Glow (29 page)

M
oving with a rapid sense of purpose, Dylan strode down the castle's downstairs hallway. Marie, his cook, must have heard him coming because she was staring at the entryway, holding a covered plate in her hand, when he entered the kitchen.

“I thought you said you wouldn't be home until around eight,” she said. “I was just about to put your dinner in the fridge and take off.”

“I changed my plans. And that's fine, you're free to go. Lock up on the way out, will you?” He glanced distractedly around the large kitchen. “Where do we keep the flashlights down here?”

“In the pantry, right side, top drawer,” Marie said, giving him a curious glance as he hastened to the pantry.

“Night, Marie,” he called before he headed for the back stairs and charged up them two at a time.

A moment later, he once again peered into the compartment beneath the stairs, the location where he'd found Alice hiding last week. Disappointment went through him as he swept the flashlight beam all around the dark three-by-five-foot space. It was mundanely empty, save some cobwebs in the corners. If Lynn Durand
had
ever used the castle's secret places to hide anything besides her daughter, it wasn't in this spot.

Several years ago during a visit, Deanna Shrevecraft had shown him not one, but five secret hidey-holes in Castle Durand. Deanna owned a bed-and-breakfast called the Twelve Oaks Inn down the
coastline. The Twelve Oaks had been built by the same architect as the castle, but on a smaller scale. When Deanna had visited Castle Durand once, she'd demonstrated to Dylan how alike the two houses were, right down to several secret rooms and compartments.

The door to Addie's old room opened with a loud squeak. He immediately walked toward the large wall unit he'd had built during redecoration. It covered one entire wall. The new unit was constructed from glowing cherrywood, and included an entertainment console, deep cupboards, and bookshelves. Most people wouldn't realize the unit had been designed around a smaller original built-in bookcase. Dylan had asked the carpenters to apply new exterior woodwork that matched the rest of the unit, leaving the interior intact.

He opened the second drawer, stuck his hand into the back of the cabinet, and found the latch. There was a muffled click.

The entire nine-by-four-foot section of the shelf swung forward several inches. He pried open the heavy door.

He exposed a much larger hidey-hole than the one beneath the stairs. Dylan had never discovered if the architect of Castle Durand and Deanna's bed-and-breakfast mansion was just secretive by nature, or if he'd designed the hidden spaces by request.

He stepped over the threshold, an odor of dust and stale air entering his nose. He'd only been in here twice, once when Deanna had cheerfully revealed the secret to him, and once just before the carpenters came to build the new shelving unit. There hadn't seemed to be much of interest inside the little room; the hidden quality being its only real curiosity. Deanna had been of the opinion that bootleg liquor might have been stashed in here during Prohibition, but Dylan doubted it. A much more likely candidate for that use would be the secret little room at the back of the kitchen pantry.

Nothing much had changed, Dylan acknowledged as he pointed the flashlight into every corner, revealing dusty wooden floorboards and chipped plaster walls.

This had been a dead end, too, he realized grimly, starting to back out of the dark space. His flash of insight hadn't been so inspired after all. There were three other secret places—that he knew about—in the old house, although he was losing the steam of enthusiasm and curiosity by the second.

His flashlight skimmed across the floor as he turned to leave. He did a double take. Walking to the far right corner of the little room, he ran his light over a board that was slightly raised above the ones next to it.

He knelt and pried his fingers beneath the floorboard. It gave, and he lifted. He was expecting resistance, but someone had loosened the nails that had originally secured the board in place. The entire three-foot-long board rose as though it had a hinge on one end. He shone the flashlight into the opening beneath the board.

There, nestled between the joists, were four cloth-covered books. His flashlight revealed nothing else of interest, so he gathered up the volumes and replaced the board.

It was probably nothing—some long-forgotten diaries of a lovesick teenager or the hidden financial accounts of a crooked accountant. This was a very old house, after all, with a very long history.

He replaced the façade door and walked under the full light of the glowing chandelier. Immediately, he noticed that while the volumes were old, they weren't ancient. He opened the first page of the top one.

No. It
was
something after all.

He stared down at the front page of the top book. There, in a sloping hand were written the words
Lynn Charlotte Durand, July 1990.

He turned the page and began to read. Lynn's journal writing was evocative. It called up an image of her clearly in his mind: her kindness, her elegance . . . her sadness.

Yes. As a boy of thirteen or fourteen he hadn't understood that
sad, poignant quality of a grown woman's character. But his memories, the part of her soul that was instilled forever in her written words, and the present-day understanding of an adult man all combined, allowing him to see Lynn Durand clearly for the first time.

It wasn't until the fourth entry that the bombshell struck.

Of course I've been a fool and unworthy of an excellent man's unwavering, passionate love. To say this is stating the weary obvious. They say that people sacrifice everything for the sake of romantic love, but I sacrificed everything in the name of one selfish, heartless goal: to call myself a mother. To give Alan a child. God answered my prayers and gave me a beautiful baby. But he's making me pay for my sacrifice—he's making me pay for my cruelty and unfaithfulness to Alan—by putting the two things I hold dearest in harm's way: my marriage and Addie.

I put myself in league with the devil. Isn't that what the devil is famous for? He knows your secret desire, and he does whatever he can to give it to you. At a price. He played the part so well. I thought he shared my dreams, and that's powerful stuff to a woman who imagines herself doomed to a barren life.

Sometimes I'm afraid Alan knows about my infidelity. Worse, sometimes I'm afraid he knows, and not only understands, but accepts because of his medical issues and our trouble conceiving. He knows better than anyone how I've suffered. That he would forgive me in this is the sharpest and deepest of my pains.

But Alan doesn't really know, thank God. That's just my guilt surfacing and haunting me.

As it should.

Dylan felt sick, like he'd just taken a punch to the chest that reverberated through his heart, gut, and brain.

He'd insisted Alice go for the genetic testing. He'd never even thought to consider what would happen if he'd dangled this story in front of her about whom Addie Durand was—about who
Alice
was—and it all turned out to be wrong. If it all turned out to be a lie.

He walked out of the room feeling dazed. In his bedroom suite, he found a pair of glasses. He turned on the lamp in the sitting area and sat down on the couch. He put on his glasses and turned his full attention back to the journals.

He made sure he arranged them in the proper chronological order. The journals ranged from the year before Addie was born to three years after the fact. These were the entries that Lynn had chosen, the ones she'd felt compelled to leave behind in one of the secret places she'd shared with her daughter.

These were the shameful confessions of a heartbroken woman. Like everyone else, Dylan had believed that Addie's kidnapping and suspected death were what had driven Lynn to end her own life. Dylan was just beginning to realize that the secrets he held in his hands right now had been an even more precise, cruel prod to her suicide.

He still had several hours before he was due down at the camp to meet Alice. With a grim sense of purpose, he began to read, doing his best to ignore the dread that weighed on him, heavier and heavier by the minute.

*   *   *

“WHAT?”
Alice asked, grinning widely when Dave Epstein approached her, carrying two cases of soda. The DJ had started and a raucous rap boomed, making conversation nearly impossible. Kids were dancing on the sand, swimming, exchanging camp books, and posing for pictures. Almost everyone who wasn't in a swimsuit wore his or her new Camp Durand T-shirt, including Alice.

“Mira took a call for you up at the kitchen. She knew I was headed this way, so she gave me the message.”

“What?”
she repeated when Dave handed her a folded piece of paper. She'd understood Dave's shout this time, but was still bewildered by the actual message. Mira was the camp cook. Why was she taking messages for Alice?

“Hold on,” Dave said, rolling his eyes. He went and deposited the two cases of soda on a serving table in front of Kuvi. Kuvi was bopping around to the music, but gave Dave an appreciative wave before she started to load the sodas into a huge tin receptacle filled with ice. While he was gone, Alice read the message in the light of the brilliant sunset.

To Alice Reed,

Mr. Fall phoned the kitchen. Apparently, he knew you'd be on the beach and hard to contact, so he called here. He's received some news, and wants you to come up to the castle immediately. He said not to worry, it's not an emergency, but it is important. He suggested you take the main road, and come now, while it's still light. He also said to make sure Sal Rigo accompanied you, and that he'd be waiting for you in his
den.

Mira

Alice blinked in amazement. This was strange. She saw Dave reapproaching. Kuvi had handed him a Camp Durand T-shirt. He'd pulled off his old one and was shrugging on the new one as he approached her. The T-shirts were black with a neon green design and print. Alice suspected the shirts would glow in the dark.

“
Mira
gave this to you?” she yelled when Dave got close enough.

“Yeah. No way anyone could hear a phone out here. Did I hear Mira right? Was it Dylan Fall calling?” Alice could tell that by his incredulous expression that Kuvi hadn't betrayed her secret to Dave, even though she suspected Kuvi and Dave were growing
closer and closer. “Was Fall contacting you about some kind of emergency? I thought I heard Mira say he needed to see you. Is everything okay?” he asked, nodding at the note she clutched.

“It's about something from home,” she lied, thinking intently.

“Nothing serious, is it?” Dave bellowed.

“I'm sure it isn't,” Alice replied, smiling gamely for reassurance. She glanced around the beach, looking for Sal Rigo.

*   *   *

KUVI
hauled Thad onto the beach to dance. The sun was starting to dip below the shimmering blue lake by the time the song ended. Another loud dance number immediately started again.

“Wait. What about me?” someone called good-naturedly from behind him as he and Kuvi walked through a swarm of kids and staff.
“Thad?”

Thad was aware that it was Brooke trying to get his attention, but something had caught his eye. He saw Alice at the edge of the crowd. She was on her tiptoes, shouting something into Sal Rigo's ear. Rigo's brows furrowed and he nodded. Alice ducked behind a grove of saplings planted just past the sand. He saw her long bare legs moving rapidly in the direction of the cabins, and then she disappeared. Lots of counselors were making runs back and forth from the beach to the dining hall to keep the food table stocked, so that wasn't what set off Thad's mental alarm. It was more Alice's furtive manner that had caught his attention.

No sooner had he thought that her actions were suspicious, Sal Rigo also slipped behind the grove of trees.

“Thad!” He turned and saw Brooke standing on the beach, smiling. She looked radiant tonight. She beckoned to him. “Celebration dance with me?”

He read her lips and manner instead of actually hearing her. The noise level at the beach party was out of control. “Sure,” he said distractedly. She was referring to the fact that they'd both
been offered positions as Durand managers, he knew. But instead of going to join Brooke, he turned back to scan the shore. An uneasy feeling had come over him.

“Thad?”

“I'm sorry, can I take a rain check?” he asked, pointing significantly toward the kitchen and making a face. He was pretty sure that Brooke didn't understand him, but since he was purposefully being evasive, he didn't really expect her to. He plunged into the crowd of shouting, celebrating kids in the opposite direction from Brooke.

*   *   *

ALICE
trudged up the last part of the road, watching as the castle floated fully into her vision. There was enough light left in the sky for her to see the grand, elegant home. She knew it was her imagination, the remnants of a child's fanciful mind when it came to the house, but it often struck her as sentient: always ageless and waiting, sometimes mysterious in the sense of a wondrous fairyland, occasionally secretive, threatening, and dark.

Maybe it was the boisterous sounds and music of the distant beach party reaching all the way up the bluff, but tonight, she got no ominous vibes from the castle. Of course it was hard to be anxious with a man of Sal Rigo's heft at your side.

“When I'm with Dylan, I usually enter at the back,” she called to Rigo when he headed toward the front door.

Rigo nodded and fell into step behind her as they walked toward the side of the house. Earlier at the party, she'd thought he seemed a little more approachable, wearing his Camp Durand T-shirt, talking with the kids as he passed out the photo journals, and helping out the counselors and employees setting up food and beverages. Presently, he'd switched back to his somber professional persona. She noticed him studying the side view of the castle through a narrowed gaze.