24
Night fell on the city of Paris as Tripp lay back into the bed pillows and clicked through a series of channels until he found one with subtitles.
He’d managed to get through customs without too much fuss by claiming the painting as a reproduction valued at less than a hundred dollars. At least when he left, it would be. When he’d hung the original in place of the fraud in the home of one Madame and Monsieur Rochelle on the Ile Saint-Louis, he smiled with the knowledge one wrong had been undone.
As he’d walked into his hotel for the night, Tripp’s heart thudded within his chest in a rapid series of beats. He sat up, pressing his hand against his ribs. Underneath, his heart beat at a frantic pace. The pressure reminded him of his time in Savannah.
Lexi.
Tripp grabbed his cell—a duplicate he’d bought to replace his poor excuse for anger management.
The first ring sent him straight to voice mail.
A pang had his mind whirling with possibilities. His second try reached Emma as his pulse jumped, and his mind raced through images he hadn’t conjured in a place he didn’t recognize.
“Hi, Tripp, been a while, hasn’t it?” Emma’s coy voice reached him from across the Atlantic Ocean.
He heaved a breath. “Where’s Lexi?”
“Are you okay?”
He shook his head. “I think … I’m okay. But Lexi …”
“You sound winded. Where are you? What’s wrong?” Fear took hold of her tone.
Each breath tore at Tripp’s chest no different than he imagined of a panic attack. “Paris. Where’s … Lexi?”
“She went out. Actually, she left almost three hours ago. Come to think of it … I haven’t heard from her. Have you tried her cell?”
Tripp breathed deep, trying to force his body to relax. “Yes. No answer.”
A new set of images jumped into his mind. That they came to him when he didn’t need cover had him focusing on them instead of his surroundings.
The rooms of his farmhouse passed through one by one until they turned dark with night.
“What time is it there?” he asked.
“Ah … four o’clock,” Emma said.
Not even evening.
“Hey, actually, hang on a sec. Missy’s calling me,” Emma said before her voice disappeared.
Tripp concentrated on the last image—the one that stalled him—digging for details, but he couldn’t get past the black.
“Tripp?” Emma’s tone wavered with worry.
“She’s missing, isn’t she?”
“Missy says she was on the phone with Lexi while she was at your farmhouse. Someone joined her there, and there were tones like she was dialing, which Missy didn’t pick up on until after she couldn’t get Lexi to respond. By then, at least three or four minutes had passed. The tones had to be 911, so she called me since she’s back in D.C.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes. I just sent them over. I’m going to go. I’ll call you when I find out something.”
She clicked off without another word, and Tripp stumbled into a sense of helplessness. Before he let worry consume him again, he dialed Ian, summarized the problem and said, “See if you can find out what’s going on and call me back.”
“I’m on it.”
Tripp moved back to his bed, climbed to the middle and sat. He tried to cross his legs, but in his failed attempt, shifted to the headboard and leaned against it.
He pictured Lexi’s face, her body and her smile. His heart thudded again, producing another pass through of images in his mind—all of them black.
At the footsteps, he opened his eyes.
No one except for him.
What the hell?
Tripp brought himself back to the images in his head.
At the creak of movement, he popped his lids open.
Oh, god, I’m hearing things … in my head.
He closed his eyes as his heart bounced against his ribs. At any moment, he expected it to explode from his chest.
More flat black pictures passed.
Dark space. Closet? Cellar? Shed? What is this?
The footsteps grew louder, slow and steady—a louder thump with every other move.
That’s not Lexi’s gait.
Tripp’s body shivered, though he didn’t feel the action—just knew it had happened. Fear burned through him, though again, only his heart and his head registered the emotion.
Hiding from someone?
The creak of a hinge, a sliver of light and her inward, but near-silent, gasps confirmed his fear.
Please let this work.
Tripp willed himself not to be caught.
Light pooled into the small space until it opened in a massive display of white.
From within the doorframe, the man Tripp recognized from Savannah—one of Isabelle’s boys—craned his neck as if in search of something he couldn’t see.
Stay completely silent.
No response.
The image before Tripp returned to black, and his heart calmed as the door closed again. Tripp opened his eyes to his hotel room, bright with the yellow walls and the four poster bed where he sat.
He grabbed his cell, dialed Emma again.
“We’re almost there,” she said.
“She’s in a closet. Don’t ask how I know, but he’s either still there searching, or now thinks she got away, so be careful. I know this guy, sort of—”
“You what?”
“It’s a long story, one Lexi only knows a piece of. I can get on a plane tonight—”
“No, no, let me take care of it,” Emma said. “No, wait, yeah, come on.”
“Do not, whatever you do, let her out of your sight until I’m back.”
“Okay,” she said.
He put through one more call before he prepared for bed. Ian would have a little work to do before Tripp arrived home.
I know how to get around the paradox.
• • •
Lexi couldn’t believe her luck. She’d tucked herself into the far reaches of the closet, into a space with no visibility in the hopes the location would also give her cover.
In her head, she heard Tripp tell her to be quiet and not to move.
She’d done exactly as his soothing voice had instructed, though why she believed he could be inside her head, she didn’t know.
Why didn’t I just give the man the pendant?
Emma would give her an earful, though she planned to wait at least an hour or until she’d counted to a thousand before she moved—in case he hadn’t given up.
Below, a herd of footsteps broke through, crashing along the floor as if a struggle had started.
As much as she wanted to believe the police had arrived, that Missy understood her distress signal, she couldn’t pull herself to move.
Male voices carried up the stairs.
Vibrations shook her closet from all sides. She closed her eyes like a child who thinks they can’t be seen, wishing the voice in her head would return.
“Lexi!”
At Emma’s muffled voice, Lexi scrambled up and pushed open the doors, letting her sister gather her into a hug.
“Oh, god, Lexi. I was so worried.” Emma hung on, wrapping her arms around Lexi’s shoulders.
“Ma’am?” A Rune police officer stood in the frame of the door.
“Ma’am, I’m Sergeant Dale. We have a male in custody outside. You’re safe now.”
Lexi peeled herself free of Emma’s tight hold. “I’m okay, Em.” She rose, but when she wobbled, Emma grabbed her and held tight again.
“Miss Shepherd?” the sergeant asked
“Yes,” the two sisters said.
The officer chuckled before he reined himself in and pointed to Lexi. “We need to ask you some questions. Can we go downstairs?”
Lexi followed the officer but kept her hand in Emma’s.
With no furniture, the Sergeant stopped them at the bottom of the stairs. “Sit here. Can you tell me what happened?”
Lexi recounted the experience, from the time she talked with Missy to the moment Emma opened the door, but left out the head games she thought she’d played with Tripp.
“Do you have any idea why this man would come after you?”
“After the pendant, you mean?” She retold the story from Savannah, though she didn’t understand where the new guy came from if Robert himself hadn’t come after her.
“Can you identify the man who attacked you?”
“I don’t know.” Lexi moved to the kitchen where Sergeant Dale pointed to a man standing outside by one of the marked cars.
“Who is he?”
“We don’t have all the information yet, but we’ll investigate. We may have more questions for you at another time, though.” He looked to Emma. “Will you be staying with her?”
“Hell, yeah, I will.”
The Detective grinned. “We’ll be in touch.”
A pat of Lexi’s pockets revealed she had her keys but not the journal. “Hang on. I need to get something.”
“What?” Emma trudged up the steps behind Lexi.
“The journal. I was reading it.” Lexi aimed her phone toward the corner of the closet, lighting it up just enough to see, and retrieved the book from the depths.
“Get any new revelations?”
“Actually, with what Missy told me and what’s in the journals—yeah. Some of the whys and wherefores, but it hasn’t changed how I feel. I just know, now, there’s a possibility of success.”
Emma sighed. “Why in the hell didn’t you just give him the damn jewelry?”
There it is.
Lexi smiled, having expected the conversation. “I think that’s a record, Em. Longest time between normal conversation and yelling at me.”
Emma put her hands on her hips, the glare saying Lexi better answer or the recriminations would begin again.
“I don’t know exactly why. It just felt like I should keep it. Sherrill got it from her Mom, who got it from hers. But all along it was meant to be mine. Missy had just gotten through telling me where it came from when he came in. I’m supposed to have it. I have a question for you.”
“And what would that be?”
“You actually met George and Marge, right?” She moved to the window as the last of the cars disappeared down the drive.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Me, too. So did Ian, Tripp and Casey.”
“What in the world does this have to do with anything?”
“Do you know anyone else who actually talked with them?”
Emma threw her hands in the air before letting them drop to her thighs. “Everyone knew the Fergs, Lex.”
She waved her hands to stop Emma. “No, no. They knew
of
them, but I don’t think anyone around here has seen them in … a while.” She activated the speaker on her cell and dialed as Emma craned her neck around. “Hey, Janine. This is Lexi and Emma. I have a quick question.”
“Okay,” Janine said to the rhythm of a whisk against a metal bowl.
“I know Rune is small, but when was the last time you actually saw the Fergs?”
“Um … hey, Kevin, when was the last time the Fergs came into town?”
“Who?”
“The folks in the old farmhouse off sixty-four.”
“Never met ’em. I thought they died eons ago. My parents met them when they were kids, but I don’t think I ever actually did,” he said.
“Come to think of it, Lex, I think Casey’s talked so much about them, I ‘met’ ’em through her, but didn’t ever get a formal introduction. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just curious.”
“Okay. That all ya need? I got a restaurant full of folks. People are coming in to try us as if someone put up a billboard in the middle of the highway with a blinking ‘free food’ announcement. It’s nuts.”
Lexi clicked off after Janine’s goodbye. “They really aren’t real. Dead. Returned. Zeus. This entire day has been completely freaky.”
Emma leaned against the wall. “What does this mean, Lex?”
Lexi plopped down onto the second step of the stairs again, shuffling over for Emma to take the space to her right.
“How did we not know the Fergs passed away, Em? This house is in shambles because it’s been empty for decades. Twenty-nine years in fact—right before we were born. Everything’s all connected. In this huge, huge world, we’re all connection. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
• • •
Sunday brought with it a torrential downpour, compliments of hurricane George, of all names. She’d given Emma the journal at home, asked her to read through it in case she came up with any more answers on how exactly Lexi and Tripp could make their relationship work.
Sitting on her couch, in the living room painted a soft blue with chocolate accents, Lexi ran through passages by memory.
Some of the previous assumptions made better sense, coupled with Missy’s explanation, but Lexi wanted more. Marge wrote about orphaned children left to fend for themselves in war-torn and weather-ravaged cities. She added details on how she’d taken Mara away and given her a life. What Lexi interpreted as stolen became saved. She berated herself for her earlier thoughts until her head throbbed, and she closed her eyes.
At the ding of the doorbell, both Lexi and Emma popped up.
“You expecting someone?” Emma headed for the door, jumping back when she swung it open. “Ian!”
He shook the rain from his umbrella, dropped his suitcase next to the window and marched right over to the couch. “Hello, ladies.” He flopped down on his rump, with both arms stretched over the back of the couch—as ‘at home’ as Lexi and Emma.
“Well, hello to you, too, Ian,” Emma said.
Lexi turned to him. “What are you doing here?” She whipped her head back to the door, expecting Tripp to follow. “Where’s—”
“He’s on his way, but given your exploits of the most recent days, he asked me to come hang with you two lovely women.”
“He sent you to babysit, didn’t he?” Emma retook her spot on the opposite side of Ian.
“Maybe. But carry on with whatever you were doing.”
“Actually, I’m done.” Emma dropped the journal on the coffee table.
“Done with what?” Ian asked.
“Reading the journal Tripp found.” Emma crossed her ankles on the glass of the table.
“Can I read it? Tripp gave it to you before I had a chance to get my hands on it.”
Lexi passed Ian the book. “All yours. If you come up with any theories, let me know.”
“What theories you got so far?”
The rain pelted the outer windows as Emma recounted the stories Lexi had received from Missy and retold herself.