Seeking Evil (Looking Into The Mind Of A Killer Series) (29 page)

“
You
’
ve read it?
”
h
e asked quietly from the doorway.

“
Yes.
”

He pushed away from his place leaning against the
doorframe
and
came and sat next to
her
.
“
He was sick, Anna. That explains his
odd
behavior. He couldn
’
t help himself.
”

“
No. I understand that now. I just wish
…”

He took her hand in his.
“
I know. Me too.
I wish he could have trusted us with this burden.
K
nowing the truth now
helps. For someone like Aaron to learn he had the early onset of Alzheimer
’
s had to be terrifying. He was so intelligent.
I can't imagine how frightened he must have
been
.
”

Anna nodded.
“
Do you think he wanted to die? Did he go into the building that night after Peterson to die?
”

Anna
wished John
would deny it
, but he
didn’t
.

“
I don
’
t know.
Anna, he wasn
’
t himself. Whatever he did, that wasn
’
t Aaron. It was the illness.
”

John stared into space, looking back into the past.
“
He told me something once, right before his death. It
’
s always troubled me. He said that within every person there is the root of evil. It was up to the person how they chose to deal with the root. They could accept it
,
give life to it, or they could ignore it, and let it naturally wither away.
”

“
I think he was talking about himself. Aaron was afraid he was going to turn into the same type of monster he hunted.
”

Anna
remembered Aaron
’
s manuscript. The one
she
’
d destroyed. That was one piece of the past John didn
’
t need to know about.
She
wanted him to keep some of his fond memories of Aaron. Hearing those dark, disturbing
rants
written
by
a man
she
knew
now
had been mentally ill, would destroy those memories.
Anna
had to live with that. John didn
’
t.

For
her
, the thought of Aaron keeping such terrifying fears to himself was impossible to understand.
She
wished that he could have trusted
her
. John. Someone.
Perhaps he’d found that confidant in Cheryl Larsen. The thought no longer hurt as much.

With all the secrets
John and
Anna
had laid to rest, there was still one final piece to bury. It was the hardest of them all.
“
The baby…John.
”
She
forced the words out.
“
I
’
m sorry.
”

The unmerited forgiveness in his eyes was hard to take.
“
I
t’s okay
.
”

He’d always been so
understanding.

John smiled and squeezed
her
hand then drew it to his lips and kissed it.

She
freed
her
hand and stroked his cheek. “I’m so sorry that I denied you the right to grieve. That I wasn’t there for you when you needed me to be.”  

He shook his head. “
It doesn
’
t matter.
There’ll
be more children. We
’
ll fill this house with them.
”

Anna had
once believed there was a part of John that no woman would ever be allowed to touch
, including herself
. Now
she
understood how wrong
she
’d been. It hadn’t been John keeping
her
at a distance. It was
Anna
…
her
doubts.
Her
fears.
Her
uncertain
tie
s, not his. Looking at the love in John now,
she
loved him all the more for not giving up on her
. 

In answer,
her
eyes filled with tears. He was more than
she
ever imagined and more than
she
deserved.
She
wanted all of those things with him.
She
went into his arms with a quick nod.
“
Yes, and we
’
ll be happy every day of
our
li
ves
. Because we
’
ve gotten a second chance.
”

He didn
’
t answer. He didn
’
t need to.
She
saw the love in his eyes that had always been there
through the dark times, the good times, and would be there for all the uncertain times to come in
their
future
…
together
. A
nd
she
knew it would always be
enough.

The End

About the author

Mary Eason grew up in a small
Texas
town famous for, well not much of anything really. Being the baby of the family and quite a bit younger than her brothers and sister, Mary had plenty of time to entertain herself. Making up stories seem to come natural to her.

As a pre-teen, Mary discovered romance novels and knew instinctively that was what she wanted to do with her over-active imagination.

Today, Mary still lives in
Texas
, and still writes about romance. In fact, she can’t think of anything else she’d rather do.

Out Of The Night Book One of The Night Gives Up Its Secrets – Available now

Prologue

The past is just the past

Wake!

Wake up, Gabrielle’!

Jessie Seville awoke with a scream, sitting up in bed. Her body was rigid with fear.

Come to me, Gabrielle!

Cold sweat dampened and tangled her auburn hair and a single name played through her frightened mind.

Lili.

Without a shadow of doubt, she knew she hadn’t been dreaming. It wasn’t just another nightmare, awakening her from a sound sleep to this terrifying, uneasy silence. The feeling grew stronger with each passing second, warning her clearly of the danger that now surrounded Lili, as well as herself.

“Lili, what’s happened to you?” she whispered into the stillness as she reached for her cell phone and tried Lili's number. The call went straight to voicemail.

She knew her worst fears were coming to fruition.

Something evil had been brought back to life. Caught within its grasp was the image of the girl who’d been her friend since childhood. The girl closer than any sister. Lili.

There was no doubt Lili Von Eyssen’s life was in grave danger and she was reaching out to her friend by the only means possible, through the miles that separated them.

****

Prince Viktor Brincoveanu gazed into the murky waters of the lake while the breeze stirring the trees above him seemed to whisper her name.

Gabrielle’.

Her presence embraced him. He could almost feel her, touch her. Taste her. If he closed his eyes, she would be there, as always, never far from him.

It was both a blessing and a curse that this constancy still had the power to bring useless tears to his eyes after all these years. But then, it had been this hope, the hope that one day she would return to him, that had given him the strength to endure all the long empty years of darkness. The will to survive the nightmare of his existence.

His life.

Yet her memory would be forever branded in his heart.

Her soul haunted him each night he returned to this place. The heartbreak of their last night together was given a life of its own, with the sole purpose of reminding him of just what he’d become and all that was lost to him forever.

And tonight, like the thousands of nights before, he’d come here. Waiting. Waiting with desperate longing.

Waiting without hope. Hoping without any real belief in her return. After all, hope was a human emotion. He wasn’t human any more.

The memories of all they had shared together by this lake made her seem so real to him.

And yet...

Her presence was closer tonight. So very close.

So real.

He could almost feel her touch, soft and gentle, like the ghost of her that haunted him each night. But why now? Why after all these long years did he feel so close to her tonight?

He’d long ago given up trying to reach out to her. Whatever bond existed between them ended with her death more than three hundred years ago.

Why now?

Was it his imagination, or perhaps his insanity? No, it was far too strong. As if her soul, once dimmed in death, was being reborn. Returning to him.

He closed his eyes tightly and her image appeared before him. As he listened to the wind whisper her name over and over, he knew.

Gabrielle’ had returned.
 

Chapter One

Awaken evil

Six hours later, as Jessie rushed to board the plane that would begin her journey to
Bourdaqueste
,
Romania
, she said a silent prayer for the safety of her friend. In the endless hours that passed since she’d awakened, the feelings of fear and urgency had intensified. Without a doubt, her friend Lili’s life was in danger.

All of her attempts at reaching Lili by cell phone had failed. Jessie had tried the traditional way. She'd finally managed to understand the overseas operator enough to discover there was no listing for the Von Eyssen family in the
village
of
Vandeburg
. Or for that matter, in all of
Romania
.

Lili had told her she was going to visit her great-aunt Ilsa whose health had been failing for quite some time. As Lili's only remaining relative, she'd felt as if she owed it to the elderly woman to visit. That had been almost a week ago. Lili was supposed to have returned to
Texas
by now. Something was terribly wrong.

At that moment, Jessie’s decision became final. She was going to
Romania
, on the next possible flight out, and nothing would stop her from finding Lili and bringing her safely back to
Dallas
. Her first call had been to her father. Her second to the airline.

As Jessie glanced around the plane at the small number of passengers on board the early morning flight, she wished more than ever that she’d gone with Lili to
Romania
to claim her unexpected inheritance, the Manor Von Eyssen. After all, that was what Lili had wanted.

Lili, for all of her flirty, independent, and sometimes wild child ways, had lived a very sheltered life and she was only seventeen. Although younger than Jessie by only a few months, her age wasn’t the problem. It was Lili herself. She’d been raised by a succession of overpaid au pairs. The Von Eyssens rarely spent time with their only child, which had left Lili painfully insecure.

Lili’s family came from ultra-wealthy Romanian immigrants who’d left their homeland more than a half-century earlier, with the rise of communism. The Von Eyssen’s were direct descendents of the lost throne of
Romania
, the Royal Bessarabia family.

Lili was the last remaining member of that once proud bloodline, according to her great-aunt Ilsa Von Eyssen.

So when Lili's great-aunt Ilsa had called to send her condolences after Lili's parents had died in the car accident and her great-aunt had invited Lili to come for a stay at the family’s ancestral home located on the outskirts of
Vandeburg
,
Romania
, a region bordering the infamous
Transylvania
. The house, along with some obscure title, was all that was left of that once powerful family dynasty.