I wasn’t sure my hands were strong enough to strangle a man. I needed some rope because I was going to kill Keir Byrne. He had no right to confront Stetson. No right. I’d asked for help investigating, not an intervention into my relationship.
I called Stetson three times after Keir hung up, relieved when he finally answered. “I don’t know what that man said, but he was lying.”
“What the hell, Rowan? How do you even know him?” Stetson’s voice was curt with wariness.
“He’s some mobster trying to get a favor from my dad. He was at their house the other night when I went over, and now he somehow has my number.”
My boyfriend was quiet for a beat. “Shit, Ro. Why didn’t you say something?” His words lost their edge, allowing me to breathe again.
“I had no idea he’d do something like this.”
“You wouldn’t…? I mean … you sounded like you knew the guy.”
“I talked to him briefly while Dad was busy, but that’s it. Please, Stetson, you have to believe me. You really think I’d be into that?”
“No, of course not.” He sighed deeply. “He just caught me off guard. I should have known. Assholes like that love to stir up trouble for no reason.”
“Exactly. I’m so sorry he upset you.”
“Nah, I’m fine. Like I said, it was just unexpected.” I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself or if he was embarrassed about the whole thing, but I could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
“Good. He had me worried,” I said softly, hoping to smooth over any remaining wrinkles of doubt. “I haven’t seen you in a few days. Can we hang out tonight?”
“Well, I was going to my dad’s.”
My heart thudded. “I can go up there,” I quickly blurted. “No problem at all.”
“Um … yeah. Okay. I have practice until six, though.”
“I’ll meet you at the field. We can ride up there together, do dinner, then I’ll head home. That work?” I asked hopefully. Any chance I had at getting inside that house was vital. It might be the only chance I’d have to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Sounds good.”
Stetson was distant the entire ride up to his dad’s house. I gave him space. I didn’t feel like pushing the issue, but when he started up the stairs to his room without so much as a word, I had to say something.
“You don’t actually believe him, do you?”
With a duffel bag full of field hockey gear over his shoulder, he paused on the stairs and slowly looked down at me a few steps below. “I just keep thinking how it’s awfully convenient that he decided out of nowhere to target you. As if a guy like that gets off on breaking up relationships in his spare time.”
“It has nothing to do with me. I told you that. He’s using me to get at my father.”
“You didn’t give him any reason to come after you? What were you wearing the night he was at the house?”
Outrage set my blood boiling. How damn chauvinistic to insinuate the situation could be my fault for my choice of clothes.
You want answers about the crying woman, right?
I gritted my teeth before answering, biting back the scathing response perched on the tip of my tongue. “I was wearing the same sort of thing I always wear, Stetson,” I said with forced calm. “I don’t think jeans and a sweater are overly provocative.” Not that wearing something sexy was an invitation to be harassed … or worse. And I would have argued that point if I wasn’t already trying to smooth things over.
Stetson sighed. “Yeah, I know. I guess I’m just tired. I’m gonna jump in the shower. You want to watch some TV while you wait? I may be a minute. Practice was brutal.”
“Yeah, sure. Take your time.” I gave him what I hoped was a warm smile and followed him up the stairs. He turned into his bedroom while I continued to the TV room at the end of the hall, my eyes catching on the closed door to the guest room.
Things with Stetson were strained, and Keir’s antics weren’t the only cause. I’d thought Stetson and I made sense from the day he asked me out. Or more precisely, from the second I’d told my parents, and their faces had lit like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t like the uncertainty of not knowing where things were going. I was also uncomfortable with how unbothered I was by the thought of a breakup. Was that what I wanted?
The only thing I’d ever truly wanted was to make my parents happy. My feelings had never factored into the equation, so I didn’t know how to answer the question. I needed to think, and I needed more information. Whatever was or wasn’t happening on the third floor could be an essential piece of my decision. What if it had all been a figment of my imagination? One quick trip upstairs could clear up everything and help reinstate the status quo. I could put all this insanity behind me and pretend it never happened. I was good at that, after all. Box it up, pack it away, and move on.
It seemed absurd not to at least try to have a look around.
I turned on the television, then snuck into the guest bedroom. Stetson had said his father was out of town, but I still felt the need to be careful. Once inside the bathroom where I’d first heard the cries, I stood motionless, straining my ears for any possible sound. Nothing.
That was what all of this could be. A whole lot of worry over nothing.
I needed to get my ass up there and see for myself.
I returned to the hallway just outside Stetson’s room and listened for the shower. Bingo. This was the perfect opportunity. No one else was at the house. All it would take was five minutes to run upstairs, check things out, and be done with it—my worries, Keir, the disruption of my entire life plan.
Determination urged my feet across the main landing and into the opposite wing, but before I started up the interior stairwell to the third floor, I took out my phone and typed a quick text to Keir.
Me: Going upstairs to check it out. If I don’t text back in five, call the cops.
I might have been a smidge brash, but I wasn’t stupid. Should something go wrong, I wanted at least one person to know where I’d disappeared.
Shoving the phone into my back pocket, I bolted up the stairs. The two main floors of the historical home were outfitted with spacious rooms and tall ceilings, whereas the third floor had originally been built to house the nursery and staff. The wooden stairs were a simple passage up to a plain hallway that looked more like an old hotel than a mansion, if the hotel had lost power and been used to film The Shining. Little had been done to update the space. As far as I knew, the Wellingtons never even used it. The doors were all closed, limiting the light to one small window at either end of the hall. Every inch of my skin crawled with the need to run.
Ro, do not let your imagination run away with you. It’s just an old house. Get your shit together.
And if it’s not just an old house?
Then it’s even more crucial that you get your ass over there and find her.
I inhaled a long breath of stale attic air. Walking swiftly but carefully, I hurried down the hall to the approximate area where the guest room would have been below. I found four doors clustered together, but two were on the wrong side of the hall. Of the two remaining, one had a deadbolt on the door with a key hanging on a hook beside it.
No. Fucking. Way.
Sure, I’d sworn I heard someone crying up here, but a part of me hadn’t believed it was possible. A part of me was convinced I had missed an alternative explanation. This was the Wellington’s, after all. We’d known them forever. Could Stetson’s father actually have a woman locked in his attic?
I took the key from the wall. It was time to find out.
