Books by Maggie Shayne (318 page)

“I...” He couldn’t say it. He didn’t want to insult Lisette or hurt Sheila, but he just couldn’t bring himself to leave Nidaba alone with this strange woman. He barely knew her, after all.

“I’ll stay,” Sheila said, reading him so clearly it almost made him dizzy. “I’ll be right here. I’ll not let her out of my sight, Nathan, and if she needs you for anything, I’ll call for you. All right?”

Meeting Sheila’s eyes, seeing she wasn’t angry with him for mistrusting her friend, he nodded. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sheila.”

“Oh, curl up in a corner and die, no doubt. Now go on. Out with you. This is woman’s work.”

Feeling slightly better, he left the room. But he didn’t go far. He went into his own bedroom, just off Nidaba’s, where his bed remained untouched, unslept in. He dug out a shaving kit he kept in the top drawer and stepped into the hallway to head to the guest bathroom, since his own was currently being used by the women.

He got only about ten steps when he heard the ear-splitting shriek and the crash. Choking on his own heart, he spun and raced back along the hall, through his bedroom, tossing his kit onto the bed on the way to Nidaba’s room, and finally to the bathroom beyond.

Sheila was dripping wet, standing back and looking surprised, while Lisette gripped Nidaba’s frail shoulders, attempting to hold her still while she thrashed and splashed and fought.

Nathan ran forward. “Let go—let go of her!”

Lisette did, and Nidaba instantly stilled. She sat stiffly in the tub, eyes wide, breaths rushing in and out of her parted lips in short panicky bursts. She was shaking. Visibly trembling.

Nathan knelt in the puddle beside the tub, but didn’t touch her. “It’s all right. I’m here, Nidaba. It’s all right.” He watched her, wishing to the Gods he knew what sort of nightmares went on inside her mind where she was trapped. “What happened in here?” He asked without taking his eyes from her. Her collarbones poked up so sharply it seemed they’d pierce the thin layer of skin that covered them. Her small breasts rose and fell in time with her breaths.

“I’m not sure,” Lisette said.

“Not sure, eh? Well, I am,” Sheila cut in. “She started to get antsy as soon as you left the room, Nathan. Stiff, and jittery-like. Let me take the towel off, all right, and even wash her up a bit. But as soon as Lisette poured a bit of water on that hair of hers she went crazy on us. Thrashed about like a wild woman, she did.”

Nathan nodded, his gaze slipping only briefly away from Nidaba. “I heard a scream.”

“That was her, all right,” Sheila said with a sharp nod.

“So you can speak after all, hmm?” He looked hard into those black eyes and they stared back, wide, but clearer than they had been before, he thought. Then he told himself that might be an illusion. Wishful thinking.

“I’m sure it was only the water on her head that set her off.” Lisette was on her feet and beside the tub now. “Some mentally ill patients go into a panic when water touches their faces.”

“And I think it was the fact that Nathan left the room,” Sheila said.

“That’s nonsense.”

“Is it now, do you think?”

“I’m the one who’s experienced with mental patients, Sheila,” Lisette said in a harsh mutter that was closer to speaking in a normal tone than anything Nathan had heard her say thus far.

“Lisette’s right,” Nathan put in. “Besides, she didn’t react right away, when I left her. You said yourself she let you wash her up a bit, didn’t you, Sheila?”

Sheila’s gaze narrowed. “That’s right. Maybe it’s you she dislikes, Lisette.” She said it teasingly, the way a friend would to another friend, with a nudge of the elbow or a wink. But Lisette’s scowl led Nathan to think she didn’t take the comment in the same manner.

He hated to see tension brewing between Sheila and her long-time friend, so he stepped in. “Let’s put it to the test, then, okay?” He looked around, not getting up from his knees, and spotted the small plastic pitcher Sheila had been using. Then he filled it and touched Nidaba’s hair.

“Your hair is all tangled and dirty,” he said slowly. “I’m going to wash it for you. All right?”

She didn’t respond, just stared straight ahead. Nathan tipped her head back a little, to keep the water out of her eyes, and slowly poured. She didn’t fight, didn’t panic at all. So he dipped another pitcher full and poured that as well, and she tipped her head back farther. Her eyes fell closed.

He almost smiled. She liked this. He continued dipping and pouring until her long hair was thoroughly soaked. Then he applied a generous amount of baby shampoo and worked up a lather. He massaged her scalp with his fingertips, scrubbed gently and thoroughly, for a long time. Her hair, masses of it, tangled around his fingers as she lay back, relaxing more as he rubbed, eyes remaining closed. Her breaths came deep and slowly. He watched her chest rise and fall with it. And finally he began rinsing, pitcher by pitcher.

“You’re very good at this,” Sheila whispered, leaning close. “You must have the touch.” She pressed another bottle into Nathan’s hand. Conditioner. Guaranteed to remove all the tangles, so combing wouldn’t be such a chore. He poured a quarter of the bottle over her head, and worked it in, rubbing it down to her scalp and out to the ends of her hair.

His patient was almost limp, she was so relaxed now. So he kept it up a little longer. She liked this. He hadn’t thought Nidaba was capable of feeling anything ... particularly pleasure. But she was doing precisely that, and he would keep it up just as long as it pleased her.

“I imagine the water is getting cold by now, Mr. King,” Lisette said. And her tone, raspy, but louder still, made her disapproval very clear.

Too bad.

“It
is
beginning to cool down a bit.” Nathan reached up and cranked on the hot water tap, then sent Lisette an innocent smile. “Easily remedied.” And then he went back to massaging Nidaba’s scalp while she reclined like a queen, relishing it, he thought. He made small circles with his fingertips, massaged her temples, and her neck just behind her ears, and then her nape, at the base of her skull. She let her head fall forward when he did that. And all her breath rushed out of her. When he eased her back again, he thought her face looked more placid than he had seen it in centuries.

Eventually, he rinsed the conditioner away. But she didn’t sit up or move when he finished. A soft sound came from her throat, and if it meant anything at all, he thought, it meant that she wanted more of this. Fine, then. He would continue.

He reached for the sponge Sheila had put in here for him, the one he’d never bothered to use, and the scented body wash that he’d borrowed from the guest bathroom when preparing for Nidaba’s arrival. Vanilla. Very slowly, he lathered one long, slender arm, lifted it, and rinsed it clean. Slow, soothing strokes up her outer arm, and then around to the more sensitive inner part. The well opposite her elbow. The hollow underneath. Her hand, her palm, and one by one each and every finger. When he finished with both arms, he washed her chest. He lathered and rubbed her small breasts, and her sunken belly.

Her eyes opened. Fixed on his hands. Darkened.

No. That couldn’t be what it looked like.

Nathan rinsed the lather away, and pulled her forward just a bit, to soap and scrub her back and shoulders. And she seemed to like that so much that he continued far longer than was necessary. She acted as if the muscles of her back ached though he could barely see how they could. There seemed to be no muscle there to ache. There was nothing to her but skin and bone.

Sighing her displeasure, Lisette paced back and forth on the side of the room nearest the door. Sheila kept herself busy—she was wielding a mop over the spilled water right now. She seemed perfectly content to let Nathan perform this entire bathing duty.

When Nidaba finally leaned back again, Nathan moved along to the bottom of the tub, clasped one of her tiny ankles in his hand, and lifted it. Then he ran his hand and the soapy sponge over her leg, beginning at her foot, and moving slowly up over her calf, and down her shin. And then higher. He began to soap her thigh. And he watched her face, watched it intently. Her gaze seemed to heat as his hand neared the crux of her legs. And it was
not
his imagination. He was sure of it this time.

“You’re in there, aren’t you?” he murmured. “You’re alive and kicking in there. Why won’t you speak to me? Hmm?”

His hand edged closer to her center, but he moved past it and began working the other leg. Down the thigh, over the calf, to the foot. “Talk to me, Nidaba,” he urged, massaging the small of her foot briskly. “Talk to me. Fight the grip of this darkness that holds you.”

She didn’t. But she was, in a way, responding to him more than she had since he’d found her in that hospital. Responding, Nathan realized, to his touch. He sponged a path back up the thigh, intending to bathe every inch of her ... to
touch
every inch of her, if that was what it would take to draw a real response.

Dammit, he wished he’d gone with his initial instinct and bathed her himself when he could have been completely alone with her. But he hadn’t expected this.

“Sheila, why don’t you and Lisette go and get some clean clothes out of the closet for our guest?” His hand inched higher on Nidaba’s thigh. He watched her eyes heat, felt her legs move just the slightest bit farther apart. That part of her hadn’t shut down, then, had it? The sexual part. The hungry part. It was there he could reach her.

“Whatever you say, Nathan,” Sheila chirped, merrily turning away. “I can see you’ve got things under control here.” She walked past Lisette on her way, and Nathan hoped the woman would have the good sense to follow her out of the room.

“I’m not leaving this room,” the nurse said. “It’s inappropriate.”

“You think I’m going to pull her out of the tub and rape her?” Nathan asked, his voice quiet, his eyes on Nidaba’s. Hers, alive, feeling, wanting ... but still staring off into the distance.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a man had taken advantage of a mentally ill woman, Mr. King. But you can bet it’s not going to happen on my watch. I’d be shirking my duty if I left you alone with her.”

Nathan sighed, but his hand was still on Nidaba’s inner thigh, and she was still sitting there, head tipped back, eyes burning. And Lisette was standing halfway across the room, too far to see what Nathan might be doing with his hands beneath the soapy water.

“I’ll remind you who’s paying your salary, Lisette,” he said. “If you doubt my integrity so much, maybe I should look for someone else to—”

“I didn’t mean to insult you, Mr. King.”

He nodded. “If you insist on staying, fine. But could you at least get me some dry towels? They’re in the small linen closet just down the hall.”

With a muttered agreement, Lisette turned her back.

Watching Nidaba’s eyes—her remarkably
clear
eyes— Nathan moved the soapy sponge higher, brushed it gently between her legs. Her lips parted and a breath sighed out of her. He rubbed again, up and down, soaping her, caressing her with the loofah. “Look at me,” he whispered. “Look at me, Nidaba.”

Her gaze faltered, shifted slightly, and her thighs parted further. She pressed against the sponge, and he rubbed a little harder.

“Look at me.”

Suddenly, her gaze snapped to his, and locked on. Fire. Heat. Fury. Rage. So many passions boiled in that gaze. But it was clear, and it was focused on him.

Was this wrong, what he was doing? Probably. But suppose he could reach her, pull her out of the grip of her mind? Then wasn’t it to her benefit that he do so, any way he could?

She arched her hips against the sponge he held, and he pressed, and moved it over her. Lisette would return soon, damn her to hell. Nathan dropped the sponge, moved his hand away.

Quick as lightning, Nidaba’s hand closed over his and pulled it to her, pressed it against her, rocking her hips. Her eyes flared wider and held his with a fierce gaze.

Nathan swallowed hard against something that felt a lot like fear. But it couldn’t be that. It made no sense to be afraid of her, despite the ferocity and the feral hunger in that gaze. And yet it made all the sense in the world. He was so close, so close to reaching her, yet not knowing what he would find when he did. But he was near, he could feel it.

Lisette’s footsteps were coming back down the hall. Only seconds and his chance would be missed. All right, then, right or wrong ...

Nathan moved his fingers against the woman, parted her folds, stroked her just a little. “Talk to me, Nidaba. Come on. Tell me your name,” he whispered. He flicked his fingers over the core of her need. “Tell me.”

Lisette’s steps got louder, coming through the bedroom now.

“Come on, say it. Say your name.” He rubbed her harder, faster.

She parted her lips, closed her eyes and whispered “Nidaba” on a trembling sigh.

Lisette went still just beyond the doorway.

Nathan smiled, and stroked her once more, pressed her between his thumb and forefinger, and she gasped in pleasure. He rolled that tiny nub of need, pinched and pressed and kneaded it. Lisette was coming into the room now. Three more steps and she would be through the door, and able to see where his hand was, what he was doing. He pinched her harder, rubbing the swollen kernel faster between his thumb and forefinger, and he leaned low, and whispered very close to her ear, “Let it go, Nidaba. Let it go for me.”

Her body arched, and she cried out loud, going stiff in the water for a moment suspended in time. Lisette stopped walking, her frown dark and probing. Then Nidaba relaxed her shuddering body back into the bathwater, squeezed her thighs together around his hand, as if to keep it there.

He drew in a quaking breath, shivering with a desire that burned deep in his gut. “Good girl,” he whispered, before he took his hand away. “That’s my good girl.”

He stopped touching her, and she stopped responding. Slowly, the veil he’d seen before took its place over her eyes. Her focus faded. She’d retreated again.

“You’d best come down a moment, Nathan,” Sheila said, as he sat his lonely vigil beside the bed once again, waiting for Nidaba to give some sign of being ready to come out of this catatonia. Her eyes remained open. He supposed that was a good sign.

Lisette lingered about the bedroom almost constantly. And while he had expected to be relieved at having some assistance, he wasn’t. The woman made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He felt uneasy, but for no apparent reason.

“What is it, Sheila?” he asked as she stood in the doorway.

“There’s a lady at the door.” Sheila hesitated, shifting her stance uneasily. “Says she’s looking for a relative of hers who spent some time recently at a New Jersey psychiatric hospital.”

Nathan’s head came around swiftly and he saw the nervousness in Sheila’s face, and her stance. He glanced at Lisette, who was listening with apparent interest, and schooled his features to reveal nothing. “Odd that she’d think we would know anything about it. What did you tell her?”

“That we knew nothing about it, of course. But she refuses to leave until she’s spoken to you directly.” She pressed her lips together tightly. “I tried my best, Nathan.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He rose, started for the door, then glanced back at Nidaba uneasily. “Stay here, Sheila. If she wakes, she could be more than Lisette can handle, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“All right, then.” Sheila took the seat Nathan had been using.

He left the three women alone, hating to do it, but knowing he could not remain at Nidaba’s side constantly. He just wished he could shake the constant feeling of impending disaster. His senses were too well honed to be mistaken—something was wrong. Nidaba was not safe, but he couldn’t pinpoint the source of the threat. His disquiet about every stranger to enter the house, right down to that poor dog of George’s, were irrational. He needed to find a focus for the feelings, isolate the danger, pinpoint its true source. Until he did, he couldn’t banish this mistrust of every newcomer.

He walked down the stairs into the front parlor, and found a very slight woman perched uneasily on the edge of the settee. Her hair was cropped short, golden blond, and her eyes were huge and lustrous.

“I’m Nathan King,” he said, and she was on her feet before he finished speaking, her big gaze turned on him, one hand flexing near her side.

She eyed him somewhat warily. “My name is Arianna Sinclair-Lachlan,” she said. She didn’t offer her hand, so he didn’t offer his. But the fact that she didn’t touch him put him on guard. Immortals rarely offered a hand to strangers—for fear of giving themselves away should the stranger turn out to be an immortal as well. Was she the threat he’d been sensing?

“I’m sorry to intrude, but this is a matter of some urgency. I’m looking for a dear friend.”

“A relative—or so Sheila told me.” He watched her, testing her.

“She’s family to me.” Her reply was not really any kind of answer at all.

“I’m afraid I’m not going to be of any help to you, either way.” He sighed as if he truly regretted it and hoped he was convincing. “I sincerely wish I could.”

“Mr. King, I know you went to see Nidaba at the Brooker Hospital the day before her disappearance.”

He kept his eyes hooded, his tone flat. “And how do you know that?”

“Every car that enters the parking lot is caught on videotape, Mr. King. I got the tapes from that day, got your plate number, and had a friend trace your name through the department of motor vehicles.”

He lifted his brows. “Are you some kind of detective?” he asked.

She didn’t answer that question. “Your car came in only minutes before a male visitor signed in to see Nidaba. And while he signed himself in as John Smith,” she said with a smirk, “the nurse on duty gave an excellent description, which you fit to a tee. And, as it turns out, you may very well have been the last person to see her before she was taken.”

“Taken?” He tipped his head to one side. “The newspapers called it an escape.”

Her slender brows rose. “Then you’ve been following the story?”

“Is that so surprising?”

“If she had simply escaped, I’d have heard from her by now,” she said, her eyes narrowing on him. “I believe she was taken.”

Nathan shook his head as if the woman made no sense to him. “Suppose she simply wanted to be alone? Honestly, I see no reason to jump to conclusions here, Miss...”

“Ms.,” she said. “Sinclair-Lachlan.”

“Yes, of course. Look, I’ll explain myself to you if it will help ease your mind. I went to see your..
.friend
because of the photo in the paper. She looked familiar to me. But when I actually saw her, face to face, I realized she was not who I thought she was, and I came home. End of story,” he finished. He opened his mind, tried to reach out with the rusty tendrils of his empathy to see if she was swallowing a word of his story. But he was so out of practice. For too long he’d blocked out everyone. Other than Sheila and George, he had trouble picking up on anyone these days.

The woman paced across the room slowly. Nathan looked past her, and felt his heart leap in his chest. In the living room, just beyond the arching doorway at her back, the fireplace was clearly visible—along with the portrait above the mantel. The portrait he’d painted of Nidaba, in the flowing white robes of a Sumerian High Priestess, with the golden circlet and its crescent bow upon her head. All the woman need do was turn and look...

“Come, let’s go sit in the library. I’ll pour you a drink and—”

“Are you aware that a doctor was killed that day, right outside Nidaba’s room, shortly after your visit?”

He shook his head. “No. No I wasn’t,” he lied. But it wasn’t lost on him that she’d said “killed.” Not “attacked.” So Dr. Sterling hadn’t made it after all.

“I have reason to believe the person who killed her was after Nidaba,” the woman said.

Right. And she probably knew that because she
was
that person.

“Another man was seen in the hospital the night Nidaba disappeared,” the woman went on. “And according to the nurse who saw him, he also matches your description.”

“So do several million other men in the world, I would imagine.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she said.

He blinked, unsure whether he’d just been insulted or paid a compliment.

“Why did you go to see her?” she barked out without warning.

She was good. Sharp and quick. What she suspected him of, he could only wonder. What she wanted of Nidaba—well he had only two guesses for that. Either she was a friend, as she claimed, or she was a hunter, in search of an immortal heart more powerful than nearly any still beating. With the exception, perhaps, of his own.

If she were to succeed, this Arianna would have power beyond compare, because she would have to take his if she hoped to take Nidaba’s. And with both, she would be nearly invincible.

“I’m trying to be patient with you, Miss, but you’re pushing my limits here. I’ve told you already. I saw the photo in the newspaper, and it reminded me of someone I used to know. I went to see her. And once I did, I realized she wasn’t the person I had thought she might be, and I left. I came back here that afternoon, and have remained here ever since. There are several people who can verify that for you, if you insist on it.”

She watched him as he spoke. Watched him the way a critic watches a film. Narrow-eyed and probing, constantly searching for flaws in the storyline, or the acting.

It made him uneasy, that probing gaze of hers. He broke the lengthening silence. “Tell me, what was she doing in the mental hospital, this friend of yours?”

It had the desired effect. The woman blinked and looked away from him. “Nidaba has had... a lot of trauma in her life. I think it finally got to be too much for her.”

“What kind of trauma?” he asked, far too quickly.

Arianna stiffened, that sharp gaze shooting right back to him. “Why do you want to know? Why are you so interested, anyway?”

Shrugging in a careless manner, he shifted his eyes away from her. “Just curious, I suppose. I did visit her, and I couldn’t help but feel pity. I am human, after all.”

“Are you?”

He snapped his gaze to hers. She looked away.

“Believe me, Mr. King,” she said, “if we had known where she was, we would never have left her there.” She sounded slightly defensive now. “But by the time that article was brought to our attention, she was gone.”

“Our
attention? There are more than one of you?” He strode to the front door and looked outside.

“The others don’t know I’ve come,” she said. “They aren’t as ... reasonable as I am.”

“You call this reasonable? You come to my home and practically accuse me of kidnapping a mental patient, and that’s reasonable?”

“For me?” She seemed to battle a smile for just a moment. “A year ago I’d have kicked the door in, beat you senseless, and searched the place for myself, Mr. King. Some of my friends still would. You wouldn’t believe how lucky you are that I’ve grown ... calmer than I used to be. But I’m warning you, the others will follow the same trail I did, and it will lead them to your door. If they find out you’ve harmed Nidaba—”

“Harmed her?” He feigned deep offense. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

She just stared at him. So he went on with the righteous indignation routine. “I think maybe you’d better leave now, Ms. Lachlan-Sinclair.” She felt guilty. He picked up on it, and thought his rusty skills might be freeing themselves up at last.

“Sinclair-Lachlan,” she corrected, but her voice was softer now. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come here and offend you. Especially if you really are ... innocent in all this.” Then her eyes narrowed. “But if you’re not, I’ll find out. And may God help you then.”

Either she was sincerely worried about Nidaba, or she was a very good actress, he thought. And from everything he could sense in her, it was the former, not the latter.

Then she drew a breath, swallowed. “What... what condition was she in ... when you saw her?”

He mulled that one over. How much to reveal? In the end, just to see her reaction, he said, “Catatonic.”

Moisture sprang into the woman’s eyes. A flash of her pain hit him—so much so that his resolve started to waver. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Even at her worst, she was never quite that far gone.”

“Then, she’s had these sorts of episodes before?”

“I thought she was over it. I thought...” She clamped her mouth closed, looking up at him sharply. “I’ve already said too much. You’ve made it quite clear that this is no concern of yours.”

“The suffering of another human being is always of concern to me,” he countered.

“That’s a very pretty speech.”

“But not a convincing one?” He shook his head, walked through the foyer, and yanked open the front door, praying she wouldn’t look through the doorway and glimpse that portrait. “I wish you luck in finding your friend,” he said. “But I have things to do.”

“Don’t think I won’t be back,” she warned. “If I get even an inkling you’ve been lying to me—”

“I haven’t been. Good-bye.”

“Hmmph.” She stepped through the door, but before he could close it she said, “Wait.” She dug in her pocket and pulled out a card and a pen. “This is my hotel... and the room number is on the back.” She scrawled it as she spoke. “If you remember anything, or... whatever ... call me.”

Nodding slowly, he said, “All right. I will.” He reached for the card. She didn’t give it to him. Instead she set it down on the stand just inside the door, then turned and walked away.

Nathan picked the card up, looked it over as he closed the door, then carried it idly with him back into the living room, and put it into a drawer for safekeeping.

He stood still for a moment, wondering who in hell this Arianna really was and what she truly wanted from Nidaba. Immortal, she had to be. She had deliberately avoided touching him. She said Nidaba had suffered trauma. What trauma? Could this woman have known about his past with her? Or had there been something more?

And what kind of fool question was that, anyway? Of course there had been more. Centuries had passed since the anguish he’d rained down on Nidaba’s head and she on his. Surely there had been more.

Footsteps on the stairs alerted him, and he turned to see Sheila coming down. His senses jumped. “Sheila, what are you doing down here?”

She looked at him with a frown. “Lisette asked that I bring up some broth for the patient,” she said. “Whatever is the matter with—Nathan?”

But he was sprinting past her, taking the stairs two at a time. He raced down the hall, threw the door open, and saw the nurse leaning over Nidaba, her back to him so he couldn’t see what she was doing.

“Lisette!”

She went stiff and still for just a moment. Then she straightened and turned slowly. The only thing in her hand, he saw, was a hairbrush. Even as Nathan blew a relieved sigh and called himself an idiot, Lisette pressed a palm to her chest, as if to calm her racing heart.

“My goodness, but you scared me half to death! What’s wrong?” she asked him.

Swallowing his nervousness and feeling like a fool, Nathan said, “Sorry. Nothing. Nothing at all.” He was going to have to stop being so irrational. The woman was a nurse, for God’s sake.

Lisette sighed and resumed brushing Nidaba’s hair. Nidaba lay stiff, jerking her head with each stroke.

“Why don’t you let me do that?” Nathan asked.

“Oh, now, what did you hire me for, if you’re going to do everything yourself?”

He didn’t take no for an answer, though. “It’s not you,” he said. “I just like taking care of her.” He stepped forward, took the brush away from the nurse, and waited for her to step aside. When she did he said, “Go now. Take a break. Get some dinner and rest. I’ll handle her myself for a while.”

“But—”

“Go.”

With a sigh, she finally did.

Nathan watched her until she closed the door behind her. Then he turned to Nidaba, smoothed her hair with his hand, and whispered, “I’m here. It’s okay, she’s gone.” He pulled his chair up and began running the brush through her ebony hair in long, slow strokes. And he thought she relaxed just a little bit. “You don’t like Lisette at all, do you, Nidaba?”