walked into the house.
Alaina sighed. “I bet I sound like a crazy woman.”
“I almost wish you did, but you’re not crazy. I feel it, too. And let’s just say my survival skills are as finely tuned as your ability to recognize when things don’t add up. They’re firing on all eight cylinders here. But I have no idea why.”
“I don’t, either, and that’s what concerns me the most. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I wish you wouldn’t go there at all.”
“William has hired me to go through the paperwork and attempt an inventory of the valuables, so I don’t have a choice, and I really want to do the work. I want to discover things about our past. Things I’ll probably never remember.”
Alaina was quiet for several seconds, then finally she said, “I tried to find you—you and Joelle. I started writing letters to Purcell when I was in high school, asking him to tell me how to find you. I even tried sending him a letter on the law firm’s letterhead when I got to Baton Rouge.”
“But he never answered,” Danae finished. “He wouldn’t have. I spent months looking for that opening where I could get to him, but there wasn’t one. He was a mentally disturbed old man who only cared about himself. He never would have helped any of us.”
“You’re probably right. I understand why you want to try to find some of the things that were torn away from you, but I still don’t like the idea of you being in that house alone. Can you at least work at your cabin until I return?”
Danae felt a tickle of warmth run through her. The concern in Alaina’s voice was so sincere and passionate—something she’d never experienced until now. It was everything she’d ever wanted and something she’d never counted on getting.
“When we get off the phone, I’ll grab some files and take them home with me today. The contractor starts tomorrow, so I won’t be alone. He’s young and looks like he’d be good in a fight.”
“Well, I guess that’s all right.”
Alaina didn’t sound the least bit convinced, but Danae couldn’t exactly fault her when she wasn’t convinced herself.
“Purcell’s office is upstairs at the end of the right hallway,” Alaina said. “The room I stayed in—our childhood room—is at the end of the left hallway, right over the kitchen. The power is out in the office area of the house, so it will be dark. There’re some flashlights and a lantern in the laundry-room cabinet.”
“Thanks. That helps a lot,” Danae replied as she committed all the information to memory.
“Danae,” Alaina said, “I know this is going to sound completely odd, but I have to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
Danae’s breath caught in her throat. Of all the things she’d thought Alaina might ask, that hadn’t been anywhere on the list.
Before she could formulate a reply, she heard background noise on Alaina’s end.
“I’m so sorry,” Alaina said, “but I’m going to have to go. I’ll call you again as soon as I get a chance.”
Alaina disconnected and Danae set the phone back on the counter. Ghosts? Sure, all kinds of rumors about the house and its other-than-earthly inhabitants wafted about the Calais locales, but it was the sort of thing she’d expect in a small town with a run-down, isolated house. It was not the kind of thing a reputable, hard-nosed attorney would normally come up with.
It made Danae wonder exactly how much she didn’t know about the night Alaina was attacked.
She leaned back against the counter and blew out a breath. All the work she’d done to simplify her life. No strings, no baggage—at least not the physical kind. She’d even come to Calais with an assumed identity simply to avoid the looks and questions she was sure would come. And in less than a day, her life had become more complicated than it had ever been.
This is what you wanted.
And that was what she needed to keep reminding herself. In the past, she’d kept her life simple by avoiding anything beyond surface-level relationships, but she’d come to Calais to find her family. She couldn’t have it both ways. If she wanted a family, she had to drop her guard, at least where her sisters were concerned.
She pushed herself off the counter and headed upstairs for the first time. She paused on the landing, trying to remember what Alaina had told her about the layout. Right was Purcell’s office. Left was the girls’ room—the room Alaina had been staying in when she was attacked.
Danae took one step in that direction, then froze. Was she ready to see the place where she’d spent her very limited childhood in Calais? If she had no memory of that room, then the chances of her remembering anything were so minuscule as to not exist. Not that she’d had any concrete expectation of remembering things she’d last seen at two years old, but she’d hoped for an emotional tug—something that let her know a piece of this place was part of her.
Something that let her know where she fit.
Abruptly, she turned and headed in the opposite direction, to her stepfather’s office.
Coward.
Ignoring the voice in her head, she increased her pace. Plenty of time existed for her to see her childhood bedroom, she argued. She had no reason to try to force it all into one afternoon. When she was comfortable with the house, she’d go to the room.
Or when she was ready for the disappointment.
Sighing, she pushed open the last door in the hallway and reached inside for a light switch, hoping the power had been miraculously restored. No such luck. She stepped inside the room and flicked the switch up and down to no avail. It figured. First thing tomorrow, she’d ask Zach to look at the electrical problems, starting with this room.
The light from the balcony was the only source of illumination in the office. The lack of windows and cherrywood bookcases that lined every wall made it so dark it was impossible to see more than the dim outline of office furniture. She cursed under her breath at her lapse of logical judgment. Alaina had told her about the flashlights in the laundry room. She should have grabbed one before coming up here.
She backed out of the room, but as she started to turn, she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. She froze and stared into the darkness at the far end of the room, where she’d seen the flicker of movement. Nothing moved there now, but everything in Danae screamed at her that she was not alone in the house.
She whirled around and ran all the way downstairs and back into the kitchen, where she’d left her purse. It was still on the kitchen counter, and she snatched it up. From the inside pocket, she drew out the nine millimeter she was never without.
Let that be a lesson.
With the distraction of Zach Sargent, and her first visit to her childhood home, and her conversation with her sister, she’d forgotten to keep protection within arm’s reach. Her sister’s attacker was dead and gone, but more than one danger could exist.
Even in the same house.
Clenching
