Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series) (8 page)

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Alyssa was still glowing when it came time for
coffee the next morning. Completely beside herself with excitement, she hopped
down the stairs so quickly that she almost fell.

When she got to the bottom, she found her dad
seated on the couch. Even though he very quickly brightened up, there was a
faint darkness behind his eyes.

"Hey there, want some coffee? I'll make some."

No coffee ready? That's not normal.

"Only if you're making some anyway," she answered.
"I don't want you going to trouble on my account."

"Yeah, I was about to get up and make some. Didn't
sleep so well last night, you know how it is sometimes."

"Of course," Alyssa crossed the room and patted
his shoulder. "Actually let me make it, I'm already up. Want your paper?"

"Thanks. I mean it, Alyssa." She looked back to
see her dad scratching his morning beard.

"What's wrong, daddy? So far you've done about
five things you never do."

"I...what?"

"You always make coffee first thing in the
morning, you never come downstairs without shaving, you never leave the
newspaper outside and you never call me Alyssa unless either something is
wrong, or I shoplifted sixteen quarter candies from the pharmacy."

"Oh, well, yeah. I guess there's not much reason
to pretend nothing's wrong. I promised I'd be honest with you, right?"

"Damn right you did. Let me start the coffee." She
opened the door and tossed him the newspaper, which he caught right before it
hit his chest. "You look like you've been up all night."

"Well, that's because I have. You make coffee,
I'll open this and we'll talk when you get back."

Minutes later and very thankful for the quick
single-cup machine she brought home with her from school, Alyssa returned with
two very nice, very hot mugs.

"Alright. Lay it out," she said. "No punches are
to be pulled. Okay?"

"I won't. I'm nervous as hell, Lyssie. I don't
know what I'm going to do."

"Start by telling me what's up, then we can figure
how to work it out. There's always a way to work things out. Is it money?"

After a long silence, he nodded. "Yeah. It's
money."

"I thought you were doing okay since you got that
thing with Preston going and the other couple little part-time jobs. Is it
medical bills or something? Just don't pay them."

"No," he chuckled, "and even if it was, I'd pay
them. The short version is that when Mr. Webb started paying me so much, I went
straight to the bank and reworked my mortgage."

"Oh God," she said.

"Yeah. It's completely my fault. I went to the
bank, refinanced for a shorter loan at a lower rate, and then promptly forgot
about it. I can't believe I did something this utterly boneheaded. You know,
through my entire life, I missed exactly one bill payment, ever, and that was
when I was off in Vietnam. I forgot to pay off my Sears Roebuck card before I
shipped out. Stupid, but good God did I ever feel bad about that."

"Okay, well, what's the damage?"

"The damage? I could lose the house."

"No, sorry, I know that. I mean what do you have
to pay and when does it have to be paid? Certainly they gave you some kind of a
repayment period."

"Yeah, but not exactly a generous one." He reached
back behind the recliner to the table and wrapped his fingers around a rumpling
pile of papers. "Here, I was working numbers last night."

She took the pile of pencil covered and wrinkly
papers that had been erased so hard in places that there were torn spots.

"What am I looking at? Six thousand? Is that what
you owe?"

"Yeah, I that's the amount I am behind. But, it's
not as bad as it sounds."

"That sounds pretty bad."

"I know, but if you look, scraping pennies, my
expenses are...right there. Aside from the mortgage, not very much. I figure if
I really scrimp, I can come up with fifty-four hundred by the day the want the
money. And, if I pawn the car, I'll be able to pay the difference."

"You're not pawning your car."

"I don't know what else to do. I can't ask you to
go get a job to help pay for a mistake that wasn't yours."

"You most certainly could. I'd do anything for
you, just like I said when I got here. But the problem with that is I doubt I
could find one in town that would pay much of anything, especially on such
short notice."

"Yeah," he said as he rubbed his temples. "I did
have a thought, though."

"Wait a minute," Alyssa said. "I just had a
brilliant idea. And it should probably work. You remember when I gathered the
mushrooms? Its morel season right now, and also oyster, I think. If I go and
sneak into the Webb place, just like old times, there's no reason I couldn't
manage to gather six hundred bucks worth of fungus in a couple of weeks. With a
whole month, or most of one, there's no doubt in my mind I can make that much."

In the back of her mind, Alyssa wanted to say 'and
it would also get me one step closer to Preston' but she chose to bite her
tongue.

"Are you sure? I don't want you to do anything
that makes you uncomfortable. Really, Lyssie, I mean it. I don't want you
fixing my mistakes."

"How many jams, exactly, did you get me out of
when I was a dumb kid? And then a dumb teenager, and then a dumb college
student? And where do I live right this minute? I'm not bailing you out of
anything. I'm helping you. Just like I want. If there's something I can do, I
want to do it. Okay?"

"What did I do to deserve a girl like you? I'm
sure I wasn't this good of a parent." Ryan clenched his eyes shut tight, then
opened them and rubbed. "Thank you. I mean it."

"Say, remember how I thought Preston Webb Sr. was
a hobo who taught me about mushrooms when I was a kid?"

Her dad took a drink of his coffee and licked a
trace of it off his top lip. "Yeah, of course, that was one of the funniest
things ever. Why?"

"Preston thought the same thing. When I told him
about it, he almost fell over laughing so hard."

"I can see why," her dad chuckled. "But Webb used
to show up in town every so often in the same strange get-up. The safari
clothes and all that. I figured you were just pretending he was some crazy
hobo, just like you and Libby spent all that time coming up with stories about
Preston being a Dracula."

"Vampire."

"What?"

"A vampire, daddy," she laughed. "Dracula is
proper name, he is a vampire. That's what we thought Preston was."

"Oh, yes, well excuse me. I've been up for a
while. Speaking of that, I think I'm gonna go knock off. See if I can get some sleep.
I know I keep saying this, Lyssie, but I really appreciate what you're doing.
There's no way I could do this without you."

"Don't mention it. Really. I want to help. That's
why I'm here. I'll make my first run tomorrow morning, first thing. Well, second,
I guess after I drop off the kids. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.
I miss those little guys."

"Guys? We talking about the same thing?"

"Yeah. You know. The guys. The fun...guys?" Alyssa
laughed in the same way a comedian who meant to bomb laughs.

"Very good Lyssie," her dad grinned. "Very good.
Keep your day job, alright?"

––––––––

Crunch.

Crunch-crunch.

Alyssa looked back. Nothing. Not a soul.

"What was that? Is someone back there?"

She took another step, bent down and plucked one
of the tiny, sweet, yellow mushrooms she loved and put it in her satchel. The
whole process came back to her as soon as she stepped into the woods, like she
hadn't been four years away from the mushrooms.

"Let's see," she said, peeking inside the leather
bag. "Fourteen, fifteen – oh that's a big one, that'll be worth something –
sixteen. Good day so far, Lys. Find a few more of these and you can take an
early trip to the market."

Kicking a rotten stump, she stooped to inspect the
hole punched in the side. Sometimes the hard, warty fungus managed to live in
softened wood. No such luck. When she kicked a log a bit to the left, her toes
thumped against hard wood, she yelped and grabbed her foot.

Crunch
.

That time, it was off behind her. Out here, so
deep in the woods, it was often hard to see much farther than a few feet.
Whatever was behind her – and it could be anything – probably wasn't dangerous.
As far as she knew, there weren't any horribly frightening animals out at this
time of day. Still, something about the slow, plodding sound and the cracking
twigs sent a chill up her back.

"Who's there? I'm sorry if I've wandered somewhere
I shouldn't." She said, again straining to see anything at all in the direction
from which the noise came.

Doing this as a girl, never once had she been
caught, although she and her friends had a half-million excuses planned out
should it ever happen. These woods – her favorite place since she was a child –
were bought a long time before she was a glimmer in her parent's eye by Preston
Webb's father, an oil tycoon from out west. As far as she knew, no one
patrolled the forest, but there were always armed guards on the oil fields.
Stern looking men, and although they didn't appear to be armed, they must have
been.

Again satisfied that no one was lurking, and
convinced that it must be just a curious animal, probably an armadillo because
that was the most harmless thing she could imagine, Alyssa bent down and pushed
some leaves aside.

"Oh!" She cried. "Another good one, a big bolete."

Squeezing the top between her fingers, Alyssa
inhaled the earthy, vaguely sweet scent that told her she had the right sort of
mushroom. They looked distinctive, but the only way to be sure was the smell.
Dropping it in her satchel, she went to the next promising looking log.

Crrrrrunch.

"Okay that was loud." She shot a glance in the
direction from which the noise came. "Who's there? I know that wasn't an
armadillo or a rabbit. Unless it was a hundred pound bunny, someone's watching
me."

No response. A dim, stultifying silence enveloped
Alyssa, replacing the comfort she normally found out here in the warm, calm,
breezeless forest.

"Who is out there?" She demanded again. "I haven't
done anything wrong! Stop scaring me! I'm just out here looking for mushrooms,
what's so wrong with that?"

For the first time, she began to think he was
right about the mushrooms not being worth the risk. Something about the sound
made her acutely uneasy. As a kid, she never so much as heard a footstep out
here unless it belonged to Preston's dad. Right now though, something was
wrong. Her thoughts turned to the ghastly man who accompanied Preston to her
house, Gadsen, she thought his name was, although she couldn't quite remember.

Still, she saw nothing. No one answered her calls,
and since the last one, there had been no other sounds. Maybe, she thought, it
was all in her imagination.

Taking a step to the west toward home and the
village and to the path out of the woods, Lys heard another crunch, then
another and another. Her knees went weak and she fell down, imagining all the
terrible possibilities.

"Are you men? What's happening? Are there monsters
in the woods waiting to snatch me up and eat me?" No matter that it made no
sense, and that Lys very well knew monsters didn't exist, every horrific thing
she could imagine flooded through her mind.

Snap!

A twig broke just past the edge of her vision. She
wished that the woods weren't so damnably deep and took a deep breath as she
got back to her feet.

"Please!" She said, although not sure to whom she
spoke. "Please just come out and stop scaring me. If I'm doing something wrong
by being here, I'm sorry!"

Looking left, then right, another series of
breaking twigs and heavy footsteps surrounded her. She counted four, maybe five
different sources for the sound. Underneath her shirt, tucked into her belt,
Lyssa closed her fist around the handle of a small knife. It was better suited
for digging succulent mushroom stems out of logs, but in a pinch, it would
certainly stab.

"Hello?" She once again started to think maybe the
whole thing was her imagination. That there was no one in the woods, and the
sound was made by a fox or some other cute, forest animal.

Behind her, there was another footstep. Lighter
and quiet, but still a footstep. She didn't dare turn around, although she
considered a quick spin and a knife slash, but she had no idea
where
to
cut.

A hand closed on her shoulder.

Cold, horrible chills shot down Alyssa's arm and
prickled the flesh on her neck.

She let out a yelp and her better sense took
control. Just as the fingers clamped down, Lys kicked backwards, her heel
finding a knee. She darted forward, clutching her knife in her hand and
swinging her mushroom pack in a wide arc around her head as someone stepped out
from the green wall to her left and tried to grab her where she had just
dislodged the first hand.

The pouch thumped uselessly off the large man's
shoulder, but he was surprised enough to withdraw for a second which gave her a
moment to break. For a second, Lys thought about grabbing her satchel but
decided it was better to escape and have to steal her dinner than be caught.

Another hand whooshed past her head as Lys ducked
away and swung her un-knifed fist at another man's stomach. He sucked wind when
she surprised him with the power behind her blow and she finally was free
enough to run.

And run she did. Straight for the lush forest to
the east, where she knew there was a path that would have her safely home in an
hour's worth of walking, or fifteen minutes if she sprinted.

"Come back here, girl!" One of them shouted, but
she didn't bother to turn. "We just want to talk to you!"

The spongy forest floor beat past quickly under
her feet. One of Alyssa's shoes caught on a root and she just kicked it off and
kept running. Vines, moss and branches lashed her face and her hair as she sped
past, not willing to stop or even raise her hands to shield herself.

To her left, a few feet into the woods, she heard
another man pushing through the growth, no doubt coming toward her. Another
tangle of something grabbed her foot and Lys bent to pull herself free.

A hard tug brought only pain as her palm rasped
and slipped without success. She yelped and tried again.

"We've got her, she isn't going anywhere." A
breathless oaf tromped up behind her and she lashed out with the knife, intent
on getting away. He quickly dodged backwards and laughed. "You've almost run me
out of breath. Mr. Webb wanted me watching the woods for you."

This one? What is he talking about? Think, Lys,
think!

Bending down and laughing, another of the brutish
men approached from behind and wrapped his arms around Alyssa's, pinning her
knife-wielding hand to her side.

"That's enough of that, little girl. What's your
name?"

"Shut up!" She spat back.

"Odd name."

"Shut up! Let me go!" When Lys writhed around, she
felt whatever it was on her foot squeeze harder. She finally looked down and
saw that it was a trap of some sort, a bit like one meant for bears, but she
still had a foot, so it wasn't anything that terrible. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why are we – did you hear that, Peter?" The
bigger man with the red face slapped the other one on the back as three others,
the ones she'd escaped from, caught up. "This girl, with her pouch full of
stolen mushrooms, who tried to cut your belly open with that oyster knife,
she's asking why we've captured her."

The men caught their breath before any of them
bothered to turn their attention to Lys, although the one with his arms around
her rubbed her in such a way that his biceps brushed against the side of one of
her breasts. She took a breath and a flush crept up her chest, but she refused
to admit it to either herself or her captors.

"Let me go!" She squirmed again, and tried to
kick, but there was nothing she could do against one man this size, much less
five of them.

"I don't think we're going to do that. Not yet
anyway." The one called Peter, who had a large, wide nose and red cheeks, bent
down in front of her and unhooked her foot from the trap. "Just keep quiet. I'm
sure it'll be fine. Mr. Webb just wants to talk to you."

He swatted away her foot when she kicked at him as
though she were a fly.

"That's enough," he said, his voice growing
serious. "One more idiot try at violence won't be taken lightly."

Lys gulped. Normally she would have just ignored
him and gone right at it again, but something about the big, red-faced man's
voice told her he wasn't joking.

He tossed the trap – a fish-basket looking
contraption – aside. Another of them grabbed her bag and the trap from the
ground, slung them both over his shoulder and sighed. He looked her up and
down. His gaze was hot, she felt, but couldn't imagine why.

Sweaty and hot, her hair was a mess, her skin was
flushed and she hadn't the first sign of decent clothes or anything else. There
was something about all of this that just didn't make any sense.
Where are
the cops? Why didn't they just call them and get me toted off to jail? None of
this makes any sense!

With the trap off her feet, the man holding
Lyssa's arms squeezed the knife out of her hand and released her long enough to
pull a length of rope from around his massive shoulders and bind her wrists
behind her back so tight that her shoulders strained.

"Ow!" She cried. "That hurts! It's pinching!"

"It's a rope. It's supposed to hurt. Be quiet and
I won't pull it any tighter. Keep this up and we'll put a bag over your head
and gag you. Don't make us do that." He yanked down on to show he was serious
and Alyssa yelped as the rough rope bit deep into her wrist.

"Don't! Okay, okay, you've convinced me. But at
least tell me why you've got me like this. I haven't done anything wrong."

"Oh yes you have and you well know it," Peter
growled, rubbing his belly. "But that's not the point. Didn't you hear me?
About Preston Webb wanting to see you?"

"I-"

He pursed his red lips.

"I suppose not."

"Right. Anyway, you know what's happening and..."
his speaking stopped as he touched her face with surprising gentleness. "Ruben,
come over here and hold her. This thrashing is giving my shoulder a horrible
pain."

Peter squinted at her, studying her face for signs
of another untruth.

"I've been told two different things from two
different people. Preston wants me to be gentle with you and just bring you
back to the house to meet with him. Gadsen on the other hand, seems to think
you've tricked the young master somehow. From the way you're panicking, I tend
to think it's the latter."

"Okay, but what do you mean? I'm happy to help him
with anything, but I just don't know what you're saying." By the time she
finished talking, Lys's voice had started to crack.

"You'll figure it out soon enough. Ruben, bag her
and take her away?"

"Bag? Wh-" A black sack, thick and heavy, fell
over Alyssa's head, and the cloth rubbed her neck raw when the cord rasped
through the metal-ringed loops and closed snug around her throat. When she
opened her mouth again and felt that hard canvas on her cheeks, the only sound
that came was a scream.

Lys kicked in whatever direction her feet could
go, but her best attempts to get away were met with chuckling. Someone grabbed
one of her ankles and she managed to raise her knee into a chin. Teeth clacked
together and she heard a mumbling yelp as though she'd made one of these brutes
bite his tongue.

"Good!" She shrieked. "Serves you right! Let me
go! They're just mushrooms!"

"Mushrooms aren't the point, even if they aren't
yours. Although, to be honest with you, I'm not sure I understand what's going
on myself."

A hand on her chest sent Alyssa sprawling
backwards and crashing to the ground with a painful thump when she struck
something hard with the back of her leg and sprawled on the ground, feet
thrashing wildly in all directions. For a moment, she kept that up, but quickly
tired herself out and lay limp on the spongy ground.

"Okay, enough of this," Peter said. "We've got
rounds to make. Tie her up if she won't relax. I'm tired of playing around."

"Sure thing, boss," another of them said. His
voice was thick and surly. Lys imagined him having big, wet lips. She imagined
him unable to go more than a few minutes without licking them and rubbing his
thick, crested brow.

Ropes around her ankles bit just as deep as the
ones on her wrists and Lys barely squelched another yelp. Under the hood that
blacked out the world, she bit her lip, trying her best not to panic. The man
twisted the rope again, so tightly that single fibers from it dug in. Something
about that sent a thrill up the back of Lys's leg.

"Just relax," Peter said, "there's no reason to
keep fighting. Just don't try anything stupid. Right, bring her."