Cloche and Dagger (15 page)

Okay, I can admit it. One part of me called him to see if he was breathing heavily as if he’d just tried to smother someone and was making a run for it. Did I really think he was my assailant? No, but I wanted to be sure.

“What?” he cried.

I could hear the rustle of bedsheets as if he was moving into a sitting position. This reassured me as nothing else could have.

“Pillow over my face,” I said. “They’re gone now, I think.”

“Call the police!” he barked. “Then call me right back. I’m on my way.” He hung up.

Call the police. Call the police. My sleep-soaked, terrified brain couldn’t quite register the words. I stared at my phone.

I was pretty sure it wasn’t 9-1-1. In fact, I remember Mim drilling 9-9-9 into my head, but that was for emergencies. Was this an emergency? I didn’t want to get into trouble, or should I say more trouble?

My phone started to chime. I noted the number was Harrison’s.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Why didn’t you call me back?” he asked.

“I haven’t even called the police yet,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to get into trouble,” I said. “With Viv missing and the Lady Ellis situation . . .”

My voice trailed off and I could hear his exasperation almost as loudly as I could hear his huffing and puffing.

“Scarlett,” he said. “Someone broke into your shop and your house. They tried to kill you. Now you have to call the police. They have to investigate.”

“I suppose,” I said. “Can I do it when you get here?”

There was a beat of silence, and I wondered if he was going to hang up on me after demanding that I call the police again. To my surprise, he didn’t.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

His voice was surprisingly gentle with concern, and for some reason it made my throat close up and I had to swallow hard before I could answer.

“I’m fine,” I said. Now if English girls are anything like American girls, Harrison would know that “fine” means anything but fine. And in my case, at the present moment, it meant I was on the verge of hysterics.

“Breathe,” he said. “Come on, you can do it. A nice big breath and hold it. Now let it all the way out nice and slow.”

I did as I was told, realizing that English women and the word “fine” must be compatible with the American female usage. Either that or my voice was clearly borderline hysterical.

“Do it again,” he said. He waited while I exhaled. “Excellent, are you better now?”

“A little,” I said, feeling for the first time like I might not pass out.

“All right,” he said. “Do you hear anything? Do you think your attacker might still be there?”

“Hang on,” I said. “I’ll check.”

“No!” He shouted and I had to hold my phone away from my ear.

“Easy,” I said. “I’m not deaf.”

“Sorry,” he said. “But don’t leave your room. You don’t know if it’s safe.”

“Oh, I’m betting even my neighbors heard that yell of yours in their sleep. I’m sure it’s safe now.”

“Scarlett!” He was clearly exasperated.

“Relax,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Which was a lie. I climbed off the bed and stood on legs that, while still shaky, managed to keep me upright. I crept toward the door.

“Scarlett, what are you doing?” he asked.

“Listening like you told me to,” I said. “Now shh.”

I lowered the phone so I could use both of my ears to hear. I crept up to the door. My heart started to pound in my chest. I peered around the doorjamb and noted that the light I’d left on below was still on.

It cast faint shadows up the staircase and my eyes darted about, trying to assess what was shadow and what could be crazy-bad-person, lurking in the dark. Now my palms were sweating and my breathing was coming faster.

“Scarlett!” I could hear Harrison calling me so I pressed my phone against my belly to muffle the sound. How could I hear when he was making such a racket?

All was quiet and still in the hallway. I could just see across into Viv’s old room. I wondered if I should go in there to check it out. It seemed unlikely, but how stupid would I feel if I trotted on downstairs and the person who tried to smother me came trotting down after me?

I lifted up the phone and said, “It’s very quiet. I’m going to check Viv’s old room.”

I swiftly lowered the phone as Harrison started to protest quite loudly. The man obviously had no sense of stealth. It took some nerve-building on my part but I finally stepped out of my room. I braced myself for someone to jump out of the darkness and attack, but nothing happened.

I crept across the landing and eased my way into Viv’s old room. The light from below didn’t cast enough light in this room for me to see, so I quickly switched on the overhead lamp. I scanned the room. It was a generic guest bedroom now. And no, no looming bad guy lurked in the corners or under the bed or the closet.

I turned to leave, again pausing in the door to check the landing before venturing forward. Nothing.

I eased my way to the bathroom door. It was closed, so I gingerly pushed it open. It was empty, but I had to check the shower. It had a pale yellow curtain drawn across it, the perfect place for a would-be killer to hide before round two. I curled my fingers around the vinyl and quickly yanked it back, snapping off a few of its plastic rings with the force of my tug. Oops!

It was empty. No one was there but still, years of horror films had me on high alert and my heart slammed down into my belly as I registered the fact that no one was there. I felt myself go limp with relief.

I was just raising the phone back up to my ear when a heavy hand landed on my shoulder.

“Ah!” I screamed as my body went rigid with fright. Then I spun around with my phone in my fist, determined to take my attacker down.

“Whoa!” I heard a yell as the person I was aiming for ducked to avoid the blow.

I went to snap kick him, but found myself snatched around the waist and dragged out the door into the landing before my foot could connect.

My back was pinned to someone else’s front and I was wriggling and kicking and clawing for all I was worth.

“Harrison!” I yelled, hoping my phone was still on where I had dropped it in the scuffle. “He’s got me! Hurry!”

“Scarlett, it’s me!” a voice shouted in my ear. “Stop! Do not bite me!”

I had grabbed his hand and was just about to sink my teeth in when I recognized the voice. I whipped my head around and we were face-to-face, with me in Harrison’s arms, dangling off the ground as he held me in the air as if it were no effort at all.

“Are you insane?” I snapped. Now I wanted to hit him even more, so I did, a solid punch to the arm, causing him to drop me. “You could have said something, you know, instead of scaring the snot out of me.”

“Silly me,” he said. “I was trying to be quiet in case anyone was still here.”

“Oh,” I said. I supposed he was right, but I didn’t have to admit it.

Of course, now I realized with a flush of embarrassment that I was standing in the dark in just my pajamas with a man I wasn’t sure I trusted. I picked up my phone and crossed my arms over my chest.

“How did you get in?”

“The back door was wide open,” he said.

I frowned.

“Someone took the lock right off of it,” he explained.

“While I was sleeping?”

He just looked at me without saying anything.

“Sorry, stupid question,” I said. “I’m still trying to process.”

“Let’s call Inspector Franks,” he said. “I think the immediate danger is over, but I’m sure he’ll want to know about what’s happened.”

“Do you think this has something to do with Viv being missing?” I asked as I followed him down the stairs without touching the railing.

“More likely it has something to do with Lady Ellis,” he said. He paused at the bottom of the steps and looked up at me. “They tried to kill you. Why?”

My mouth went dry and I felt a little woozy.

“Blunt much?” I asked. I chose to turn my upset into snippiness. It’s a self-defense mechanism. I know this and yet I can’t help it.

“Sorry, that was rather tactless of me,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s any way I could sugarcoat what happened here though.”

“No, I don’t suppose having someone take off an entire lock to get inside a building where they then hold a pillow over the face of the only other person in the building lends itself to a kinder or gentler description than attempted murder.”

“You sound a wee bit hysterical,” he said.

“Oh, I can assure you, it’s more than a wee bit,” I said.

I followed him through the second floor to the stairs that led below to the shop. He had his phone out and was calling in the break-in, and the attempted murder, as we went. Whomever he was talking with sounded irate, as if they didn’t like having their sleep interrupted by my problem. So sorry, next time I’ll try to reschedule my suffocation to a more suitable hour. Yes, still snippy.

I flipped on the light switch, bathing the shop in the reassuring brightness of electricity. I felt my shoulders drop down from around my ears. I scanned the room. No one was here.

“Thank you, Inspector,” Harrison said. He leaned close to me and said, “Don’t touch anything.”

I glared. As if I would. I’d watched
CSI
. I knew better than to tamper with the evidence.

I went to one of the sitting areas and very carefully sat down on the edge of the couch. I sincerely doubted that the person who’d tried to kill me would have left any trace of evidence in the sitting area. It wasn’t like they were here to have tea, after all.

Harrison closed his phone and joined me. I could feel him studying my face, but I was ignoring him. I was trying very hard not to feel sorry for myself and I was failing miserably.

The whole point of coming to England and working in the shop was to take my mind off the disaster I had left behind, the rat bastard, his beautiful wife, and my oh-so-public humiliation. In that regard, mission accomplished.

However, I did not like not knowing where my cousin was and that no one, save me, seemed overly concerned about her. I did not like finding clients murdered. And I most definitely did not like waking up to find someone trying to smother me.

A tiny sob bubbled up in my throat. I tried to swallow it down, but it escaped and echoed in the silence of the shop.

Harrison narrowed his eyes at me. I tried to make my face blank, but his eyes grew even narrower until they were mere green slits.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” I lied.

A commotion at the front door brought our attention around to it. Through the glass I could see Inspectors Franks and Simms, and I was relieved to get up and let them in and escape Harrison’s all-knowing look. Sympathy at this point would just make me blubber.

I used the edge of my shirt to open the door. I could hear Harrison moving to stand behind me. Despite our differences, it was comforting to have him at my back as I had no idea how the inspectors were going to view this situation.

“Morning, Ms. Parker,” Inspector Franks said. He looked grave. “I’m afraid we’ll need you to come to the station with us.”