Jake didn't know what woke him, some slight noise or just a general feeling that something was not right with Megan in the predawn quiet of the house. Damn! How did he know things like that? Or was the problem more basic than an emotional link he had no skill in understanding?
Had someone discovered that Megan was here and come calling to complete yesterday's visit?
Quietly he slipped into his jeans and stuck his pistol beneath the band at the small of his back.
He found her sitting at the kitchen table with only the small light from the range hood illuminating her face. She'd propped her feet up on the chair seat with her knees tucked under her chin. Patrick's purloined jersey covered her like a gray tent.
When he stepped into the room, she looked up at him with a haunted look in her eyes that told him she thought this meeting was inevitable and saluted him with the can of cola she clutched with both hands.
"Coke?" he asked quietly. "At this time of the morning?"
"I needed the caffeine," she said. "But I didn't want to wake anyone with the noise of making coffee."
"What's wrong?"
She shrugged. "Nightmare."
"Want to talk about it?"
She shuddered and took a long drink from the can.
"Megan. What was it about?"
"I don't know," she told him. "Lydia, Sam. You, me. Some faceless man who grabs women and demands answers from them that neither one of us has—had."
He pulled a chair to her side and sat as he had in her kitchen, with his knees nearly touching her. He pried the can from her hands and set it on the table and then cradled both her hands in his.
"You've been through some pretty heavy-duty trauma lately. Do you think it might help to talk to Dr. Kent?"
She shot him a look of wounded betrayal. "That time I spent in the sanitarium?"
He nodded, encouraging her by his silence to continue.
"It was really a private hospital. I was there because of my physical condition. And because everyone thought I should be collapsed in a heap after what I'd witnessed."
"Do you think I don't know that?"
It was as though she hadn't heard him. "He made me sound like some kind of nut case in that press conference. And he doesn't even know the half of it."
"Megan."
"I was doing so well. I hadn't collapsed. I hadn't surrendered to it. And then all this started happening. So I tucked some more of it away. I'd managed, once again, to get that girl to stop screaming. You helped me with that. I'd even decided maybe I was strong enough for . . . well, never mind for what. Now it's gotten personal, and I'm not sure how long it will be before I am collapsed in a heap." She gave a tiny shuddering sob. "I'm not sure what will happen if I ever let the fear win."
"Megan, you're one of the strongest people I know."
Absolute disbelief filled her eyes.
"Trust me," he said. "Barbara tried to tell me that the first night she met you. I couldn't see it then. I couldn't see past your beauty and your vulnerability and your physical fragility."
"Yeah, sure," she said, tugging one hand free and grasping a handful of her chopped-off hair to hold out for his inspection.
"Hush." He reclaimed her hand and held it still. "Your hair will grow back. In time you'll gain weight. You've already started to get color in your cheeks and life in your eyes. And you hold your own in any wisecracking sessions with me and Patrick and Barbara like you've been with us since the first grade too. You're beautiful and vulnerable and fragile and honest—"
"And you believe every word I tell you." Her voice held the same disbelief as her eyes.
"Yes," he said. "I do."
She tried to pull away again but he tightened his hand. "I have a little trouble with some of it. Not because I don't believe you, but because I don't completely believe the concept. But if you told me Sam Hooker was standing in the corner of this kitchen, I'd say hello. If you said we had to get out of Sarah North's emporium because it was going to blow up, I'd carry you and Sarah out of there so fast you'd be dizzy for a week. And if you told me we had to dig up my living room floor because the army gold was buried under it, we'd go shopping for replacement flooring."
"She doesn't know."
"What?"
"Lydia. She doesn't know where it is. Don't ask me how I know that, I just do." She added, in a quiet yet intense whisper, "And I don't know where it is either!"
Tink Stanton let both of them visit Deacon. When Jake stepped back, doing his best to disguise his relief but failing completely, Megan leaned forward. Deacon's eyes followed her as she lifted her hand and ran it along his head and shoulders. His tail thumped once, and he rewarded her with a valiant attempt to lift his head and lick her hand.
"That's okay, boy," she crooned to him. "I'm sorry, Deacon. I won't ever do this to you again. You are a fine brave dog. Oh, yes, you are such a good boy. I'm going to see that you get a sirloin steak at least once a week for the rest of your life."
Now she knew how Jake must have felt when he stepped back from the stainless steel kennel: embarrassed. Damn! She blinked once while Tink closed the kennel door and again when she turned to leave the room. Jake grinned and handed her a paper towel from a nearby dispenser. Should she remind him that he had almost needed one too? She sniffed again, wiped her eyes, and returned the towel to Jake.
They had to go back to his house. The horses needed to be fed, and the cats were wandering God only knew where. Megan wasn't sure they had even taken the time to lock any of the buildings after Jake had carried his bleeding dog to the clearing and loaded him into back of the Jeep.
"We can check into a hotel," Jake suggested as they neared the turnoff from the highway to the county road.
"What good would that do?" Megan asked. "We'd just be in unfamiliar surroundings."
"Right. I—oh, hell, I guess I have to tell you this. I tried to call your father. He wasn't there," he added hurriedly when she turned to glare at him. "Wilkins, the houseman?" She nodded. "Wilkins said he was on a fact-finding mission."
"Great," she said, not trying to hide her bitterness, not able to hide the hurt. "I hope he finds some."
"About Villa Castellano."
"Oh."
"And I asked Patrick to call DEA for me. After the threatening phone call. And again today, to fill them in on what happened next. I don't know what help we can expect from them. I don't know how far they'll go, because this is, after all, out of their jurisdiction. But you must know there isn't going to be any help at all from Rolley P and his crew."
She swallowed once, trying to clear her throat of fear and anger and frustration all twisted together in a mass that threatened to choke her. "I know."
"If we're going to stay at the house, we'll need food."
She nodded understanding and he turned, not toward their houses but toward Prescott.
Sarah and Henry North lived in a small house behind the store. Jake parked by their front porch. "Wait here for a moment," he said. "Then I want you to go into the store with us."
I don't want to leave you out here as a target. He might as well have gone ahead and said the words; she heard them anyway.
Sarah answered his knock almost immediately and after a few seconds of conversation reached up alongside the door facing on the inside of the house and grabbed a ring of keys. She waved at Megan as she crossed the yard toward the back of the store, and Jake nodded, so Megan opened the Jeep door and followed them into the storeroom.
"There was a big bunch of folks out here Friday evening after you left," Sarah said, "and yesterday. Where on earth did they get that horrible picture of you, Megan? They kept shoving it in my face and asking if I knew you and where you lived and were you, well—"
"Was I crazy?"
Sarah stared at Megan in awkward silence until she must have seen that Megan held no anger toward her. "Something like that," she admitted. "They were a rude lot, the whole bunch of them. So I gave them what they deserved. I looked at that picture and told them I had never seen anyone who looked like that around here and I didn't expect to."
She grinned a diabolical little grin that told Megan a lot about Sarah North's wicked sense of humor.
"I did tell them I'd heard a rumor about a strange woman living up on Witcher Mountain. Of course, it was getting on toward dark by then, and we all know how hard it is to find the right road in from that one state highway that runs over toward it. I warned them it wouldn't be easy getting there. There was a good chance she had a high fence with some of those security cameras on it, but then again that might just be rumor.
"There was one man, though, Jake," Sarah said without a trace of her earlier humor, "who gave me the willies. A quiet fellow, more polite than the rest of them, and I guess that's what made me notice him first."
"Tell me about him."
"You want to share your reason?"
"Someone attacked me in the woods yesterday afternoon, Sarah," Megan told her. "I didn't see him well enough to identify him, but he shot Deacon."
"Oh, no!"
"He's going to be all right," Jake told her. He glanced at Megan and lifted an eyebrow. "So is Megan."
"Well, I can see that!" Sarah shook her head. "Honestly!"
"The man, Sarah?" Megan asked, turning Jake's command into a request. "Please."
"Oh yes. Five ten or so. Wiry-looking. Dark hair, receding hairline. Dark eyes. Dressed well—you know, L. L. Bean instead of the usual jeans or overalls. And a regional accent I couldn't place but definitely wasn't from Arkansas or the Cuisinart School of Television Diction."
Jake's eyes glittered with an expression Megan couldn't remember seeing before and with—was it possible?—recognition. "Do you remember when he was here?"
Sarah nodded. "Yesterday morning, midmorning. Yeah, just as the milk delivery got here, because I was doing my best to check expiration dates on the stuff going into the walk-in and this guy was pumping me for information: ten, ten-fifteen or so."
"Thanks, Sarah," Jake said, hugging the woman. "Can I use your phone?"
"Sure. You know you can."
He looked at Megan. "The freezer's still pretty well stocked. Pick out some fresh stuff, will you, while I call Patrick."
She didn't understand; they never called each other at home about anything important. "But what about—"
He shook his head, earning her silence. "If they hear, they hear. We can't afford to play their games anymore."
With her mind only partially on her chore, Megan made a selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, juice, eggs, and, out of habit, bread, while Jake disappeared to use the phone in the back of the store and Sarah busied herself at the front. Jake joined her just as she pushed the cart to the checkout stand, and Sarah hurried around from the lunch counter with a white paper bag in her hand.
"A couple of sandwiches," Sarah said.
"Great," Jake told her. "I would have asked if this hadn't been your day off."
Sarah grinned at him. "You would have asked if you hadn't been afraid I'd hit you over the head with this antique cash register. But you're right. This is my day off, and I'm sure glad we're closed."
"How did you ever manage with that crowd yesterday?" Megan asked.
"Oh, good grief. I almost forgot. I had a helper. He came out yesterday afternoon to apply for a job and got caught up in the whole mess. He said you knew him, Jake."
"An off-the-street job applicant in Prescott?" he asked with an incredulous laugh. "And you don't know him? Who is he?"
"His name is Mack—Mack—oh, lord, I wrote it down but I've forgotten. He said he'd been working at Walt Harrison's lumberyard but was out of a job as of noon yesterday. If what he did for me is any indication of the kind of worker he is, I sure could use him around here."
Jake's easy laughter faded. "He didn't last long at the lumberyard, even considering Walt's bad temper and hiring practices. Maybe you'd better check his references carefully."
"Why? Do you know something bad about him?"
Jake shook his head. "I don't know anything about him. And all of a sudden that's beginning to worry me."
When they topped the last hill on their way home, a clear view of the valley lay before them. From a distance, they spotted a cluster of cars grouped near the gate Jake and Patrick had installed. It seemed that, thank God, they had indeed locked it on their mad dash out the day before.
Megan heard Jake swear and felt the sudden jolt as he stepped on the brakes.
"Now what?" she asked.
He gave her a lethal smile. "A little off-roading, I think. Are you up to it?"
She nodded. "Are you?" And then she realized what off-roading meant in this part of the country. "Oh, Jake. Your new car. You'll scratch it all up."
"Probably." He turned into a rutted lane. "This place runs parallel to ours for a considerable distance," he told her, "until my place wraps back around it. I was thinking about buying it, even ran a few cattle on it for a while."
The old house and barn were nothing but ruins, which Jake skirted, avoiding them in favor of a trail that angled back toward the mountains. He fought to keep the Jeep on the track until they bounced off the shale-lined path and into a stand of ancient pecan trees and he jammed on the brakes.
"Damn!"
A twelve-foot portion of the fence lay in a tangle of wires and orange metal posts. Jake slammed out of the Jeep and Megan followed.
"The reporters?" she asked as she stood by him while he knelt and examined the downed gap gate of the fence.
He shook his head, walked to the end of the grove on the other side of the fence, and examined the grass there.
"I don't think so," he said. "Could be, but this appears to have been used for a while. The person who trashed your bedroom? The man who tried to grab you yesterday? Both of them—or one of them—could have come through here and circled around to either of our houses, just like I'm planning to do. Damn! I didn't even think of looking on this side of the ridge. But who the hell would know about this access?"
"Jake." Megan put her hand on his arm. "Let's just go home now. Please. I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of time to worry about the whos and whats and whys."
"Right," he told her. "If you drive the Jeep through, I'll put the gap back up."
She saw no path; she had no idea how Jake followed one or even where they were until they entered the tree-lined overgrowth of the old roadbed, somewhere south of the curved pine tree but still north of the creek.
"I know you probably want to check on your place," Jake told her, "but we run the risk of being spotted if we go by."
She shook her head. "I'd rather not confront the physical evidence of someone's hatred just yet. The memories are bad enough."
What remained of the road from the creek to just shy of Jake's clearing was every bit as awful as Megan had imagined it would be, with the way cluttered by young saplings, tumbled boulders, and volunteer cedars and pine trees and every briar native to the area. Megan winced as she heard still another branch scrape along the side of the Jeep. Mentally she added a new paint job to the list of things she already owed Jake Kenyon.
He pulled to a stop in the trees just outside the clearing and left the engine idling as he looked around suspiciously.
"Do you think anyone's up here?"
"I don't know. Probably if any of the reporters made it this far they decided we weren't here and went back to the comfort of their air-conditioned cars to wait for us to show up. As for your buddy, I hope he's long gone. But let me case the joint before you put a boot on the ground."
"Case the joint?" Megan asked. "As in a bad gangster movie?"
Jake grinned and touched his hand to her cheek. "Would you prefer 'run a perimeter check'?"
Megan caught her hand in his. "I'd prefer you to be damned careful and hurry back."
"Got it," he told her. "But just in case something goes wrong, head this Jeep down the road. Don't stop for the gate, just make yourself a new one anywhere you want."
And leave him here alone? No way!
But Jake didn't need an argument right then. "Hurry back," she told him.
He didn't hurry, and it seemed like forever before he returned. "If anyone's been here, they're gone," he told her.
"Good," she said. "Now can we please go in the house and lock the doors . . ." and make love until all the intrigue and danger swirling around us is just a bad memory.
"And have lunch?" Jake finished for her. "Whatever Sarah put in that bag smells like 'more.' "
The kittens were in the house. Megan fed them kibble and milk, and after she and Jake finished their lunch, she rose to let them out.
As she passed where he sat at the table, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Leave them in," he told her, with more concern than the simple act merited.
She looked at him questioningly.
"That way you'll know where they are. You won't want to go out looking for them while I'm gone."
"Where are you going?"
"First to where Deacon was shot, to see if I can find any evidence as to the identity of that scumbag who attacked you, and then to see if I can pick up any clue as to where he went, if he went, and with whom, if anybody, he went."
"No."
"No?" His hand, still resting on her arm, tightened. "What do you mean, no?"
"I mean I don't want you going back out there alone."
He twisted in his chair until he faced her and then pulled her closer until she stood between his knees. Then he tugged her closer, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his head on her breast. Not even thinking about repercussions or unspoken admissions, Megan lifted her hands to his head and held him close.
"I'm the professional here," he said. "I'm supposed to have some idea of how to keep you safe. Instead, I just keep fumbling around in the dark, putting you at risk."
"No," she whispered. "You've saved my sanity, and I know you've saved my life. And at what cost to you? Your privacy's been invaded, your life's been turned upside down, your reputation's been slandered, and your dog's been shot. Now you're getting ready to put yourself in harm's way again because of me, and I don't want you to do it."
He hugged her tightly and released her, standing up so abruptly he scooted his chair backward. "Too bad, baby," he said, reaching for a lightness that didn't exist in the situation, "but a man's gotta do what a—"
She put her fingers on his lips and silenced him. "I know," she said. "But damn it, Jake Kenyon, don't you dare let yourself get hurt."
He made her find the automatic he'd given her earlier, checked it to make sure it was still loaded, and jacked a shell into the chamber.
"Keep it near you," he told her. "You probably won't need it, but if you do, use it. And if you need me, fire a shot. I'll be close enough to hear, and to get back in a hurry."
Then he was gone, leaving her alone in the house with nothing but memories.
Hers. And others that couldn't possibly be hers but were just as real.
Without the comfort and security she had come to feel in Deacon's presence, she felt horribly vulnerable as she waited for Jake to return.
Vulnerable. Waiting. Vulnerable. Waiting.
Disjointed images of her nightmare hammered at the edges of her consciousness. She—Lydia?—someone was waiting . . .
Damn it, for what? Or for whom?
She hadn't been in the notebook since Mattie had made her revelations. Since Mattie had confirmed that Lydia Tanner Hooker had really lived. Since Mattie had mentioned a mystery.
Damn it, what mystery?
Megan had enough on her plate without the added burden of a nineteenth-century mystery.
But since it just might be involved with a very real current one, shouldn't someone try to solve it? And who could?
Megan took the notebook into Jake's bedroom. It seemed safer there, and she had a strange premonition she would soon need "safe."
He had an old-fashioned walnut vanity, the kind with a knee hole and a padded bench, nice but not museum quality. She suspected it was a family heirloom because it was nothing that Jake would choose for himself and nothing that Helen would have kept if not forced to do so.
She seated herself on the bench and opened the notebook on the vanity in front of her. One kitten crawled into her lap, the other curled on the bench beside her.
Megan gripped her pen. This felt different from the other times. They had been scary because the unknown is scary. She knew what she was facing now, knew that at least two other people believed in it, knew that Lydia had been a real person and had a diary. This foreboding was brought about not by all those things but by the intuition that she was going to learn something she really didn't want to know.
That she had to know.
Megan looked at those words with dread. Still 1872. But when? Well, there was only one way to find out. She felt a moment's hesitation, as though her subconscious was every bit as reluctant to subject herself to what she might learn as her conscious mind was, and then the pen began to move.
Sam has accompanied Peter to my father's party. He said he must, in an attempt to bridge the chasm that has opened between me and the man who gave me life. Life! The only chance at life I ever had was with Sam Hooker, and now even that has been taken from me.
Sam did not insist I accompany him, but he would not succumb to my entreaties that he remain with me. And I would not succumb to his that I remain with Granny for the evening.
He wore his suit, the one he had made specifically for the times he must attend to the business of the principal chief, and he looked for a brief moment as dashing as when I first fell in love with him.
I had thought in my innocence I could heal his pain. I have only brought him more.
And now he has left me alone, knowing of my fear but unwilling to believe that it is real, that someone stalks me in his absence, that someone wants from me what I cannot give because I do not know.
The leaves have fallen early this year, parched and dull without their rioting colors. How appropriate that the world itself has taken on mourning clothes for the death of my dreams, of my soul. There is as yet no chill in the air to herald winter's coming, only the bare ugly branches and the brittle detritus of the forest's life—
Megan stared at the slash her pen had made across the page, an angry punctuation for the almost palpable terror that seemed suddenly to fill the room. She listened, because she felt sure she must have heard something, must have been jarred from Lydia's world. But the cats still slept contentedly, the light breeze still played with the leaves of the trees visible through the windows, the old house settled contented and still around her.
So the terror must be coming from Lydia. Again.
Did she really want to learn why? No, but she knew that she must.
God help us all. It has exploded. Daniel Tanner's vanity has killed them.
I heard the roar from inside the cabin. At first I thought it to be a vicious and too-close blast of thunder, until I remembered that the sky had been cloudless when last I looked outside, to see if the scrabbling noises in the leaves were caused by the raccoon that so often frequents our cabin looking for an easy food supply.
Against my will I was drawn to the ridge. Through the leafless trees I could see flames shooting upward from what had been my father's house. I could hear the screams of horses tethered too near the flames.
Granny had run from her cabin. She saw me at the ridge and urged me to go with her to be of what assistance we could to the injured. Sam is there. Peter is there.
God help me, I could not go.
Sam is dead because of me. I know that within my heart.
I cannot cry.
I should have listened to Granny years ago when she told me not to love him. I should have stayed with Aunt Peg rather than return; I can ignore that knowledge no longer. Without me, he would have been spared these months of agony. Without me, he would not now be trapped within—Oh, God!
"You might as well tell me. You can't hide in there forever."
Are the words I hear only caused by the whispering of the wind? Are they dragged forth from my fear and my memories? Or is someone truly outside?
I have barred the door. I sit now with Sam's revolver on the table before me.
"Open the door, Lydia. You know there's no one to save you now."
Sam, I am so sorry. I never meant to cause you pain. Please, oh, please God forgive me. And please, please God—someone—help me. . .