Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series) (16 page)

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Preston turned again, right in the same spot, and
his heel made a slick tugging sound on the carpet.

In front of him, the giant clock taunted him with
each passing moment. Every single tick of the second hand made him more
anxious, more irritated, and more concerned for both his plan, and for Alyssa's
safety.

"I can't just sit around and wait. I have to move;
have to make sure there's enough time to check everywhere. Hopefully I can find
whatever it is I'm looking for fast, but I have to be ready for anything.

He stood and stared out the window for a moment
longer, squeezing his fingers together and gnawing his lip.

"When it all comes down, I guess the thing I've
got to remember is that she said she'd find the place and get the job done.
I've got to believe she did. If he sees, then we have to deal with that then,
but I can't keep worrying. There's something. There's got to be something
that'll unravel Gadsen's plans."

Thunder rolled outside, miles away, somewhere west
of Newtown.

Preston Webb opened his door, squinting through
the browned-out estate lights and trying to keep his head down as he went. He
hated the silk across his face. But, most of all, he hated Gadsen for
convincing him, and driving straight into his head that no one would ever want
to look at him without his wearing the damn thing.

"Alright," he said under his breath. "Three
places. Hopefully only one needs a visit, but we'll see. Take things as they
come, right?"

The front door swung open and inside stepped a
big, disheveled looking Peter. He had mud on his feet, a blank stare on his
face and a broken-down shotgun in his hand.

"Mr. Webb?"

"What's wrong, Peter?" Preston's voice was
strained with urgency. "I don't have much time."

"I know, it's just that, well, it's Alyssa, sir."

"Alyssa? Is something wrong?"

"No, well, I don't know. What I'm trying to say is
that everything went to plan earlier, but then I lost track of her when she
went downstairs and then she's just vanished."

"Oh God no," Preston said, his teeth clenched.
"What has that bastard done?"

"I'm not sure he did anything, is the thing. I've
seen him wandering around, but when I went to check her room when the power
came back on, she was nowhere to be found."

"Did she leave?"

"No, I don't think so. She really went out on a
ledge for you this time, Mr. Webb." Peter chuckled to himself. "Sorry, it's
just...Anyway, I don't think she left. I'm sure she's gotten lost somewhere, or
ended up hiding in someplace and then getting stuck when the lights came back
on."

"This is horrible." Preston swept his hand
backwards through his hair. "If she's been hurt, or worse, I'll never forgive
myself. None of this was her fault, it was all mine. Everything that's going on
is my fault. I should never have been so greedy. I shouldn't have gotten that
poor girl involved in a fight she wasn't part of."

"Sir?"

"What is it?"

"I think maybe she's happy to help you. At least
that's the impression I got. I don't think you need to blame yourself for things
people do when they feel drawn to one another."

Preston stared, with his lips slightly open, a
word stuck between them but not escaping.

"A-at first, maybe," red-faced Peter stammered, "I
think maybe she was scared and wanted to run. I mean, she did fall off that
ledge trying to get out."

"All my fault."

"No, no, listen. She wouldn't have climbed out her
window and scaled half a story of this building to help you rewire some cameras
if she was being forced to do it. This girl wants to help you, Preston. She's
something special."

"You're right." He balled his fist. "You're right,
of course. But if she's in trouble I've got to do something to help her now,
especially if Gadsen has her. What easier way to ensure we don't end up
together than packing her off to jail on some bullshit trespassing charge, or
making sure he has an accident?"

"Right, sir. It had crossed my mind."

"I'm," Preston swallowed hard, "I'm terrified,
Peter. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to do a damn thing to help this
woman that I'm terrified that I've fallen in love with. Tell me I'm not a
lunatic. Tell me there's some hope somewhere and all I have to do is put one
foot in front of the other."

"That's the short of it sir. As far as being
crazy, I'd say you'd be crazier if you hadn't fallen for her. She's a third my
age, and I'm still a little smitten."

Preston grinned. "What's the plan? I have three
places to check for Gadsen's leavings, and we've got to find Alyssa."

"We? I thought you'd best be the one to find her.
I'm a little less than stealthy." He chuckled softly and patted his belly. "I
tire out real easy and all."

"I can't do it alone. I've got to have help. Look,
there are three places – the shed in the guest house, the office in the back of
the kitchen, and then this place on the second floor – that I had Alyssa rewire
the cameras for so I could check without any fear of being recorded or of
having that old weasel catch me in the middle of."

"I have a hunch, sir."

"Well come out with it, we're in a hell of a
hurry, Pete."

"You said she found wherever Gadsen had his room
full of cameras?"

"That was the idea anyway. I think she did. I've
got to have faith in her."

"Do we have any clue where that room is? If she
was in there finishing up when the lights came back on, maybe she's hiding
out."

"That's a good thought. Yeah," he said. "But I
have to find-"

"Sir? Maybe it's a better idea to find Alyssa. The
company's not going anywhere. Especially if you find her and there's nothing
Gadsen can fall back on to get her, or you, in trouble? Maybe, for once, it's
better to think of something aside from the business?"

Preston grimaced.

"But all these years – the whole company could be
in jeopardy if Gadsen manages whatever it is he's planning."

"Does that really matter? I mean, really, really
matter?"

"I..."

"Think about it sir. Just think about it. I know
you don't have much time, and how important all this," he swept his hand around
in a dramatic circle. "How important it is. It's your father's, after all. But
think about what's really important. It's up to you of course, but that's my
piece."

Slowly, Preston nodded. "Thanks. I mean it. I've
got an idea."

"All ears. Oh, by the way, when I tried to stop in
on Alyssa, I found this note on her table. She also had one of those scrapbooks
full of your parents old love letters, so I think she was doing a little
detective work on her own, without even knowing it."

"What a girl," Preston grinned, "let me see it."

Handing over a folded up square of paper, Peter
asked what sort of plan Preston cooked up.

"Oh," he said, opening the note and scanning it,
"I think the best thing is..." His eyes both opened wide. Peter saw the one
that wasn't covered by black cloth.

"Something wrong?"

"It seems that my mother and Gadsen might
have...cavorted? While my dad was off in one of his trips to fabulous foreign
lands, although I certainly could be reading this wrong."

On the note he passed Peter, "4/12/45 – 5/24/54? M
& G?" was scrawled.

"What does this mean?"

"I'm not sure, but if I remember my dad's stories,
he stayed gone off to one war or another, while Gadsen and mom were here to
keep the business going, until sometime in the 60s, right?"

"Well," Peter squinted. "Yes and no. He was gone
for a while to war, but then he ended up in some diplomatic job or something
like that. It was very hush-hush. Couldn't ever get him to talk about it, not
much anyway."

"But the point is, he was gone, right?"

"Yes sir, for a lot of that time."

"And I was born in 1965..."

"No, no, you've got it all wrong," Peter said,
sweat beading in his temples. "Something's not right."

"It makes perfect sense. The whole thing makes
perfect sense." Preston's voice went cold, his eyes narrowed. "Wanting to
remove my share of the trust, take the company from me. His bizarre insistence
on keeping the circumstances around my mom's death a secret from me, it all
comes together, Peter. Even the way he tortured me my whole life in this richly
anointed prison. Gadsen wanted my mother. Maybe even had her for a time."

"Sir, are you saying that Gadsen Cartwright killed
your mother?"

"I'm saying there are secrets in this house older
than both of us, and I've got to find out what they are."

"But sir, Alyssa needs you. All those secrets are
fifty years in the ground. Why obsess over things what can't be changed?"

"I just have to know, Peter. I can't rest until I
know what happened to my mother, and why I was kept in a closet my whole life.
Gadsen said it was the scars, but that's a giant load."

Peter rubbed his fingertips along his hairline and
scratched. "Right, sir." There was no point in the world to arguing with
Preston Webb, not when he was in one of these moods. "What can I do?"

"You're going to find Alyssa. If she didn't run at
the first chance, and I don't think she did, then she's got to be somewhere in
the house. God knows where that snake has her, but I promise he's the one that
does. And, I'm willing to bet she's trapped somewhere on this first floor."

"Why do you say that?"

"It just makes sense. I've used that word a lot
lately." Preston checked his watch. "We don't have long until Gadsen figures
out the monitors have been tampered with. I've got to see what there is to see
before then. The reason I know she's on the first floor is that if she's
trapped in his nest, and I think you're right that she is, it has to be on this
floor. We know – you know – how bad the wiring in the rest of the house is.
Ancient, old stuff. Couldn't support anything as advanced as what I'm imagining
the old man has built."

"You're right," he said.

"Alright, go. Whatever you find, don't wait for
me."

"Right, sir."

"Oh, and Peter?"

The big man turned and looked.

"If you find her, tell Alyssa that I'm sorry for
all this. And tell her..."

"Tell her what, sir?"

"Nothing. I'll tell her the second part when I see
her next."

––––––––

Trembling, shaking, teeth chattering, Alyssa tried
to keep her panic level below the point where she'd start to scream and weep.
Her arms ached, a dull, slow pain that crawled from her wrists to her shoulders
and just got worse and worse the longer she was chained there with her arms
above her head.

The soaking-wet cloth tied tight around her head
acting as a gag had dried her mouth and pushed her tongue back so that it, too,
throbbed.

"Where are you?" She pleaded in a dry, sore, muffled
voice with the darkness. "Why aren't you here?"

She twisted her hands as hard as she could.
Squeezing her fists together, gritting her teeth and pulling until the metal in
the handcuffs bit deep Alyssa cried out a pitiful whimper and collapsed back against
the wall, with her arms still uselessly dangling above her head, wrists on fire
with pain.

Fantasies played out, one after another, as she
sat there wondering if this was where she would die, wondering if there was no
escape from this horrible viper's nest into which she walked. But no matter how
much despair welled up inside Alyssa's mind, she couldn't stop herself from
thinking about Preston, with his strong shoulders, his tall, lean shape. She
imagined him kicking the door in and whisking her away.

A whirring noise caught her attention. When she
looked up, there was only a camera staring back. Small, very small, and black,
it was almost impossible to see. If there were any noise at all aside from the
hum of the televisions, and the camera's own movement, she never would have
heard the thing. And if it wasn't completely black in the room, she wouldn't
have noticed the pin-prick of red light underneath the lens.

I wonder how many of these things he's got. I
bet he's been watching every single thing I've done in my rooms, in the end of
the house I was never supposed to be in. I bet he sat in here and watched while
Preston played with me that first night.

She shuddered at the thought of hook-nosed old
Gadsen, in here, staring at her, watching what had happened, and what she
wished for, more than anything, to happen again. Alyssa remembered what it felt
like to have his hands on her body, stroking her breasts, and then between her
legs, warming her from the inside out.

Then, almost as though her mind was revolting
against her, she thought of Gadsen creeping back in, into this secret room that
may as well have been his own secret world, and ending it all. It'd be easier
that way, she thought, he wouldn't have to do any explaining, no one would ever
know. She'd just vanish into thin air.

"Did you hear the one about Alyssa Barton?" A
nameless girl would say to another kid, one day, years removed.

"Alyssa? Isn't she the girl that vanished?"

"Yeah. I heard that one day she was out here
picking mushrooms, and then someone grabbed her and took her to the mansion. No
one ever heard from her again. No one ever saw her again. She just vanished."

Then both of the little girls would shiver,
giggle, and pretend not to be afraid when they crawled under the hole in the
fence and started picking mushrooms, or exploring the mysterious woods
surrounding the giant house that no one ever saw.

What would happen to Preston after she was dead
and gone? An eternity under Gadsen's thumb, doing whatever it was the butler
and the board of Webb Oilworks wanted, she guessed, a lifetime of staying
hidden, of being afraid to talk to anyone, or go outside. No matter how scared
she was for herself, she couldn't stop thinking about him.

Imagining his touch, she smiled, even with the
darkness and the fear and the blazing pain in her wrists.

Thinking of his isolation and his pain, she almost
fell back into despair.

When she heard the little camera whir again, she
looked up at it, slid the handcuffs a little ways down the pipe to which she was
bound, and pushed herself to her feet to relieve the pain in her shoulders.

From one monitor to the next, she turned her head.
In the kitchen, she saw a couple of cooks pushing chopped up food off a cutting
board and onto a plate. Another of them opened one of the three ovens and slid
a roast, it looked like, inside. Her stomach rumbled.

In the foyer, not thirty feet from where she was,
Alyssa saw two people standing and talking. Out front of the house, the tiny
camera saw nothing, she knew. But what it looked like was just a lack of
activity. And so with the rest of the monitors – either nothing happening, or
life as usual carrying on without any clue that there was a girl locked
underneath the stairs.

Maids shuffled about, cleaning up a little spill
in the study, and dusting books.

In one of the garages, someone was waxing an old
car, a Studebaker, and polishing the chrome.

Life as normal, life in frames, she thought.

The two men talking in the foyer parted ways in
such a hurry that it caught her attention.

Was that? It was him! He's right outside! And
Peter! Both of them are right outside the stairs.

She screamed as hard, and as long as she could,
but the sound was barely audible. Alyssa rattled the living hell out of the
pipe around which her handcuffs were secured. That horrible scraping would
alert anyone listening wherever the pipe went through the walls, if they were
listening closely.

If they're looking for me though, maybe they
are. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Then, alone in the dark, longing for Preston, or
for anyone, to find her, Alyssa Barton wept the sort of tears that only come
when a person is right on the edge between hope and hopeless.

––––––––

The wind that boiled over from the distant storm
braced Preston's face, tightening his skin and making his scar ache the instant
he pushed open the front door and jogged to the house used by Gadsen.

With absolutely no idea what he was looking for,
and a mind full of dangerous thoughts, he turned back and looked to the house
about fourteen times in the fifty feet between the two buildings.

"One thing at a time," he said. "Keep your head
straight. One foot in front of the other. Keep going."

The guest house was covered in a dusty film that
seemed years old, maybe more. But, there was one thing that caught Preston's
eyes – a slim track running straight down the middle of the room that
terminated at a half-empty bookcase.

"Looks like somebody stood here," he said, putting
his feet into the dust-less area and noticing that they fit almost perfectly.
"Huh, that's strange."

The books, he noticed, were all perfectly aligned.
Not a single one out of place. All the spines right in a row, all of them
placed precisely the same way on the shelf.

"And, they're all the same book."

Thirty-eight copies of
Crime and Punishment
,
all lined up, on a single place on the rack. The other shelves were bare.

"If that's not a strange reading habit, I don't
know what is," he said, running his finger along the gold-leaf line on each
spine that separated the title from the author name.

He pulled one out, and half expected the whole
thing to slide to one side revealing a massive secret passage, but instead, he
just got a handful of Russian literature. He grinned as he opened a page and
read the words "and that was all I could manage, just for the day, that was all
I could do. Tired, taken with a fever and several days awake and on my feet, I
collapsed thus, onto the spoiled sofa upon which I had rested most days since
the damned event. Sleep overcame me, and I did not wake for days. When I did,
my body rattled with illness, I was presented with a bowl of soup that I did
not prepare, by a woman whose homely face was a welcome respite from my
nightmares."

He tapped the cover with his middle finger. His
eyes dropped to the floor, followed the dust-free path back to the door and he
looked outside, back at the house.

Preston thought about what Peter said – that he
should figure out what really matters. He closed his eyes and rubbed the side
of his head with his palm.

"What are you doing, Preston? What in the world
are you doing? Does all this actually matter?"

His hands dropped to his sides and he shook his
head.

A curious smile crawled across Preston's face, and
he dropped the Dostoyevsky on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Thoughts ran through his head, thoughts of his
dad, of his mom and of Gadsen back before Preston had known what sort of a
creature hid under the carefully manicured disguise the old man built up over
the years. He thought about watching Alyssa wander around innocently on the
edge of the forest.

And then he saw his mom's face in that old black
and white picture set. The only way he'd ever seen her. "What should I do? Why
can't I make up my mind? I'm so close. I know it. I can feel it. I'm so close
to the truth about you and dad and everything else, but I can't think of
anything but Alyssa."

Hand in his hands, Preston looked back at the book
on the floor and thought about the little passage he read. Somehow, it didn't
seem like chance.

"Fever dreams and soup," he said. "I can't believe
I'm doing this. I hope it is okay," he said under his breath, hoping that his
mom heard him. "I hope you understand."

Preston Webb decided, once and for all, what
really mattered.

––––––––

Heavy feet shuffling on the stairs above her broke
the dead silence surrounding Alyssa.

"I'm here!" She shrieked until her voice hurt.
"Down here!"

Every word was muffled, but the rattling of her
handcuffs on the pipe, was not. She knew if anyone was looking for her, the
metal on metal sound was audible. Harder and harder Alyssa jerked her hands
back and forth, and started to throw herself backwards, thumping her back
against the wall.

Any pain, any hurt, it didn't matter, she decided.
If no one heard her, she was almost sure to lay here in this tiny, dark room
until she starved.

Thrashing back and forth, she managed to get
herself worked into such frenzy that she was sure she'd rip the pipe out of the
wall, even if no one managed to hear her. But there it was again, the sound of
feet, the sound of what she thought to be heavy boots, with big, thick heels
that clomped above her head.

"Boots? It can't be Preston. Peter, maybe?"

"Peter!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.
"I'm down here!"

Again, back and forth, she thrashed her hands
again, and then heard the unmistakable sound of knocking off to her left and
above where she stood.

Pushing her tongue as hard as she could against
the silk in her mouth, Alyssa shouted, and jerked one last violent tug on the
handcuffs, scraping it hard enough that the skin on her wrists burned deep. It
reminded her a little bit of how she burned for Preston, warm and cold
radiating from the inside of her outward.

"Please hurry," she groaned, as she gave in to the
pain, relaxing against the wall, and closed her eyes.

"Alyssa? Was that you?"

"Alyssa?"

Another knock broke the silence and jarred her out
of the pain and panic stupor.

"It's hollow in there. I can hear it. Gotta be
here."

"P-Peter?" She half-grunted and half cried,
knowing full well he couldn't hear her. But, another scrape of handcuffs on
pipe made him react.

"I can hear it. I hear scraping or something in
there. Alyssa, if you can hear me honey, I'm trying to find a way in."

As loud as he was, Alyssa thought, it was only a
matter of time before someone heard. But, looking at the monitors, there wasn't
much activity anywhere in the house except the kitchen where three cooks toiled
away, and a fourth man washed dishes.

Suddenly, a crooked figure appeared on the second
floor, in the room where she'd found the scrapbooks. She watched Gadsen move
around the room, looking under and around everything, very obviously searching
for something. Alyssa thought back, to when she was doing the same thing, and
couldn't think of anything he might possibly be hunting for, because as far as
she knew, the room was empty except for the letters, and those she had moved to
her little room.

"Alyssa? I think I've found something," Peter
said, "but I can't make it do anything. If you can talk, if you're awake in
there, try to help me get in."

"Marissa!" she shouted, although of course he
didn't hear. Then, she had a very strange thought.

She scratched a long sound, followed by a short
one, on the pipe. As soon as she did, Peter stopped moving.

"Alyssa? Was that you?"

Long, short, long, long.

"Holy damn! You know Morse code? I don't know what
you're doing down there, but talk to me. Tell me how to get in."

Suddenly, there was hope.

Four shorts, a short and a long, long short, and
then a long with two shorts.

"Hand? Hand rail?"

She tapped out a "Y" and he got the message.

"Okay, hand...Oh! I see. There's a little pad or
something."

Short, two longs, a short. Short then long. She
got through the first "S" before he said "password, okay, got it. Do you know
it?"

Alyssa scraped out the first two letters of
'Marissa'.

Her eyes moved back to the monitors. Gadsen was
gone from the second floor. In the back of her mind, she wondered where he'd
gone, but shook her head and banished the thought.

"M...A... Hey, wait a minute. You can't be
serious."

Before she finished, he shouted "ah!" and the
stairs swung open.

The big man walking through that door, haloed in
light that was dim, but still bright enough to burn her eyes, was the most
wonderful sight Alyssa had seen for a long, long time.

"That you, Alyssa? Oh thank God." He stumbled
through the dark across the room and cut the gag in Lys's mouth with his
pocketknife.