Jude Deveraux (12 page)

Eden
awoke to the horror of someone's hand pressed firmly over her mouth. Her first
impulse was to lash out, but a face and a warm breath were near her ear. 'It's
me, and please don't hurt me again,' came the unmistakable voice of Jared
McBride. 'I'm still bleeding from the last time. There are people downstairs.
If I take my hand away, will you be quiet?'

Eyes
wide, Eden nodded. It was too dark to see his face, but McBride's tone of voice
told her this wasn't serious. She first thought. What is he up to now? Slowly,
he moved his hand away from her mouth, as though he didn't want to move. He was
very close to her, leaning over her so that he was practically in bed with her.
She rolled away from him and reached for the telephone by her bed, but Jared
stopped her. Silently, he pointed to the cell phone in a case on his belt,
letting her know it would be better to use that. He motioned to the door, gesturing
that they should get out as soon as possible. As far as she could tell, he
meant for her to leave the room as she was, which meant running off with this
man who she didn't trust while wearing only her nightgown. She was glad that
she'd been in too much of a hurry to put her clothes away the night before when
she'd dressed to meet Brad. Draped across the end of the bed were her jeans, a
sweater, and a T-shirt. She stuck her feet into her running shoes as she
grabbed her clothes, then tiptoed out of the room behind McBride.

Since
Eden had seen or heard nothing and had only McBride's word that anyone was in
the house, Eden couldn't feel very cautious. In fact, she felt nothing but
annoyance. What time was it anyway? She was glad to see that last night she'd been
too tired to remove her watch. The house was dark, but the watch had a little
button on the side that she pushed, and it lit up the dial. Ten minutes until
five A.M.

McBride
was crouching down like a character in an Xbox game and moving stealthily along
the chair rail. Eden gave a yawn, then a shiver. Her nightgown had been fine
under the covers, but now she was getting cold. She hugged her clothes to her
and thought about stopping to put them on.

'Are
you sure — ?' she began, but McBride cut her off. In an instant, he had grabbed
her and put his hand over her mouth to keep her from talking. What she wanted
to say was a very sarcastic 'I see that you recovered well.' But she said
nothing. Last night she'd seen that the wounds she'd given him were bleeding.
And he'd held his arm that was still in a sling as though it hurt him very
much. She'd felt so sorry for him that she'd been tempted to spoon-feed him
again.

But
right now, he had one arm around her waist and the other around her head with
his hand over her mouth. So where was his sling? Why wasn't he limping? If he
was lying about his injuries, just as he'd lied about everything else, then he
was probably lying about someone being in her house. She lifted her foot with
the intention of slamming it down on his instep. Her plan was to run for the
phone while he held his foot in pain. She figured she could punch the buttons
for 911 before he could get to her.

But in
the next moment she heard whispered voices from downstairs and became rigid
with fear. McBride was still holding her, but Eden was no longer fighting him.
He said one quiet word: 'Cellar.'

She
nodded, and he dropped his hand from her mouth. At the end of the wide corridor
upstairs was a door to what looked like a closet. It was true that there were
brooms and mops in there, but behind them was a little door that opened to
reveal an old staircase that was so narrow it was dangerous. It had been the
fate of the poor over-worked servants in centuries past to have to use those
stairs, rather than the wide stairs in the front of the house.

As Eden
pushed aside the handles of half a dozen old mops and a vacuum cleaner that was
probably in use in 1910, she felt anger run through her. McBride had searched
her house enough that he knew about the stairs down to the kitchen, which led
to the other staircase down into the old cellar. Even when she'd lived here
before, the narrow stairs to the kitchen had not been used. And only Eden had
used the cellar. Mrs. Farrington had been accidentally locked in the cellar
when she was nine, so she'd refused to ever go down there again. She'd
wanted  to  fill   the  thing  up 
with  sand.   But  it seemed that Snooping McBride knew
where the cellar was.

There
was no light in the narrow staircase, so Eden went first and felt her way along
the wall. Behind her, she heard McBride readjust the mops and brooms, then
carefully close the little door. Eden had to repress a yelp when her face ran
into a thick cobweb, a cobweb that made her realize that if McBride had seen
the old staircase, he hadn't been down it. Gingerly, she felt each step before
putting her foot on it. She didn't know if the staircase had been restored or
was still made of rotting wood, as it had been when she lived there.

At the
bottom of the stairs, McBride touched her shoulder, letting her know that he
wanted to go first into the kitchen. When she stepped back into the tiny space,
of necessity his body pressed against hers. She held the clothes over her arm
tightly between them. Cautiously, he opened the door. Eden was relieved that
the hinges didn't squeak.

McBride
stepped out into the dark kitchen and looked around. For a moment he
disappeared from sight, then he came back. Putting his finger to his lips, he
motioned for her to follow him.

When
Eden stepped into the kitchen, she gasped. Outside a security light shone
through the curtainless windows and showed her that her clean, tidy kitchen had
been ransacked. Doors and drawers were open, canisters of food had been
overturned. Through the window in the kitchen door she could see what looked to
be a flashlight moving about on the screened porch. To her rights through the
dining room, she could see the glare of another flashlight, and she could hear
things being moved. There were at least two of them, and they were quietly
shifting things around. She heard what sounded to be a sofa cushion hitting the
floor.

Why
aren't they afraid of waking me? she wondered. She glanced up at McBride to see
that he was frowning so hard that the furrows between his eyebrows were an inch
deep. He didn't like what was going on, and she had an idea that if she weren't
with him he'd confront the people in her house. In a gun battle? she wondered.

He
pointed to the door that led into the pantry. It was a small room between the
dining room and the kitchen. Inside was a trapdoor in the floor that led down
into the cellar. Rarely did people see that trapdoor, as it was usually covered
with boxes of cans. But Eden hadn't bought enough food to fill the kitchen
cabinets, much less the pantry. As she reached for the ring that was flush with
the floor, McBride caught her hand. She looked at him and he shook his head no.

When he
reached for a bottle of cooking oil, Eden nodded and took it from him. Feeling
her way along the dark floor, she felt for the rusty old hinges, then uncapped
the oil and poured it on the tired old metal. Setting the bottle down, she
turned to him and nodded, then he picked up the ring and lifted the door into
the cellar. He wanted to go first, but  Eden pushed him away. She knew the
stairs better than he did. There were ten of them, and they had been replaced
just before she left — which meant that they were now 'only' twenty-plus years
old.

Taking
a deep breath, she started down the stairs, cautiously putting her foot down before
she applied her full weight. They held. When she reached the bottom, she turned
to McBride, who was right behind her. He'd lowered the door above their heads.

Eden
felt along the damp walls of soft old bricks and tried not to shiver when she
touched the dirty shelves. When she'd lived there she'd kept the cellar clean
because she'd used it for what it had been built for: storing produce from the
garden. She'd wrapped up green tomatoes, apples, potatoes, and carrots, and had
kept them in the cellar for months. And even though one wall looked as though
it had been rebuilt, the room was full of the nests of insects and rodents.
Bath, she thought. When I get out of this I want a long, hot bath.

Finally,
she found what she was looking for: candles and matches. Because of the
dampness of the cellar, the matches were always kept in a tight metal box. Now
she hoped that they'd kept dry for all these years. Holding her breath, she
opened the box, withdrew a little box of matches, pulled one out, then struck
it. It burst into a very welcome flame, and Eden lit three fat white candles.
By the time this was done, McBride had his cell phone open.

'I hope
you'll forgive me if I don't call your sheriff,'   he  
whispered,   looking   at  her  
in   the candlelight. 'I think
my
people should handle this
one,' he said.

Eden
started to say something but didn't. Instead, she watched him. She had no way
of knowing what was going on, but she knew that something was making him very
angry. He wasn't frightened, and didn't seem to be looking for a way to get
them out of the house, which she thought was odd. Instead, he was calling 'his'
people. All things considered, she decided that Jared McBride knew a great deal
more about what was going on upstairs than he was telling her.

Just as
she heard his phone ring on the other end, they heard footsteps above their
heads. In an instant, he had closed his phone and Eden had extinguished the
candles. She could see nothing in the darkness, but she felt McBride's strong
arm as he pushed her into a corner of the room while he stood at the foot of
the stairs. She heard quiet noises from him, as though he'd bent and picked up
something from the floor. She wondered what it was. Something he could use for
a weapon if the men came down the stairs?

She
heard footsteps over their heads, and when she heard voices she listened so
hard her ears hurt, but all she heard was that one of them said something about
a 'jolly good time.' They're English, she thought.

When
the men moved away, Eden felt the full thrust of her fear. Who were these
people? What did they want? Were they just more aggressive jewelry hunters?
Twice while she'd lived with Mrs. Farrington  they'd  awakened 
on  Saturday mornings to find people digging in the gardens, looking for
those blasted jewels. Both times Mrs. Farrington had fired a shotgun over their
heads, and they'd run away cursing her.

But why
would they be here
now?
she wondered. What always triggered the jewel
hunters was the publication of a new book that included the story of the stolen
necklace. But there'd been no new book published recently. There was the
Internet, though, and the Farrington story was always there for treasure
seekers to find.

When she
heard the unmistakable sound of the lock on the door overhead being latched,
Eden drew in her breath sharply. They were locked inside the cellar!

She
looked across the blackness and tried to see McBride. Why wasn't he upset that
they'd just been locked in a cellar? But she heard nothing from him. He was
silent. Eden was sure that she heard laughter as the people upstairs moved
away.

McBride
said nothing until there was no sound from upstairs, then he opened his cell
phone and pushed a few buttons. In the silence, Eden heard the ringing on the
other end, but he put the phone to his ear so she couldn't hear what was said
and by whom. 'Come get us,' he said into the phone. 'Now. We're in a room off
the kitchen. Look on the floor for a door. We're locked in.'

He held
the phone open so she could use the light from it to relight the candles, and
when they were lit, she looked at him. He didn't seem as angry as he had been,
but maybe he was good at concealing it. 'Turn 'round,' she said to him, and he
turned to face the wall while Eden pulled on her jeans, T-shirt, and sweater.
She wished she had socks, as her feet were cold.

'Someone
should be here in about an hour,' he said softly, his back to her, then he held
out his phone. 'You could call someone else if you want. The sheriff or
Granville.'

As she
dressed, Eden thought about what he was saying. No, she didn't want to call
either of them. For all that she'd known him for years, the sheriff had a big
mouth, and that deputy of his, Clint, would be sure to tell everyone in town
what had happened. 'Found her locked inside with that guy she beat up,' she
could hear Clint saying. 'If you ask me, there's somethin' goin' on with those
two.' No, Eden didn't want Brad to hear that.

'Okay,'
she said, 'you can turn around.'

Leaning
against the wall, his long legs out before him, he crossed his arms over his
chest. 'You want to tell me what's going on?'

'I'm
part of a spy ring, remember? I have information to give to the enemy, and they
came to get it. By the way, who
is
the enemy now? It's not still Russia,
is it?'

McBride
seemed unperturbed by her sarcasm. He moved away from the wall and picked up a
big quart jar full of pickled beets.

'I
wouldn't eat them if I were you. They're over twenty years old, and they'll
probably explode if you open them.'

'Do you
mean that
you
canned them?'

'Not
exactly rocket science.'

He said
nothing, just kept looking at the jar in wonder. 'I never met a woman who could
make pickles. That is what they are, aren't they?'