting from his anger and turned it against him until it whipped and burned. She was right, damn her. He didn’t know. He’d never known. He’d simply moved from one convenient place in his life to another, never doing anything meaningful, always opting for the easy way out. Why sit home and struggle to come up with his next storyline when Chloe was going to hand it to him on a platter? Why worry that he might be hurting Gracie Beck when he could justify his motives by saying he needed to know.

Gracie watched him and he realized she was reading his thoughts as they flashed through him. Her jaw was set and her eyes sparked with anger. Without another word she headed for the door.

“
There’s more, Gracie,” he said, stopping her. “You want to hear or not?”

She spun back around and stared at him. Her breath came quick and angry, but she said, “I want to hear it.”