Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series) (12 page)

"A thunderstorm?" She said as her hand slid down
her chest, and hit the mattress. When it did, the place where the rope was
around her wrist send a charge down her arm that warmed her chest, then her
belly.

"Who's there?" She said in a half-conscious daze,
when the deadbolt made that familiar sound, sliding through the door. She
wasn't really sure whether it was real or a dream. In that place right between
asleep and awake, through her exhaustion, the whole world seemed to be covered
in soft, worn-ragged gauze. "Is somebody...?"

The sound, if it had been there at all, stopped.
There were no footsteps, no breathing outside the door.

Must have been a little dozing dream.

Her breathing evened out. A soft, vulnerable
snore, barely audible above the rain, told Preston Webb that she was asleep. He
pulled the lock the rest of the way and opened the door carefully, to avoid
those damnable hinges creaking.

Crossing the room quickly and silently, he pulled
the blanket up around Lys's shoulders, covering the purple bruise.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "This never should have
happened."

Lost in the rain, his voice reached dreaming ears.

He moved to sit, to cradle her head in his lap and
stroke Lys's soft cheeks, but at the first hint of a sound from the mattress,
he recoiled. When he was satisfied that she was unconscious, Preston settled
down next to her so softly that he made barely a sound. Alyssa stirred when he
touched her face with the back of a hand, and her eyes shifted under the lids.

He bent and kissed one, then the other.

Even though the room was growing dark, if she had
opened her eyes, Alyssa would have seen the jagged mark that Preston Webb spent
his entire life hiding.

When his lips touched her eyes, she let out a soft
moan and smiled, just a little, from the corner of her mouth. In the room's
darkness, he couldn't see her grin.

She turned, as if moved by sleeping restlessness,
and shifted her weight backwards, against his leg.

As soon as her back was to Preston, Alyssa opened
her eyes and stared out the window into the roiling clouds for a moment, then
clamped them shut.

His hand brushed her cheek, narrowly avoiding the
tear that ran down her nose and dripped to the pillow.

Cradled there against his body, she let herself
drift off again, strangely safe in his arms.

––––––––

In the morning, the rain had stopped but not the
wind. Looking out the window, Alyssa sat up without thinking about her broken
body and only remembered it at the most extreme parts of her morning stretch
routine.

She stuck her head out the window, looked down at
the tremendous rose bushes crawling up the side of the house, the manicured
hedges framing the courtyard, then back to the bed where Preston held her.

"I wonder how long he stayed after I went to
sleep," she said.

His leaving before she woke hurt worse than any
sprained ankles or cracked ribs ever could. After a long drink of the wet
morning, Lys turned back and reclined against the bed's massive headboard.
Beside her, on the nightstand, she was surprised to find the old hairbrush
returned.

"Oh Preston," she said in a whisper, taking the
brush from the table and running it through her hair. "How can I convince you
that it's okay? That I don't blame you for what happened?"

A moment later, just like the day before, two soft
knocks at her door preceded Gadsen's entry. He looked more vampiric than he had
last time, very tall and stooping slightly. When he smiled, she returned the
pleasantry.

"How are we feeling today?"

"Better, for sure," she said as warmly as she
could manage.
He has no idea you know about his threats. Keep it that way.

"Good, you were in quite a shape when we found you
yesterday. Very silly thing you did, climbing out on that ledge." He had a
smile that pulled tight on his teeth that seemed to be tucked around fangs.
Fangs that would stick in Lys's neck the first time she wasn't looking and
wasn't wearing a collar. "What possessed you?"

"Oh, I don't know. I just panicked, I guess. Saw a
way out." Changing the subject, she asked about breakfast.

"You're strangely perky," he said with just the
hint of a sneer behind his voice. "I expected you to convalesce for some time,
especially after your injuries."

Lys just shrugged. "Quick healer, I guess."

"Indeed." He stared for a moment before arranging
her tray over her legs.

"Well, that's a relief." Gadsen fidgeted with the
silverware, his hands shaking slightly. "Oh, by the way, have you seen Mr. Webb
lately? I've not been able to find him since yesterday afternoon. He missed a
meeting with the board."

"No, can't say as I have," Alyssa put on her best
I'm-not-lying-really voice. The eggs and bacon were cooked perfectly. "Last
time I saw him was when he came to check on me yesterday."

"I see," he said. "Hm, where did you find this
brush? I thought that I – I thought Mr. Webb took it with him the other night.
He's very fond of his mother's things, you know."

Lys looked over at the nightstand and shrugged.
She also noticed a rather discrete envelope tucked between the lamp and a
cylindrical candleholder she hadn't seen before. Turning her eyes back to the
butler, she tried her best not to draw attention to the note.

"No, no, I mean it was just right there." She
poked her head forward, in the direction of the dresser with all the perfume
bottles. "I found it when I got up to look out the window this morning. Didn't
think anything of it."

"Well, if he didn't take it, that means he trusts
you. He never lets anyone touch his mother's things."

Something in the way Gadsen spoke stuck in
Alyssa's mind. The way his voice turned up slightly when the Webb matriarch was
mentioned. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but she couldn't bury the
thought, and she couldn't un-hear his quirk once it was heard the first time.

Sentimentality, maybe? Why would this man be
protective of the mother, though? Makes no sense. Then again, not much else
does either, so maybe it fits right in.

"Maybe so. Like I said, it was just there." There
was more of a twinge in her voice than Lys meant to have. "Can I take a walk
today around the house? I just want to get out of this room for a little bit. I
won't poke around anywhere I'm not supposed to go. I learned that lesson." She
faked a laugh.

"You must never venture into the rooms at the east
end of the house. Anything to the right of your room is off limits. There are
things in those rooms that have to be kept where they are. There you are. No
going right down the hall from this room. The doors are all locked anyway, but
I trust you to be reasonable."

"Alright," she said with a little glimmer in her
eye. "I won't. Anywhere else?"

"Downstairs."

"What's downstairs?"

"For you, only the front door and the steps up to
this room. You'll go nowhere else."

"So that gives me free reign up here and – wait,
did you say I can go outside?"

The butler with his crooked nose and vulture-like
posture nodded. "That's fine. There are guards anyway, so you can't get
yourself into any trouble."

"Trouble? What are you talking about? I just want
to stretch my legs and get a little exercise. This is the biggest house I've
ever seen in my life and I want to take a look around. What could I possibly do
to cause problems?"

"Nothing, probably. But remember, Alyssa. Criminal
trespass and felony theft are two things that are hard to beat when you're in
the house where you committed the crimes."

She had to fight herself not to inform him smartly
that kidnapping was significantly more serious than stealing mushrooms, and
then it hung in the back of her mind that blackmail was also illegal, which he
seemed to be indulging in quite a bit as well.

"Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at
you."

"Not a problem. Emotions run high at times."

"So I can go outside and look around the gardens,
and I can go all the way to the west end of my hall?"

He nodded. "If I think of anything else, I'll let
you know. Don't stray too far. Mr. Webb has left a message inviting you for
dinner tonight."

"Like, downstairs?"

He chuckled. "Yes, in the dining room. I assume
you're going for a stroll now, so try to be back by early afternoon. There will
be clothes and so on arranged for you."

As he turned to leave, Gadsen told her to enjoy
breakfast, and wrung his hands.

"Of course, thanks Gadsen."

She picked up a piece of bacon and put it to her
lips, the salty deliciousness making her mouth water. As soon as he was out the
door, she dropped it, went to the window and dumped the whole platter.

"See if you can drug me that easily. I don't know
your game, but I'm going to find out what it is. Just wait. I'm not gonna let
you ruin Preston
or
me. Not on your life."

Lyssa pulled on her shorts, still in a rumpled
pile in the chair, and found a loose white spaghetti-string top in one of the
drawers. There was a bit of a chill in the air, but the temperature was the
last thing on her mind as she crept out into the hall, looked both ways for
lurkers, and immediately turned right.

––––––––

––––––––

"Good thing I learned how to do this in middle
school," Alyssa said, sliding one of the bobby pins from her bun and working it
into the lock on the first door immediately to the right of hers, exactly where
she was told not to go.

The lock was so old and stuff that Alyssa's pin
broke and she had to fish out another one. This sort of heavy, ancient
mechanism required a little bit of shoulder action alongside wrist flicking to
unlatch. Once everything was in place, she stood on her tiptoes and grabbed one
hand with the other and took a deep breath.

"One...Two..." she whispered. "Three!" she grunted
with a strain and turned her bent pin in the keyhole. A heavy thump of the lock
retracting echoed down the hall. Alyssa shot a quick glance in either direction
to make sure no one had heard, and to reassure herself that Gadsen was nowhere
to be seen.

Thick, heavy musk hung in the air of a room that,
judging by the layer of dust that she dragged her finger through, hadn't seen a
visitor since sometime before the Cold War.

Aside from the fossilized, dingy clutter, the room
just held some old furniture and a few books on a table beside a large
wing-backed chair.

"Someone's got a thing for Russian literature,"
she said, reading the spines. "
Crime and Punishment
and
War and Peace
,
huh? Someone was in for a nice, light night of reading."

She picked up and examined a few more items, but
nothing struck her as important.

The next two rooms were much the same. Dusty,
mostly empty, two or three books in each one. In the third – the corner room,
peeking out from underneath folded up linens – she found something that looked
like a scrapbook, but upon opening it, the pages were all blank, as though
someone bought it with the intent of making a keepsake, and then gave up the idea
before getting started.

By the time Alyssa got to the fourth and final
lock, on the East end of the second floor, she was down to her last pin. She
stuck it in, gave the doorknob a turn, and started when it just swung open.

"Well then."

An old spinning jenny style loom was propped up in
the corner, years out of use. A curious smell hung in the air, the way the
smell of beer remains in a bar long after closing. But, strangely, there was
also a little hint of rose in the air. Just a bit, nothing more than a
suggestion, but it was enough to catch Lys's attention and pull her further
inside the room.

"Preston, are you here?" She said. "Hello?"

An old rocking chair with two missing back-slats
creaked.
Air pressure change. Must have been. I opened the door and the air
made it move. That must be what happened.

Her eyes moved over the multi-generational
furniture. Neatly arranged in some parts of the large space, simply piled up
like garbage in others, she couldn't quite figure out what this room was all
about.

"No dust." She ran a finger along the armrest on
the chair she most certainly set to creaking by opening the door and changing
the room's atmosphere. "What on Earth...?"

Whistling wind caught her attention. The window,
she saw, was slightly ajar, the way windows end up when they're just pushed
shut but not paid any attention to as a person walks out of a room.

"Without thinking too much," she repeated under
her breath. "Careless. This is the first room that doesn't have a planned
appearance."

Thinking back, the books in the first room were
arranged very carefully, and the same in the other room. Throw rugs, pillows,
seat cushions. Not a single thing out of place, no matter how thick the dust.
Her thoughts went back to the empty scrapbook.

"That was the only thing that wasn't right. Of all
that stuff, why an empty scrapbook? What was I supposed to think?" She shook
her head and thumbed through some magazines piled under an old desk.

"
National Geographic
, 1932. Mysteries of
the Cavemen." She flipped to a page in the middle, and the fold-out map
secreted between the pages unfolded. The spine on the magazine crackled gently.
"Has...no, that's too weird. Has no one ever opened this?"

Checking all the others, an old
Time
, and
an issue of
Woman's Day
from 1942 that promised to instruct the reader
on how best to care for her husband's affairs while he was off fighting the
Nazis, she found none of them had ever been opened. Alyssa ran her thumb down
the spine of the
Woman's Day
.

"This is the weirdest damn thing. Hey, what's
this? Another of these scrapbooks?"

Just like in the other room, a marble-patterned
bound volume, red and yellow and black, with age-yellowed paper inside, was
stashed under some linen sheets in a basked that occupied a corner of the room.
It looked to have been carelessly tossed.

Unlike the one she found before, this one was
jammed full.

"May 2, 1942," she read aloud. "Dearest Marissa,
it looks like we won't make it back for Christmas. The enemy is pushing harder
both in Europe and out here in the Pacific. We're making for an island (funny
to say that, since there's nothing else) that may win us the war. I can't say
more in case this gets intercepted, but my carrier is quite safe for now. We're
floating, and floating, and floating. Not a whole lot else. We just service
airplanes all day long. They go on night missions, and when they come back, we
fill them up, patch the holes and out they go again the next night. I'm told
there's a lot more like this one, but no one knows how many. Our Master Chief,
Daniels, he said the Japs thought they blew up most of the fleet in the Harbor,
but they were, evidently, very wrong. Oh, planes are coming in. I'll write
soon. Love you always, Mari."

She sat back down in the rocking chair, careful to
avoid the broken slats, and thumbed to another one. Letter after letter,
hundreds of them, were jammed in between the pages of this tome, and
interspersed between those were newspaper clippings, reports, and even little
bits of film negative. Every now and then, a Polaroid popped up, all depicting
the same man. He was tall, dark haired, not muscular, but obviously fit and
very good looking. There were no close-up images, but there was something
familiar about him nonetheless.

Sinking further into the rocking chair and unconsciously
falling into a rhythm, she flipped to another letter, this one pinned to a
photograph. She plucked the tiny thumbtack out and set the photo aside after
taking a look at the familiar image of a shirtless man on the deck of an
aircraft carrier There was no date on the letter, but "5/5/42" was scrawled on
the back of the photo. She read:

"Dearest Marissa, I'm afraid time is short right
now. As you can see from the picture, the planes are coming in much the worse
for wear these days. The Japs have gotten better at spotting these big, slow
things, and punching them full of holes before we drop our presents on them.
I'm taking a terrible risk by telling you this, but I can't keep myself from
doing so. In the next few days (I'm not sure how many), there will be reports
of an attack on an island called Midway. I'm not sure entirely what this will
do, but our MC told us a big chunk of the fleet was headed there. Supposed to
end the war. Here's hoping it does, because the longer I'm away from you, the
longer all I want to do is go back home. I'm not sure I care how anymore. I
hope this letter reaches you before news of the battle. I'm sure I'll be safe;
I'll just be here fixing the planes. I think, anyway. Love forever, P."