Page 32 of From the Darkness

“The room on the right is a little sitting room. There are couches and a television set. The room next to that is another bedroom. It’s bright and cheery—yellow and white. There’s a cut-glass dish of potpourri on the dresser. If she asks you about anything else, tell her you saw too much to remember it all.”

She resisted the impulse to look over her shoulder, to see where he was. His voice had come to her clearly, and she figured that Nola could have heard the whispered information, too. In fact, there was some possibility that Nola could see him. Yet the woman gave no sign that she was aware of anyone else in the room besides Bree.

“Quit stalling!”

Bree swallowed, took a step out of the closet, then repeated the information Troy had fed her, watching Nola’s face relax somewhat.

“All right. So, Helen London hired a first-class snoop. You looked in several rooms,” she conceded. “But that doesn’t explain how you got in here.”

Bree let a look of distress wash over her face. “Nobody said I was confined to one part of the house. And I told you, the door to this room was unlocked. I just turned the knob,” she said, continuing with her ditzy southern belle imitation.

“That’s impossible.”

Bree watched Nola. The woman was acting more and more agitated. She looked as if she were standing on a hill of sand, and it was slipping out from under her feet.

“I’d like you out of here,” Nola snapped. “That’s an order—not a request. If I find you in here again, you will be dismissed.”

“Okay, sure,” Bree said weakly.

She would have liked to ask Nola whyshehad come up to Troy’s room. She didn’t have a tray with her, so she wasn’t delivering a meal. But she knew that asking any question would be a bad idea. Instead, she said, “I’m sorry if I stepped on anyone’s toes.”

Somehow, she kept herself from looking back toward the closet. She wanted to plunge inside and start pushing clothing aside, so she could look for Troy—or for a hidden passage where he’d escaped, after giving her the information that had gotten her off the hook with Nola. But she wasn’t going to get a chance to do that now. Or later, either, since she’d just been warned that this room was off-limits. And if she got caught here, it was all over.

They stepped into the hall, and Nola clicked the lock, before pulling the door shut. She waited while Bree made her way along the hall and down the steps before marching away in the other direction.

***

Bree kept walking, her steps measured, but her mind whirling. Now that she was alone, the intensity of the conversation with Troy slammed into her.

He’d said his marriage hadn’t worked out. He’d said he felt guilty about his wife’s death.

Lord, she’d never known that he’d gotten Grace pregnant in Montana after she’d said she was going to be busy with Mom. She’d never known that was the reason he hadn’t sought her out after she’d left to go home and take care of Mom.

She might have headed for the kitchen to see if Dinah was still there, since she’d just been reminded that she was supposed to be teaching the little girl. But she needed a few minutes to herself.

Because the farther she got from Troy’s room, the more things that had seemed so clear were turning muddy again. Troy had given her reasons for his not contacting her again after she’d left. In effect, he’d spun a story—a story she wanted to believe about why he hadn’t gotten back together with her.

He’d also told her about the car accident. But that wasn’t really relevant to what was going on now. It didn’t explain why he was hiding out—unless the police wanted to question him about the events of that night. Nobody had made that suggestion. And the accident didn’t explain what the Sterlings were up to.

Now that she was alone, she felt her chest go tight. She was scared and confused, and she knew she was in over her head—on so many levels.

He said his wife was dead. Yet he was the one who kept appearing and then vanishing like a ghost. Bree stopped short and looked over her shoulder, feeling torn in two. She wanted desperately to go back to his room and make a thorough search of the closet—to find out how he’d disappeared, and how he’d spoken to her without Nola seeing him. But under the circumstances, that was simply too much of a risk.

She sighed. When she and Troy had been talking together, he’d done a skillful job of directing the conversation, yet there were so many questions left unanswered. Because he was hiding incriminating details from her? Or because his memory was impaired, and he didn’t have all the facts?

Whatever the reasons, she knew that she needed help from Decorah Security. She should have called them the first morning she was here. But she’d been putting it off, for two good reasons. First, she knew she was going to catch hell for insisting on coming to Ravencrest on her own. And second, over the past few days, she’d convinced herself she was handling things. Now she knew she’d been fooling herself about that second item, and she was willing to throw herself on the mercy of her friends and colleagues back home.

Once she’d made the decision, it was all she could do to keep from running to get her cell phone. Instead, she made her way down the stairs at a reasonable pace, then stepped into her room.

She’d left her purse in the bottom right dresser drawer. Pulling it out, she began searching for the phone.

When she couldn’t find it, she crossed the room on shaky legs and turned the purse upside down, dumping the contents onto the bed. She saw her wallet, her keys, two ballpoint pens. A small notebook. Her makeup bag. Her sunglasses. A case with several tampons. Miscellaneous loose change. A paper clip. And a couple of credit card receipts. But no phone. Carefully she checked all the interior pockets. The phone—her connection to the outside world—was gone.

She might have lost it, of course. But she was pretty sure it had been in her purse when she’d arrived here.

She took a quick look around the room—under the bed, in her suitcase. Under other pieces of furniture.

The cell phone was missing. Probably it had been missing for days, and she hadn’t even known.

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