The Gilded Cuff (25 page)

Twenty minutes later, she was easing back in the cushy seat of her family’s private jet. Her brother, Wes, wasn’t due to leave until an hour after her, thanks to her flight. The pilot was sure he could get her to Colorado and then get back in time to pick up Wes without her brother ever suspecting she’d gotten there first. He’d figure it out eventually, but she’d take the advantage of the head start while she could. If the pilot didn’t get back in time, Wes might have to fly commercial. Hayden sniggered at the image of her brother trapped in standard first class.

Hayden loved her brother, but as any person with siblings understood, you could love someone who drove you insane half the time. Wes was overbearing and overprotective. She had every right to explore her passions at the Gilded Cuff, just as much as he did. She was twenty-four years old, old enough to make her decisions and live her own life. If it took rescuing Fenn Lockwood to prove to Wes she could handle herself, then so be it.

Her head fell back against the pillowed headrest and she shut her eyes. She tried to imagine what Fenn would look like. He was probably as handsome as Emery was. She prayed he wouldn’t be as stubborn and frustrating as his twin. Sleep crept in at the corners of her consciousness as the exhaustion of the previous day caught up with her. Her images of Fenn were soon tainted with flames, the roar of an exploding brewery, and the terror of thinking Emery was dead. She had to find Fenn. She couldn’t watch Wes endure through that pain again. She hadn’t even been born when the kidnapping occurred, but she’d grown up with beneath the cloud of sorrow and the distance her brother put around himself because of losing his friend. She shivered and slipped deeper into dark dreams of Fenn and the fate that awaited him if she couldn’t get there in time.

T
he graveyard was a few miles from the Lockwood estate, nestled in a secluded part of the woods well away from paved roads. Sophie sat next to Emery in the front seat of his car of choice, a dark gray Porsche Cayman. Its engine purred seductively low as he turned the vehicle off the road and onto a gravel path heavily infiltrated with rebellious grass. The smooth ride turned jarring as they rumbled along. Sophie rolled her window down, letting the wind tug her hair wildly in different directions as she studied the surroundings. Thick copses of trees dotted the sides of the path, making it impossible to see much beyond the forests to any part of the land beyond them.

Wherever they were going, it wasn’t a place frequented by cars, or people. Emery kept his gaze straight ahead, his jaw set as he switched gears in the Cayman, slowing it down to a gentle roll. The thick scent of rain and wildflowers teased her nose. Turning the car around a narrow bend of trees, Emery stopped in front of a massive wrought-iron gate. Dead ivy vines clung to the gate’s elaborate scrollwork-styled entrance. A massive padlock hung around the gate’s connecting points.

Emery shut the engine off and unclicked his seat belt. “We’ll walk from here.”

Sophie joined him at the entry. Through it she could see about a quarter of a mile of land serving as a private graveyard, with a large, light gray stone wall sealing it away from the wilds that surrounded it.

“What is this place?”

“My family’s private cemetery. The Lockwoods have been here since the pilgrims set foot on North American soil.” Emery pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. He made quick work of the padlock and let it drop to one side of the gate as he opened it. The hinges creaked loudly, protesting the movement, but he pushed hard and they opened enough for them to slip through.

A chill settled into the base of Sophie’s skull and that ancient animal instinct of awareness that she was not alone took over. She slowly turned her head, seeking the eyes she felt were focused on her and Emery, but she saw no one in the woods. Only trees and shadows.

“It’s this place,” he whispered. “You always feel as though someone’s watching you.” He reached over and took her hand, gripping it firmly in his.

“Did I ever tell you about my Granny Bells?” she whispered back. Strange as it was, she felt safer whispering, as though it wouldn’t wake the dead.

“I know very little about your family, Sophie.” His eyes met hers as they walked. The implied
I’d like to know more
came with a gentle squeeze of his hand around hers.

She sighed. “I’m so used to asking everyone else about their lives, I forget to share my own.”

“I can see that,” Emery chuckled. They were walking down a worn path in the grass where dirt was more prominent from hundreds of years of feet stamping along a singular route.

“Well, I was born in Kansas. That’s where my dad’s family’s from. They’re farming folk, lots of brothers, sisters, hardworking types. My mother’s family is a little more blue-blooded. East Coast based. My mother’s mother, Grandmother Belinda—everyone called her Granny Bells—moved out with Mom to Kansas when she married Dad.” She couldn’t help smiling at the memory. Her father hadn’t been all that eager to share his wife with his mother-in-law, until he met Granny Bells. She was, as her father put it, a rare and unusual breed of cat, which was a polite way of saying the woman was a bit on the crazy side but more interesting than disruptive.

“And you liked her, your Granny Bells?” Emery’s eyes were warm as he paused in their walk. He leaned back against a tall monolithic tombstone and pulled her close so their waists and hips pressed together. He wrapped his arms around her, his fingers locking loosely at the small of her back.

“I loved her. She was a queer sort of woman and many people thought she was crazy, or that old age had made her that way. But I don’t think so. She used to tell me about our ancestors, the ones who lived in Salem at the time of the witch trials.” Sophie remembered the light in the old woman’s eyes when she spoke of magic and spells. “We used to talk, Granny and me. She’d tell me things that would sound crazy to repeat out loud, you know? But I swear, deep down I think they’re true. Like I was born with a sixth sense that sometimes surfaces when I need it to. I always knew which man was guilty of a crime when I started investigating. The police would have me come down to the station to see the suspect and I could just tell who it was. I’d get this feeling, like spiders were crawling all over me, and I’d just know. The police would have to have more than a gut feeling to find proof, but I didn’t. I’d do some digging of my own and then find a way to get the police involved when I found enough evidence, since I wasn’t bound by the law like they were.”

Sophie, who’d been looking away as she spoke, turned back to Emery. He was studying her, curiosity and understanding mingling with interest on his face.

“Sounds crazy, right?” she joked, but it came out a little forced.

He shook his head. “No more crazy than if I were to tell you that Fenn and I used to talk to each other in our heads. Not with words exactly, but more like images, sensations. I…” This time he looked away. “I never told my parents about it. But that’s how I knew he was dead. I felt that connection die the night I escaped.”

Sophie inhaled a breath. The old prickling on her neck began again, as it often did when she was close to a revelation.

“What is it?” Emery asked, his gaze astute on hers.

“So you can’t feel him anymore…Do you ever get a sense of anything, though? Something you don’t recognize?”

“Well…yeah…” He stared at her, hard, as though his brain was sifting through the evidence of something important. “There have been times when I’ve had these…I guess you could call them glimpses. I see myself in a mirror, but it’s not me, or I hear something that’s not actually hearable. I’m not explaining this well…” His cheeks turned ruddy.

“Emery, what if there was an explanation for that?” It had to be Fenn he was seeing and feeling. God, she wanted so badly to tell him the truth. His brother was alive.

“Oh, there is. I’m going crazy. It’s probably some form of PTSD or something.” His self-deprecating laugh sliced her heart.

He gestured for them to start walking again. “This way.”

He led her through a maze of both ancient and modern grave stones until they reached a place at the back of the cemetery. There was a lovely little area surrounded by three willow trees. Their long branches swayed low, rustling over the soft grass. Despite the breeze moving through the trees, there was a stillness to the place. Sophie shivered, very aware of the spirits that still lingered in the earth below her feet.

There was something ancient in the way the willows drifted, as though their branches were alive. Even when there was no wind, the trees would often seem to move of their own accord. The power that dwelt in nature was so often overlooked or drowned out by the modern rush of the day. But here, in this moment, it was impossible to ignore the rhythmic pulse in the ground and the trees speaking in hushed whispers of secrets belonging to the earth and the earth alone. Sophie remembered something her Granny Bells used to say. “Man has no power here, where spirits of the soil dwell.”

Sophie shuddered and the knot of tension in her stomach grew tighter.

There was one large tombstone in the center of the willow trees. An angel had been carved so that she was kneeling behind the headstone, her arms folded over the top of the grave marker and her forehead resting on her arms. Her wings were spanned out but the tips touched the ground, making her look like a wounded dove with injured wings. The scene was powerful, the angel looked as if she was weeping against the headstone, showing her deepest grief for the bearer of the stone.

“We never had a body to bury. I couldn’t bear to lead my parents back to the place where they kept us. I doubt we would have found him, even then. The men probably buried him somewhere else. My parents had to have a place for him, though. Funny, they never come here. I do, though. I talk to the stone sometimes. Other times, I don’t talk; I just remember.”

The gravity in his voice made Sophie’s eyes burn with tears. He reached out and touched the stone angel’s head.

“It’s nice to think angels are weeping for him, that he was loved in this life and the next. But nothing eases the guilt in here.” He tapped his chest above his heart. “I cost him his life. Me. It doesn’t matter that I was only a kid. He’s dead and I’m not. Survivor’s guilt or not, his blood is on my hands.”

It won’t be for long
. She wanted to say the words, but she bit her tongue and held back. She had to, or he’d rush off to find his brother and get killed. She had to be patient, or else she’d lose him too.

Just hang on, Emery. Soon you and Fenn will be together.
She vowed it in the deepest part of her soul. She would reunite them with her last breath if she had to.

Emery was sick of being in the hospital. The sickly sweet smell of death and illness filled his nose and the chill of the cold halls made his hands clammy. It made his skin crawl and horrible memories kept shoving to the forefront of his mind. He forced them back down, buried them as deep as he could. They’d come crawling back to the surface, refusing to stay dead. But everything was changing, after so many years of silence, and worrying about it all coming out in the open. People he cared about were getting hurt. He had to stop it, but how could he? It wasn’t as easy as just handing himself over to the man who’d kidnapped him. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to just surrender to the sick creep that had obviously come back for more.

He approached the nurse’s station next to Cody’s room. A middle-aged nurse was filling out a report and smiled when she recognized him.

“Mr. Lockwood, it’s good to see you back so soon. Mr. Larson is getting restless and your visits seem to calm him down.”

Emery smiled, even though it was a bit forced.

“Good to know I help.”
Considering I got him into this mess.

The nurse grinned. “Go on in and see him. He should be awake.”

“Thanks.” He walked past her and nudged the door to Cody’s room open with his shoulder. Cody was sitting up, a small netbook on his lap. His uninjured hand was pecking away at the keyboard and from the dark look on Cody’s face it wasn’t going so well.

“Damn it!” He slapped the small laptop lid down before he noticed Emery.

“Oh…hey, boss.” He set the computer on his tray table and fisted his good hand in his blankets as he tried to pull the sheets up higher on his waist.

There was something awful in the flash of pain on Cody’s face. It exploded through Emery’s chest, tearing a hole in his heart, hitting him with dark rage. Emery wanted to wrap his hands around the neck of the man who’d done this to his friend.

“Take it easy, kid.” Emery moved quickly to the hospital bed and pressed him back down into the thick stack of pillows. The body beneath his hand wracked with a sudden violent shiver and Cody sucked in a breath and clamped his eyes shut.

“Hey, you okay?” Emery was ready to hit the nurse call button, but Cody opened his eyes and blew out a slow breath.

“I’m good. Just dizzy for a sec.”

Emery stepped back, eyeing the room, and found the nearest chair. He fell back into it and put a hand on Cody’s knee.

“Breathe through your nose and lean back. It helps.” A man didn’t like to own up to being dizzy, but he’d had his share of nasty spells when he’d been held captive all those years ago. Whether it was from the beatings, or from starvation, he’d had to learn to find ways to overcome it.

After several exaggerated breaths, Cody’s nostrils flared. He seemed to get better.

“I know what you told the police, but was there anything you left out?” Guilt ate at his insides. He didn’t want to make Cody relive those moments, but he had to know if Cody had learned something useful, which could save them all in the future. He had to do it to protect the ones he loved.

Cody was silent for a long while, so long that Emery thought he wouldn’t say anything.

“It was him, Emery. That sick freak who took you and your brother.”

Emery stiffened, dread and anger sharpening their claws on his spine. No. It couldn’t be true. He didn’t want it to be true. The bogeyman that had haunted his nightmares since the day he’d escaped couldn’t still be alive, still waiting to get Emery and kill him once and for all…

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. He said things…personal things. This wasn’t a copycat.” Cody’s eyes went from lively to glassy, as though he was lost in bleak memories.

“What did he say?” Against his mind’s wish to control, his body burned with anger and fear. Half of him wished Cody’s story was true. The man who stalked him was out there and could be found and dealt with. Emery would kill him with his bare hands.

Antonio D’Angelo. The things that man had done to him and Fenn…A shudder rattled through him with the jarring impact of a train clattering over ancient tracks.

“Look, Emery. I’m tired. We can talk about this later, right?” Cody settled back into his pillows and pressed the pain button on his little handheld pain pump. A couple of the machines connected to his IVs beeped loudly in response.