Dearly Beloved (38 page)

“No way anyone could hear you from inside,” Ned advises. “Not with this wind.”

“Who do you think just left in that car?” Danny asks.

Ned shrugs. “Never saw it before. Not many cars on the island, either, in the off-season. I’d know most of ’em. Must be a tourist.”

“We’ve got to follow them,” Danny tells him and Keegan, stepping away from the door. “This is useless. There’s no one here.”

“Might be,” Ned says thoughtfully, “that the evacuation is in effect.”

“What evacuation?” Keegan asks as Danny pauses impatiently at the top of the steps.

“Because of the storm, Sherm said we might have to evacuate along the shore. Bet that’s it. That’ll mean Shirley and me have to clear out of our place, too. I best be getting back—”

“No!” Danny cuts him off abruptly, unable to contain himself any longer. “Look, my sister is out here somewhere and I’ve got to find her. Please, can’t we just drive up that road a little ways to see if something’s happening?”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Keegan agrees, looking from Danny to Ned. “That police officer was going like a bat out of hell. It seemed like he was rushing to get someplace.”

“Well, I suppose we can check it out,” Ned says after a long moment, with a sigh. “Sherm
did
mention something about the old Gilbrooke mansion, and it’s up in that direction.”

“The Gilbrooke mansion?” Danny and Keegan echo, practically in unison.

“What’s that?” Danny asks. “Does it have something to do with my sister?”

“Probably not, but something might be going on out there. I’ll tell you what I know in the truck,” Ned says, starting down the steps toward the pickup. “Come on, let’s head out there.”

S
tephen opens the trunk and peers inside, expecting to see Laura still slumped and unconscious.

Instead she’s looking directly up at him, her startled gaze visible even in the shadows of dusk.

“Who . . . who
are
you?” she asks as he bends and gathers her into his arms.

“I’ll tell you when we get inside,” he promises, inhaling the scent of her silky hair as it brushes against his face. It’s not the musky fragrance he remembers her wearing, he thinks, frowning slightly. No, it simply smells . . . clean.

He reaches down to close the trunk, then trudges up the steps and balances her carefully over his shoulder as he unlocks the door.

“Home, sweet home,” he says lightly, carrying her over the threshold. Just like a bride, he thinks, and smiles to himself.

He deposits her on the sofa in the parlor, then steps back to look at her. “Well?” he asks. “Do you remember?”

“Remember what?” She looks frightened but oddly under control—as though she’s resigned herself to the fact that she’s helpless here.

“Oh, come on, Laura,” he croons, starting to take off his coat, then thinking better of it. There hadn’t been time for him to change out of the blood-stained tuxedo. No need to have her start panicking so soon.

He smiles and says, “You can’t have forgotten me so quickly.” He reaches down and trails a finger lightly down her cheek.

She opens her mouth as if to say something, then clamps it closed again.

“What is it?” he prods. “Do I seem familiar?”

She shakes her head, watching him, and he can feel her trembling as he moves his finger under her chin and tilts her face up toward him.

Strange,
he thinks as he studies her,
she seems . . . different, somehow. Softer, even though she’s trying to be defiant. And not quite as
. . .
overtly alluring. Her beauty seems more subtle now.

“Here,” he says, stepping away, opening a closet door and taking out the plastic-wrapped wedding dress he had made for her. “I had to guess the size because I didn’t have time to find out exactly, but . . . are you a seven?”

She nods, looking bewildered.

“Then put it on. Oh,” he remembers, reaching for the rope that binds her wrists. “Guess I’ll have to untie you first. Don’t you dare try anything funny, though. If you do, I’ll have to do to you what I did to Sandy.”

“Sandy?” she echoes in a whisper, and her eyes take on a sudden look of stark fear.

“Don’t worry,” he says, moving down to untie her feet. “If you’re a good girl, you’ll be fine.”

She’s visibly shaking as he hands her the dress.

“Go ahead,” he orders, sitting on the edge of the sofa and folding his arms across his chest. “I want to watch. You always did like to strip for me, remember? You wore those lacy black underpants . . .” He moans slightly at the memory of her teasing him as she removed them, slowly and tantalizingly, in his hotel suite.

Now she studies him for a moment, then fumbles awkwardly with her sweater. She raises it over her head, and he sees that she’s wearing a plain white bra underneath. He considers asking her to remove it, too, so that he can see her wonderfully firm breasts bare one last time, but realizes that it might cause him to get carried away and there probably isn’t time for that.

So he simply watches, and squirms on the uncomfortable sofa, as she lowers her jeans to reveal white-cotton panties, the high-waisted kind that hide even her belly button.

He can’t help feeling another prickle of disappointment. What happened to daring, provocative Laura and her seductive lingerie?

She steps shakily into the dress and pulls it up over her shoulders. It hugs her curves just as he’d thought it would, but he can’t help feeling that maybe it wasn’t the right choice. Suddenly, it seems as though a traditional, lacy gown might have suited her better after all.

Oh, well. At least the dress fits perfectly. He stands and says, “I’ll do the zipper for you.”

She nods mutely, and he rises and moves behind her.

He can feel her shaking as he tugs the zipper pull up along her bare back, can sense her acute fear.

But for some reason, it isn’t making him feel quite as satisfied as it had when he’d seen Sandy and Liza shaking in terror. Something’s different . . . but he can’t put his finger on what it is.

He moves around to stand in front of her again.

“Well?” he asks, watching her watch him. “Do you recognize me?”

“No,” she says simply, “I don’t.”

“I don’t look the same,” he tells her. “I’ve changed in the
four seasons
since we were together. That’s a hint,” he adds, delighted with his own clever pun.

“Laura worked at the . . .” She trails off abruptly.

“You worked there, yes,” he says, thinking vaguely that it’s peculiar that she’d refer to herself in the third person. “And we met there . . . and made love there.”

He waits.

Nothing.

She’s fastened those lilac eyes blankly on him, as though she has no idea what he’s talking about.

“Oh, come on, Laura,” he says, feeling anger surging up inside of him. “Did you sleep with
every
businessman who came through that hotel?”

Maybe she had, he realizes. Maybe he was only one of many.

And maybe, like Liza, she has completely forgotten that he ever existed.

Furious at the prospect, he grabs her arm and jerks her to her feet, holding her steady.

“I’m not,” she begins, then stops.

“You’re not what?” he bites out, glaring at her. “You’re not a slut who can’t even remember someone who took such good care of her?”

He slaps her, hard, across the face.

“I’m not Laura.”

He stops short, poised with his hand raised to slap her again. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not Laura Towne.”

He brings his flattened palm down on her face again, sees her bite her lip against the pain. “What do you think I am, a fool?” he lashes at her. “I know you’re Laura Towne.”

“No, I’m her twin sister. Jennie.”

“She doesn’t have a twin,” he says, frowning.
Or does she?
He would have no way of knowing.

But Laura always was the cunning type. He wouldn’t put it past her to come up with a story like this, anything to save her skin.

“She does have a twin,” the woman in front of him protests. “I swear, I’m her sister. Look at—my face.”

“What about it?”

“Look at my cheek. Laura has a scar under her eye. If you really know her, you’ve seen it. And I don’t have one.”

He peers at her, remembering the scar, remembering the way he had kissed it tenderly the first night they were together in his hotel suite. She’d winced when he touched it and refused to tell him how it got there. He remembered suspecting that it wasn’t the result of some innocent childhood accident, that someone had hurt her.

Now, all he can see on her cheek is an angry red smear where he slapped her.

The scar is gone.

Bewildered, he meets her eyes again, not wanting to believe that his plan is actually about to fall apart—that he’s abducted the wrong girl.

“I’m Jennie,” she says again, the only hint of her fear a slightly high-pitched tone in her voice.

“You’re Jennie,” he repeats, stunned. “You’re not Laura?” Just to make sure . . .

“I’m not Laura.”

She’s telling the truth. He knows it, without a doubt. It would explain why she’s wearing different underwear, why she smells different, why he feels different this time. . . .

He shakes his head, closes his eyes, tries to figure out what to do next.

“You’ll have to be punished,” he concludes after a few moments thought. “As long as you’re here in your sister’s place, you’ll have to die in her place. It’s that simple.”

“Y
ou really should eat something,” Shawn says with a full mouth, looking up at Laura over the sandwich he’s just bitten into. “You haven’t had anything all day.”

“I’m not hungry.” She stands across the table from him, both hands resting on the back of a chair, and shakes her head. “I feel sick.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t explain it . . . I just—my stomach. It’s messed up. And my head is killing me, too. I feel awful.”

“Do you think you’re coming down with something?” he asks, putting the sandwich down and coming to stand beside her. He puts a hand on her forehead.

“No, not that kind of sick,” she says, pushing him away. “It’s Jen. I just know she’s in trouble. I feel it so strongly that it’s like . . . taking over my body. And there’s nothing I can do to help.”

“You really do think it has something to do with that guy, Stephen What’s-his-name?”

“Gilbrooke. I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. The man who sold me the ticket looked nothing like him, but there was something about him, I guess, that
could
remind me of him. . . . But what does it matter? It’s not helping Jennie for me to sit here and think about some creep I used to date.”

“Laura,” Shawn says quietly, “right now, there
is
no way for you to help Jennie.”

“I know,” she says, and buries her face in his shoulder, sobbing.

Y
ou’ll have to die.

The stranger’s words ring through Jennie’s brain, and she simply stands there and stares at him.

Then something snaps inside her. Something that causes her to stiffen her spine, narrow her gaze, and say resolutely, “You don’t want to kill me.”

He looks taken aback.

“What do you mean?” he asks suspiciously. “Of course I want to kill you.”

“Why?” She forces herself to take a step closer to him, to run her finger along his cheek, just as he had done to her moments before. “Why would you want to kill me when you haven’t even gotten to know me yet?”

“I—” He shuts his mouth, looks puzzled.

She moves her finger down, trailing it along his neck to his chest. He’s wearing a thick wool overcoat, and she glimpses a bow tie and white shirt beneath it. The shirt is smeared with something . . .

Oh, Lord,
Jennie realizes in horror,
it’s blood.

She swallows hard and bites her lower lip to keep from screaming. She doesn’t speak for a moment, waiting until she’s certain her voice won’t dissolve into a frightened sob.

Then, she says seductively, “Laura may have slept with everyone she met, but I haven’t. And I don’t want . . . anyone but you.”

His eyebrows shoot up beneath his dark hair, and his cornflower-blue eyes widen. “You want me?” he says hoarsely, then shakes his head abruptly. “You do not. You’re just saying it. Like the rest of them.”

“I am not.” She knows what she has to do, and the thought of it sends repulsion coursing through her, threatening to gag her.

She fights back the bile and stands on her tiptoes, clamping her mouth firmly over his. She moves her lips over his cold, rubbery lips, hears him groan in surprise and passion deep in his throat, feels his lips opening against hers, his wet, invasive tongue slipping through to probe hers.

It’s all she can do not to retch as she pulls back and exhales shakily—as though she’s carried away by passion, not overcome with revulsion.

“I want you,” she whispers again, watching him, praying fervently that it will work.

“You want me,” he repeats, and sighs. A slow smile slips over his features, and he nods. “You do. You’re not like the others.”

“I’m not,” she agrees, her mind screaming,
What about them? Sandy? And Liza?

She keeps her eyes focused on his face, not letting them wander lower, where the blood-stained shirt is still visible inside his coat.

“I’ll take you with me,” he says just as the front door opens.

Jennie spins and looks through the archway leading to the hall, half-expecting to see that someone’s come to save her.

But the man stepping into the hall and stomping the snow off his feet is distressingly familiar.

“Miss Towne . . . fancy meeting you here,” Jasper Hammel says with a wave.

“C
an’t you go any faster?” Keegan asks, finding himself jabbing at the floor of the pickup truck with his unfeeling right foot as though he’s stepping on an imaginary gas pedal.

Ned shakes his head and frowns. “Not unless you want me to get us all killed. The tires are really bad on this truck, and the roads are a mess. We’re lucky we haven’t skidded into a ditch yet. In fact, we should just—”