taken from her. “I have this.” He took her hand from his arm and pressed the canister into it. “On second thought, you keep it.”
She glanced down at it. “But why?”
“In case we really aren’t alone down here,” he said. “If there is an intruder, you’re going to need it.” He would have told her to leave, but he didn’t want her walking alone through the house or getting so far away from him that he couldn’t protect her from any potential danger. If she stayed in the basement with him, he could get back to her quickly if someone else was in the house. And she had the pepper spray for protection, as well.
She shivered again. But she closed her fingers around the can and clasped it tightly. “What about you—what will you use for protection?”
Images flashed through his mind—images of when he’d had to improvise in order to protect himself and his unit during combat. He flinched at the memories before focusing on her.
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. He closed his hand over hers on the canister. “Don’t hesitate. Next time someone comes through that door, you spray.”
“But what if it’s you?”
“Then aim for my right eye,” he told her.
Her gaze moved toward his right eye—to the patch—and her lips parted on a gasp.
He turned away again then and stepped through the door before he was tempted to do something stupid—like kiss her. It was safer for him to take on an armed intruder in the dark than make a move on a woman armed with pepper spray.
* * *
Intruder?
Their voices emanated clearly from the speakers inside the hiding space, summoning anger from the person listening to them.
They were the intruders. Neither the woman nor the man had any business being inside La Bonne Vie. The man hadn’t appreciated the house when he’d lived there. And the woman...the one who’d opened the basement door and screamed...
No matter who her boss was, she absolutely had no business being here.
What had she seen? Had the light on her phone illuminated enough for her to make an identification? She hadn’t told the man anything specific about what she’d seen. She’d been vague, but maybe that had been on purpose. She would be smart to not trust him.
Trusting anyone was a mistake—one the listener would not make again. Nobody and nothing could be trusted.
So what had the young woman seen?
Enough to get her killed?
Probably.
The risk was too great to let her live. Whoever she was, she would have to die—like so many others already had to keep the listener’s secrets.
* * *
His remark had shocked her so much that Edith took a few seconds before remembering what else she’d learned from all the horror movies she had watched: people never go off separately. Once that happened, they were picked off one at a time. She hurried out of the utility room into the hall.
But River was gone.
Heat rushed to her face at how she’d screamed when she’d first seen him. He’d probably thought it was because of the scars and the patch. But it was because he was so big and muscular and handsome despite the scars. Her pulse had continued to race, even after she’d recognized him. The news mentioned him often when reporting about his missing mother. He was the Marine who’d just recently returned—wounded—from his last deployment.
The media speculated that he must have been involved in an explosion of some kind. Nobody had confirmed that speculation, though. The government wasn’t talking and neither was River Colton. But it was clear he’d been hurt. The scars on his face were still healing. And his right eye...
It was gone.
So it couldn’t have been River whom she’d seen at the bottom of the steps when she’d first opened the door to the basement. Edith had seen a pair of eyes, both glinting in the darkness.
Hadn’t she?
Or had she imagined it all like Mama used to imagine things—like Papa, long after he’d died?
Edith didn’t believe in ghosts. Whatever her mother had seen hadn’t been real.
What about what she’d seen?
What the hell had it been?
Despite the couple of lightbulbs that burned now in the basement corridor, the shadows were thick yet and still too dark to determine what each was. Edith wasn’t going to try to figure it out at the moment. She’d found what she’d been looking for in the basement—the electrical panel.
Since she’d flipped the breakers, she had no reason to return to the utility room, where River had told her to wait for him. She had no reason to linger in the basement at all. She headed toward the stairs leading back up to the kitchen.
River Colton could find her when he was done searching the cellar. Edith was not going to try to find him. She shuddered as she remembered how a hapless female character always found her boyfriend in the horror movie—bludgeoned or chopped up or...
Not that River was her boyfriend.
Nobody was her boyfriend. She hadn’t had one for a while. She didn’t have any time for dating. She was too busy with her job. And from what she’d seen of the house in the dark, she knew she was going to be even busier getting this place ready for her boss.
As she headed up the steps, she noticed the door at the top was closed. River must have shut it behind himself when he’d come down to investigate after hearing her scream. She wished he had left it open; then she would be able to see if any lights had come on upstairs when she’d flipped all the breakers.
Nerves fluttered in her stomach at the thought of moving again through that mess of a mansion with only the faint light of her phone. She peered beneath the door but could see only darkness.
The lamp she’d plugged in must not have cast a glow wide enough to be seen in the kitchen. And none of the lights in the kitchen must have come on. She glanced down at her phone. Fortunately, the battery had enough charge left that she wouldn’t lose that light. But she probably should have waited until morning to come out to La Bonne Vie.
She would have—had her uncle been home when she’d stopped by his ranch. But when she’d seen his truck was gone, she had driven over here. It was just next door. So she’d thought she might as well check to see if the power had been turned on as she’d requested.
She should have waited until morning, though. Then she wouldn’t feel as though she’d stepped into one of those movies she had watched so often as a kid, trying to act tough in front of the others in her foster home. She hadn’t just been acting, though.
She was tough. And independent and brave, she reminded herself as she reached for the handle of the door. But before she could close her fingers around the knob, it turned and the door opened.
A
