father will stay with you,” Dix pointed out, hating to disappoint the girl but feeling the need to escape. This sweet little family scene threatened to choke her. After all she’d been through, she doubted seriously she’d ever have children of her own or be the mother they needed.
“But I want you to stay, too,” she said, her voice trailing off, a single tear slipping from the corner of her eye. “I don’t feel good.” She raised her little hand, reaching for Dix.
Mr. Stratford stopped reading and turned to add his gaze to his daughter’s.
Her heart contracting, Dix couldn’t step through the door and leave when the little girl had asked her so sweetly to stay.
She sighed. “I’m only going to wet the cloth again and make it cooler. I’ll be right back.” Dix changed direction and headed into the bathroom. There she turned on the cold water and dipped the cloth beneath. While she soaked and squeezed the excess out, she stared at her reflection in the mirror.
I can’t do this.
Fighting in the MMA had given her an outlet for her anger and sorrow. Without it, she had no way to channel the energy or to push aside the pain.
This father and daughter pair already had her gut tied into a very twisted knot and she hadn’t been there for even a day.
Dix’s parents had died in a helicopter crash while touring the Grand Canyon. She’d been deep in Army Ranger training on the field training exercise when it had happened. The training officers hadn’t told her until she’d completed the most challenging portion of the exercise.
No one had been there when she’d graduated, nor had she had the opportunity to celebrate because she’d gotten right onto a plane and flown to her home state of Texas to attend her mother and father’s funeral.
Going home had been the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. The house hadn’t been the same without her mother and father in it. She’d listed it with a Realtor, packed a few photo albums, her great-grandmother’s antique candy dish and given the rest of the furnishings and clothing to a local charity.
She hadn’t had much time to manage it all before she’d had to report back to her new unit only to ship out within two weeks to the war zone.
All of those memories were still raw, even though it had been years.
Dix glanced down at the cloth she’d squeezed so much it barely retained any water. She dampened it and started over. A minute later she returned to Leigha’s bedroom and draped the cloth over the girl’s forehead.
“You came back,” she whispered and reached for Dix’s hand. She pulled her closer until Dix was forced to sit on the side of the bed.
The little fingers in hers were too warm. She wondered how long it would take for the fever to break. If it didn’t, they might be making an emergency trip to the hospital before the night was over.
Mr. Stratford glanced up, his gaze connecting with Dix’s.
A sharp stab of awareness coursed through Dix’s veins. She averted her gaze and stared down at the little hand resting in hers.
Stratford started another chapter of the book, his voice droning on until Leigha finally slept.
Dix slipped her hand free of Leigha’s and stood.
“You can go. I’ll take it from here,” Mr. Stratford said.
With a nod, Dix left the room. Once in the hallway, she dragged in several deep breaths before she started down the stairs and took her time going through each room on the ground floor, checking windows and doors to ensure they were all secured.
All the while, she thought of the little girl and her father in the room upstairs. Other than a housekeeper and a dog, they seemed incredibly alone in the huge old mansion. How sad. Even if the mansion was a family inheritance, she would have converted it into the hotel it seemed more suited for or she’d have sold it. The McGregors had the right idea converting their big old house into a bed-and-breakfast. At least it was full of people, not dark and lonely.
All of the doors and windows on the first floor were secured. In the kitchen, she found a door leading into the basement. She flipped the light switch. A yellowed bulb gave an eerie glow that barely lit the stairs halfway down. Hollywood had given basements a bad reputation. Everyone knew a lone female going into the basement by herself was a bad idea. It never ended well.
Dix snorted. Having trained in snake-infested swamps as well as having significant experience in hand-to-hand combat and mixed martial arts, she didn’t consider a basement a threat. But she wasn’t stupid. Dix grabbed a butcher knife from a drawer and descended the stairs. At the bottom, she found another switch. When she flipped it, bulbs lit at different locations. Some appeared burned out.
The space below the mansion was almost as extensive as the first floor, broken up by thick posts, crates, old furniture, a room set up as a wine cellar and stacks of cardboard boxes. A veritable maze. Scattered around the outer walls were tiny windows and one exit leading to a trapdoor that probably opened out into a garden. She pushed against the door. It held firm, no matter how hard she tried to open it. In the morning she’d check it from the outside. She suspected it had a padlock holding it in place. The small windows were locked and, other than a creepy feeling, the basement appeared secure.
As she started for the stairs, something moved in the shadows with a scuffling sound. As big as the house was, it might have a mouse or rat problem.
A shiver slipped down Dix’s spine and her hand tightened around the handle of the butcher knife. She inched forward, her ears straining to pick up the sound again. If she could pinpoint the direction, she might actually find the culprit.
There it was again. Only this time it sounded more like a footstep. Dix ducked behind a stack of boxes and waited. Whoever it was shouldn’t be sneaking around the basement. If it was Mr. Stratford, he would have announced his presence, wouldn’t he?
Or was he like her, wondering who would be sneaking around a basement so late at night? Dix opened her mouth to say something, announcing her presence. She didn’t want to startle the man. He could be carrying a gun and react by shooting first, asking questions later. Before she said anything, she shut her mouth and remained silent. The footsteps faded away into silence.
Dix waited several minutes before moving again. Why hadn’t Stratford said something? If he’d come down to the wine cellar, he would have passed her stack of boxes. But no one had walked past her hiding place.
Shrugging the tension from her shoulders, she stepped out from behind the boxes, calling herself every kind of fool. She knew better than to let a creepy old mansion scare her. It was just a building. She’d performed sweeps of many buildings in her Army career. The difference being she’d carried an M4A1 rifle, worn protective gear and had a trained team backing her.
She had just placed her first foot on the bottom step leading up to the kitchen when the lights blinked out.
The darkness in the basement was so complete, Dix couldn’t see anything but the sliver of light beneath the door to the kitchen at the top of the stairs. But, wait—how could the light be on in the kitchen and not in the basement? Someone had to have turned out the lights or a breaker had tripped to cut the electricity to the lights where she stood.
The sound of wood crashing against the
