Winter's Touch (Immortal Touch Series) (12 page)

“
And a word of warning, Evangeline.” The cruel coldness had returned to his voice. “If you ever try to escape from me again, I will thrash you until death seems a welcome friend.”

With his icy breath, the flame
was extinguished.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Vicious Beauty

Can’t deal, too stressed. Leaving for a while. Love you, plz don’t worry!

As if she could do anything
but
worry. It had been over a week since Eva had vanished like a wisp of smoke in the sky, and this last brief text message was the only tangible clue Abby possessed.

That, and the voice mail left
just twenty minutes before the text. She’d had the vacuum cleaner running and didn’t hear the phone and
God
, how she wished she’d heard and answered that call. She wished it with every fiber of her being.

What could have happened in the span of twenty minutes to send her daughter running?

There were so many things wrong with the whole scenario, she didn’t even know where to begin.

First of all, it wasn’t like Eva not to return her calls.
Abby left message after frantic message, to no avail. Her own phone remained silent as the grave.

Second,
the car was still at the dealership, repaired and waiting to be claimed. Which led her to believe her daughter wasn’t alone because she sure wasn’t going to get far on foot.

Third,
there didn’t appear to be anything missing from her closet. Why would she leave without packing any clothes? In addition, her bank account hadn’t been touched, nor had her credit card been recently used. It was as if Evangeline Rowan Spencer had simply ceased to exist.

The police offered little support, and Edwin even less than that. It made her blood boil to think of his
uncaring attitude when she’d called him.
What do you expect me to do about it? Hell, Abigail, she’s a grown woman! Did you think she’d stay in the nest forever? Let her go and get a life of your own! I have patients waiting - I don’t have time for your hysterical bull right now!

It was par for the course, in his case.

While it was true that Eva had her hands full with school and had just been terminated from her job, there was no reason to think she’d been overburdened. Her bank account had over five thousand dollars in it, so the loss of part time employment shouldn’t have been upsetting enough to push her over the edge. It made no sense. She’d always been such a practical, dependable girl. And yes, she knew how to take care of herself, but still...

The world was a scary place.

If only she’d call. Just to let her know she was safe...

~
*~*~

No longer confined to
her bedroom, Eva was free to take her meals in the dining room, though she preferred the cozier warmth of the small kitchen. The house always felt chilly to her. Even the heat from the gas fireplace didn’t penetrate the constant bite in the air. And whenever Julian happened to be downstairs, he turned it off anyway. He seemed immune to the cold.

Inspection of the rest of the house revealed little.
His bedroom door was kept locked, as was one of the downstairs rooms. Those were forbidden to her. Beyond that there was only the library, Lainie’s room, a small laundry room, kitchen and dining room. A search of the grounds proved just as fruitless. The Cherokee was housed along with a snowmobile in an enclosed garage that was also kept locked, and the one tiny window was too small for her to wiggle through even if she did somehow manage to locate the keys. The wolves watched from a distance, their tongues wagging as if they were laughing at her.

No computer. No phone. No means of
reaching the outside world. If it weren’t for the television in the living room, she might have begun to believe the rest of the lucid world had been sucked into some parallel dimension. She half expected Rod Serling to suddenly appear in the background to deliver some clipped monologue. Thank God for the familiar and comforting sounds of sitcom reruns and laugh tracks. They were a symbol of normal, routine everyday life.

The antithesis of what her own life had become.

And yet, in some strange way, things here were not as abnormal as they should have seemed. Lainie treated her as a revered houseguest and Julian, while aloof, was still cordial. On the surface nothing was out of the ordinary - it was what lurked beneath the surface that filled her with apprehension. She was, after all, a hostage. And this was no bed and breakfast.

She was curled up on the plush sectional sofa one afternoon with a novel she wasn’t particularly interested in when Lainie came breezing in.

“I’m away for the messages. Is there anythin’ ye’d like?”

Eva gave her a blank look. “
Whose messages?”

“She means she’s headed for the store.”
Julian, just coming down the stairs, translated.

“Oh.”
The Scottish certainly had a colorful way of putting things. “Um...I’d love a Coke, if you don’t mind.”

“
O’ course, dear.” The woman reached for the set of keys Julian held out to her. Eva eyed them wistfully. “I’ll be back soon enough.”

“Wait - I’ll come with you.” It was a ploy she didn’t expect to work. And it didn’t.

“You’re not going anywhere.” His voice was stern, and the way he said it made her want to hurl something at his head. Who did he think he was, anyway? She was sick of taking orders from him. Since when had he been appointed supreme ruler of the universe?

“Did I ever tell you what a
barbaric philistine you are?” she said, once the front door had closed behind Lainie.

He stifled a yawn.
“Is that so.”

“Yes, that’s so
! What makes you think you can just keep me here forever? Do you really think you won’t eventually get caught?” She slammed the book down on the end table. “I’d like to see what happens when you do. You wouldn’t last ten minutes in prison.”

“
Well, aren’t we feisty today.” Apparently uninterested in pursuing an argument, he ambled lazily into the kitchen. After a moment, Eva followed. She wasn’t done ranting, and his was the only available ear.

“
You know what I think?”

“I expect you’ll tell me.”
He pulled open a drawer and rummaged about, more intent on finding whatever he was looking for than in listening to her.

“
I think your days are numbered. You’ve been getting away with this for way too long. At some point someone’s going to...suspect...what the hell are you looking for?” His opening and slamming of drawers was distracting her from her tirade.

“A pencil.”

“There’s a pen right there in front of you. Are you blind?”

“Did I ask for a pen?”

“What difference does it make?”

“The difference is, this is a pen and I need a pencil. I suppose I could use the pen to illustrate the
variances between the two, if necessary.”

“
I know the...God, you’re the most aggravating person I ever met in my life!”

“And
you
apparently never progressed beyond kindergarten.”

Her temper ignited,
she snatched the pen off the counter. “I can tell you the difference between the two! The pen is the one that’s about to be sticking out of your skull!”

“I doubt that.”

“What? You don’t think I’ll do it?”

“I know you won’t.” He rested his elbows on the counter and leaned against it, smirking in a triumphant way that only
fueled her anger.

“
Don’t bet on it! I could put your eye out with this!”

“What are you waiting for then? A diagram of my anatomy?”

“I’m waiting for you to...to
shut up!
”

“You’re the one doing all the talking.
I wonder if you ever stop.”

“I’ll stop when you’re cold dead in the ground!”

“You aren’t going to put me there with that. Why don’t you try a kitchen knife instead? Much more effective than a pen, I assure you. There’s one right behind you.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the
handles protruding from the bamboo block, and traded the pen for a sharp boning knife.

“Good choice.
Now, I would highly suggest you make that first blow count.”

“I’d cut out your heart, if you had one!”

“It’s right here.” He touched the spot on his chest with two fingers.

“
That’s
a good one! There’s nothing
there
but a blackened chunk of coal!”

“Stop procrastinating.” He spread his arms out by his sides. “I’ll make it easy for you.
You have a completely immobile target. Come on then, let’s see you draw some blood.”

In spite of her
ire, she knew what a futile gesture it would be. The blade might look formidable, but to him it was little more than a minor inconvenience. His wounds would heal. Hers would remain. And that was that, wasn’t it?

She sighed
irritably. “If I thought it would do any good...but it wouldn’t, would it?”

“Other than a fleeting moment of satisfaction on your part, no. I, on the other hand, will revel in your
subsequent punishment. I can promise you
that
will last for hours.”

“You’re going to get yours one day. That is
my
promise to
you.
”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He smiled insolently.

“I never do.”

“Are you done with your little tantrum? I have work to do.”
He resumed his search through the cabinets, dismissing her.

“I hope you
never
find a pencil,” she snapped, slinging the knife across the counter and storming out of the room. Not the wittiest insult she’d ever come up with, but she was off her game today. His arrogance made her
crazy.
And what work was he talking about, anyway? She was dying to ask but pride kept her from it.

And when she heard him cheerfully call from the kitchen -
found one!
- she wanted to scream.

~
*~*~

It was fro
m the kitchen that she heard his music for the first time.

Seated at the table with Lainie while they shared a
lunch of shepherd’s pie, she caught the faint strains of what sounded like some sort of Celtic instrumental coming from the unexplored room on the other side of the seldom-used dining room.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

Lainie wiped her mouth primly with the napkin in her lap. “It’s just Jules. I expect ye’ll hear a lot o’ that. He spends a fair amount o’ time in the conservatory.”

Eva couldn’t resist. “Let me guess. It was Colonel Mustard with a candlestick.”

The elderly woman gave her a puzzled look, not understanding the reference. “Colonel who?”

“Never mind.”

“He works alone, dear. Very talented composer, he is.”

This
was unexpected news. “He writes music?”

“That he does. Plays the piano beautifully.
And
the cello.” Lainie beamed with pride.

Eva couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d discovered
that he designed tactical ballistic missiles for NASA. “You’re kidding. That’s him playing?”

“Aye.
He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s workin’. Ye can hear some from outside the door, if ye’d care to listen.”

“
Hm. Maybe later.” She swallowed one last bite and took her plate to the sink. There was something else she wanted to check out right now. If he was busy banging away on the piano downstairs, then there was time to explore more upstairs. Namely, trying his bedroom door again. She hadn’t given up on the hope that he might at some point forget to lock it.

And a
s it turned out, luck was with her. His door had been carelessly left unlocked so she slipped quietly into his room, viewing it for the first time with wide-eyed fascination. She didn’t know what she had expected - black burial shrouds and coffins and gargoyles, maybe - but instead it was tastefully furnished in rich mahogany. The enormous four poster bed was draped with deep burgundy bed curtains that matched a luxurious down comforter. A far cry from the obligatory dirt-filled pine box that typically served as a vampire’s resting place in the movies.
His
was a room fit for pampered royalty, but she had no time to stand around and admire it. Somewhere in here there could be a laptop, cell phone...hell, even a ham radio would do.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in his closet, unless you counted a vast selection of designer clothes and shoes. One thing
certainly couldn’t be denied - he had classy taste. No bargain basement sale items here.