Ever After Read online

  “I’ll clean up, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “And I’ll look at your leg.” She covered her yawn. “Mmmm. Sorry. See you in the morning.” The house was so new to her that she had to think about where the stairs were. She had to go through the living room and past Jamie’s narrow bed to get to the front stairs.

  At the top she looked right and left. Each doorway led to a bedroom. She wished that when she first saw the rooms she had chosen which was to be hers. She stepped left, but it was almost as though she heard two female voices say, “No.”

  She went to the right and felt a sense of calm, as though the old house was smiling at her. There was a pretty chorus of voices who whispered, “Hyacinth.” Maybe she should have been frightened, but it was almost as though she was being welcomed. Smiling, she thought how she needed to undress, take a shower, and find her nightclothes in her suitcase. For that matter, she needed to find her luggage.

  It was still daylight out, but between the eventful day and overwhelming emotion, she was worn out. The big bed beckoned and she threw back the covers to expose crisp white sheets. The bed was high off the floor and she had to throw her leg up to get on it. She told herself that she was just going to test the mattress. Were the pillows any good?

  She put her head down and was instantly asleep.

  Jamie finished putting the kitchen back in order and had just sat down in the chair at his desk when his cell buzzed.

  “I’ve been trying to get you all day!” his brother said. “Can’t you carry the damned phone with you?”

  “I came here to get away,” Jamie said, unperturbed by his brother’s anger.

  “From them, but not from me,” Todd said and when Jamie was silent, he backed down. “All right, do whatever you want. What’s she like? Other than too beautiful to be real?”

  “It’s not the girl you saw in those photos,” Jamie said. “The blonde is the stepsister. Jared didn’t tell me the details, but she pulled a con and tried to steal the house.”

  “That’s illegal,” Todd said, his voice stern.

  “Yeah, Detective Chief Inspector, it is. Why don’t you drive down to Boston and find out the truth of it all?”

  “I can’t now. I’m dealing with a string of armed robberies and what may turn out to be a homicide case. What I want to know is how you are.”

  “Fine.”

  “Don’t give me that crap! How are you?!”

  Jamie took a breath. “Good. I still don’t like how you got me here, but…it’s okay.”

  “Ah,” Todd said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that Jared called Aunt Jilly who called Mom who called me. Seems you made a fool of yourself over your physical therapist.”

  Jamie rolled his eyes. “And here I thought I got away from the family hovering over me. Yeah, when I first saw her, I did have a moment of weakness. She’s pretty and built and…I don’t know. There’s something about her that I like. She’s smart and—Stop laughing!”

  “I’m not,” Todd said. “Well, maybe I am, but not in the way you think. I—”

  Jamie cut him off. “She wants to start on my leg tomorrow.”

  Todd lowered his voice. “How much are you going to let her know?”

  “As little as I can get away with. She thinks I’m some rich playboy. I think she believes I jet around the world from one fun place to another.”

  “And you’re going to let her keep thinking that, aren’t you?”

  “I’m going to encourage it,” Jamie said. “It’ll be a relief not to have to deal with pity. I gotta go. I need sleep.”

  “Take your pills,” Todd said.

  “I won’t forget. Do me a favor, will you? Call Mom and tell her to back off for a few days. Tell her I’m all grown up and can feed myself. I’m worried she’ll helicopter in baskets of groceries.”

  “Then you’re planning on leaving the grounds to get food?” There was hope in Todd’s voice.

  “Not yet!” Jamie snapped. “And stay off my back about it! Understand?!”

  “I hear you,” Todd said softly. “So go to bed and I’ll deal with Mom. And Jamie…I, uh…”

  “Yeah, me too,” he said, then clicked off.

  Hallie awoke abruptly. The inside of her mouth was fuzzy and she had that swollen feeling of having slept in her clothes.

  She turned on the bedside light and looked at her watch. It was just after two A.M. She got up, went to the bathroom, and rinsed her mouth. The first thing she was going to do in daylight was find her bags and unpack them.

  As she was walking toward the bed, she heard what sounded like a moan. “Oh, great,” she mumbled. “More evidence that I’ve inherited a haunted house. Maybe I should give it to Shelly. I’d like to see how they would deal with her!”

  With a yawn, she started to unfasten her jeans so she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the night in them. But then she heard the sound again, only this time it was louder.

  It’s him, she thought and ran toward the stairs. By the time she got down to his room, she could hear him making noises, sounding as though he were trying to escape from someone. There was a nightlight, the kind used for children, on the desk and in front of it was an orange plastic pill bottle. From the time she could read she’d helped her father with the drugs he sold. By the time she was in high school, she was reading the brochures about the latest medicines and paraphrasing them for her dad so he could sell them.

  When Hallie read the prescription label, she knew it was a very strong sleep aid. If he’d taken two of these, a tractor could run over him and he wouldn’t wake up.

  She looked at Jamie on the bed. He was rolling his head from side to side and his body was beginning to move. The bed was narrow and he was big. All it would take was one toss to the side and he’d be on the floor. Even though he had on his leg brace, a hard impact could re-injure him.

  She went to his head and began to massage his temples. “Ssssh. Be quiet. Everything is all right,” she said softly, soothingly.

  He calmed a bit, but the moment she took her hands away he began to turn in the bed.

  “No, no,” she said. “Don’t do that.”

  When he kept moving, she went to his side and made an attempt to hold him on the bed. She had to plant her feet firmly on the floor and push against his chest with both her hands. It worked and he didn’t fall out of bed. He rolled onto his back, and for a moment he was so calm that Hallie moved toward the door.

  But when a shout came, she ran back to him. His whole body was shaking, as though in fear, and he lifted his arms as if he were reaching out for someone.

  “I’m here,” Hallie said. “You’re safe.” When she leaned toward him, he put his arms around her and pulled her down to him, holding her close.

  It was an awkward position that nearly twisted Hallie in half. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to break his hold, and she doubted if she could wake him to make him let her go. Whatever was the basis of his nightmare, right now he needed comfort.

  It wasn’t easy to stretch out beside him on the little bed, but as soon as she did, he turned to his side and pulled her to him. He tucked her into his body as though she’d always been there, and he quieted instantly.

  “So now I’m your teddy bear?” she said, her face against his chest.

  But for all her sarcasm, it felt good to be held, even if the man doing it was sound asleep.

  She could feel herself drifting off, but as she did, her mind began going over the events of the day. Seeing the contract Shelly had signed and the passport she had redone had hurt more than she wanted to admit. A week earlier, Shelly had asked Hallie to stop by an office supply store after work to buy her some glue and a new pair of scissors. “They need to cut cleanly,” Shelly had said. “So no edges are showing.” It seemed that Hallie had helped her stepsister defraud her.

  When Jamie kissed the top of her head, Hallie started crying. He might be asleep, but he seemed to sense that the wo