Julianne was bored and lonely, a lethal combination. Zach had been gone for two days. He’d called her a couple of times, keeping up the happy-marriage appearances for the Moodys, she assumed. She’d visited Lil, polished furniture, practiced the piano, watched movies and went for walks with the dogs.
At night she wallowed in Zach’s bed but had been careful not to be nosy about his belongings, although she doubted he left anything around that he would care if she saw. His office door stayed locked.
The second night while getting ready for bed in the walk-in closet she heard a thump on the wall behind a rack of clothes. She froze. After a moment she hung up her pants and moved toward the wall. She pushed hangers aside, put her hand on the wall. Another thump.
She jerked her arm back and waited again. Nothing. She gauged the size of the closet and realized it didn’t take up all the space to the outside walls of the castle. She went into the hallway, walked it to the end. No door. No access of any kind to another room.
Returning to the bedroom she paced the distance from the door to the back wall of the closet. She looked for a secret panel, but found nothing. Then she paced off the distance in the hallway. Short by fifteen feet or so.
She realized then that the noises she’d heard from above while she was in the media room couldn’t have been coming from the tower room, because it was on the third floor, or whatever that level would be called. The noises she’d heard had to have come from the space—a room?—nestled between Zach’s bedroom and the outside wall.
She pressed an ear to the room-without-an-entrance, could just barely make out sounds. A television, maybe?
Julianne returned to the master bedroom, tugged on some warm clothes, grabbed a flashlight then made her way outside. She peered up at the castle and counted windows. An extra window for sure, next to the master bedroom.
And the light was on.
If she could get herself to higher ground she might be able to see inside. She looked around. The full moon was cloaked by dark clouds. The scent in the air indicated impending rain. She’d never walked the trails—if the narrow, winding paths could be called such—at night, without Zach. Would she get lost? Not if she kept the castle in sight.
Her stomach churned as she climbed, the beam from her flashlight bouncing along the uneven path. Every few seconds she turned to look at the castle. No movement. When she reached a level even with the second floor she sat on the cold, wet ground and waited.
There! Someone passed in front of the window again. A minute later the light in the tower room came on. Someone stood at the window looking out. Julianne was too far away to make out any details. The light from behind turned the person into a silhouette. Okay. It was starting to make sense. The woman who lived in the tower room also used the space below it. A suite, of sorts. Connected by an interior staircase most likely.
So, who was in there? In gothic novels a crazy relative often lived in the attic. It certainly wasn’t any ghost, unless ghosts really could materialize. Had he or she chosen isolation…or been forced against their will?
Which was ridiculous. Of course Zach wasn’t keeping anyone prisoner. Except…
She recalled the look on his face when she’d asked about Hannah, and he’d shown her a side of him she hadn’t seen before, one that struck a little fear into her heart and had reminded her how little she knew him. She’d fantasized about him, turning him into her own ideal of a man, not the true picture.
Hannah. She’d only guessed there was a connection there. Many of her drawings were the view from the castle. A former girlfriend? Wife? Julianne realized she didn’t even know if he’d been married before.
Was Hannah the person in the tower?
Julianne needed binoculars to see inside the secret rooms. She stood. Just as she did the light went off in the tower and, a minute later, in the room below. Julianne hadn’t left a lamp on in the master bedroom. She had no guiding light to help her return.
A big, fat raindrop landed on Julianne’s head, followed by another, then a whole lot more, then a deluge. She sprang up. She was already cold and wet from sitting on the ground. Now the freezing rain quickly drenched the rest of her.
Just keep moving downhill. You have to reach the bottom sometime.
She wished for lightning, anything to light up the surroundings and let her find her way, which became more obscured and confusing by the moment. She lost track of any semblance of a path as rain washed away dirt, carving tiny rivulets. She’d never seen rain this intense.
She got turned around. Downhill. The word repeated in her head as she got her bearings. Downhill. She fell, slipped while trying to stand up, fell again. She forced herself up and carefully made her way again.
Panic set in as she didn’t reach a building or even level ground after hiking what seemed like far enough. The beam of her flashlight, while good enough to light a path ahead, didn’t put out enough of a beacon through the downpour to illuminate anything more than thirty feet away.
Her stomach knotted. Her throat burned. Her hair was plastered to her head and face, a sopping mess, dripping into her clothes. Zach! Find me. Come find me.
Her silent plea went unanswered.
She slipped again, landing hard, knocking the wind out of her. She lay there, her eyes and mouth closed to the rainfall, unable to draw enough air to fill her lungs again. She rolled to her side, then her stomach, raised up on hands and knees, sucked in air, clawed at mud, slipped…
Something shoved her. She screamed, scrambled to find a foothold, then realized it was the dogs. She dropped to her knees, an arm around each neck and cried in relief.
“Take…me…home,” she said breathlessly, hoping they would understand, not sure they would respond to anyone’s command other than Zach’s.
She slipped a hand under each of their collars. “Home. Please.”
They headed to the left, when she would’ve gone right, but she trusted them. At least she could sleep with them and stay warm. If they stayed with her.
Holding on to the dogs helped her keep her balance. How far had she gotten from the castle? It seemed to be taking forever to get back.
Two short whistles rang out. Zach? Instead of taking off, Archie barked…and barked and barked. Belle chimed in. They stopped walking, holding her in place, as well. The whistles came again. The barking alert started again in earnest. The beam of a powerful flashlight lit the trees around her.
“Here!” she called.
“Julianne?”
“Yes! Here!” She plopped to the ground. It was Zach. He was home. He would help her.
She went blind from the light he shined on her face. She wanted him to drop down beside her, to hold her, shelter her, tell her she was fine.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, no sympathy in his voice at all. The dogs greeted him. He patted them, praised them.
“I got lost,” she said. “You’re home.” She sounded pathetic, but she didn’t feel strong at the moment.
“What were you doing out?”
“I…couldn’t sleep.” Which was true. She wouldn’t have been able to until she knew for sure about the room next to the master suite, and that a person lived in it.
He grabbed her hands and pulled her up. The dogs led the way. She discovered she was only about fifty feet from the castle. Almost home. If he hadn’t arrived when he had, he never would’ve known about her foolish adventure. And the dogs would never have told.
The thought made her laugh, hysteria layering the sound. She cursed her father and brother for never letting her out in the world, therefore limiting her life skills. She should’ve been able to handle what had happened just fine on her own. Instead she’d fallen apart when Zach came to the rescue, making her seem even more immature than he already thought.
“You are the most idiotically reckless woman I’ve ever known,” he muttered as they stood inside the utility room off the back entrance. He peeled off her coat as he talked, his movements jerky, fury in his voice and actions. “You didn’t think you could fall down and hurt yourself and that no one would know until morning? You didn’t realize you could slip off the edge of the cliff straight down to the rocks below, especially when it’s muddy? You could’ve died! Do you understand that?”
“I’m s-sorry.” Her teeth chattered.
He continued to undress her to her underwear. “You should be.” He opened the laundry room door, reached inside and came back with a towel, which he held open, blocking his view. “Strip.”
She decided not to argue. She’d been wrong to go out at night. She didn’t want to upset him more than he was. So she stripped off her bra and panties and let him wrap her in the towel.
“Go take a hot shower,” he said. “I’ll be up soon.”
She hurried away, toward the sanctuary of the shower. The worst hadn’t happened. She hadn’t gotten lost or hurt herself, except her pride.
Yes, it could’ve been worse. Much worse.
She wanted to force the issue of who lived in the tower room but knew it wasn’t the best time for questions of any kind.
She jogged up the stairs, went straight into the shower, planning to stay there until her bones warmed and she’d improved her story about why she’d been outside in the first place.
Zach draped Julianne’s muddy clothes over a rack in the laundry room, then added his own. When he thought about the possibilities of what could’ve happened to her…
He’d come home, crept into their bedroom in the dark, not wanting to wake her, then discovered she wasn’t in bed or even in the house. He’d called the dogs, commanded them to find her. They had. He might have been out there all night trying to track her in the rain.
All because she was having trouble sleeping.
He whipped a towel around himself, tucked it at the waist. The laundry room door opened.
“Mr. Zach,” Mr. Moody said in surprise. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“I didn’t need anything, so I decided not to wake you. Julianne was out in the storm, however.”
The older man came to attention. “I didn’t know…”
“I realize that. You would’ve hunted her down yourself. No harm came to her, but it can’t happen again.”
“I’ll be more vigilant when you’re not home.”
“Thanks.” She’d been entrusted by Jamey into his care. Zach had already taken advantage of that trust by kissing her, by almost making love to her. He couldn’t let her be hurt—or worse. “I’m fairly certain she won’t go out at night again.”
“Got lost, did she?”
“I think she panicked.”
“And the reason for her adventure?”
“She couldn’t sleep.”
Mr. Moody’s brows lifted. “You believe it?”
“There’s more, I’m sure. She has asked me about Hannah.”
“Sir?”
“I was shocked, too. I don’t know how she knows or how much, but she’s got the name.”
“I didn’t say any—”
Zach cut him off with a gesture. “I’m sure of that. And of Mrs. Moody’s silence on the subject.”
“Lil?”
“I can’t imagine it.” No, not Lil. She was the only other person on the Prom who knew Hannah personally.
“There’s no one else.” Mr. Moody hesitated. “Except your friend Jamey.”
“Not Jamey.” He said the words with the certainty of his belief.
“Not intentionally.”
“Not even by accident.” Zach angled his head to look at the ceiling. “I think my wife awaits.”
“You haven’t had much of a honeymoon.”
If you only knew. “Some things take precedence.”
“Yes, I know. And a lot of us are grateful for that. For your sacrifices and now Julianne’s.”
Zach patted his shoulder and left the room, wishing he’d earned Mr. Moody’s gratitude but knowing he’d failed. That Mr. and Mrs. Moody stuck with him was a testament to something, but Zach wasn’t sure what.
He expected Julianne to be asleep by the time he got into bed. He didn’t speak to her as he walked around the bed, into the bathroom and climbed in the shower.
What was he going to do about her curiosity, which had resulted in recklessness this time? Jamey would’ve killed him if—
No. Zach couldn’t use Jamey as an excuse. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself if something had happened to her. Not because she was his charge, but because she lived. And he cared about her.
There. He’d admitted it. It wasn’t just physical attraction. She made him laugh. She teased and flirted with him. He liked her. He would miss her when she left. For the little bit of time he’d feared something horrible had happened to her, he’d come as close to panic as he’d known for a long time.
A few minutes later he left the bathroom and made his way to bed. She lay far, far away. Her breathing indicated she wasn’t asleep.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he said more harshly than he’d intended when he was under the blankets.
“I can’t promise you that.”
He was proud of the fact he didn’t groan, loud and long. “Julianne—”
“Zach.” She turned toward him. “A situation may come up where I have to do that again.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. How would I know? But it may. I don’t want to break a promise. But I’ll tell you that I would only do it if I found myself without options.”
He couldn’t handcuff her completely. “Fair enough.”
“Did you drive the boat in this rain?”
“I rented one. It’ll be picked up tomorrow. How’d you pass the time while I was gone?”
“Slowly.”
He smiled at the ceiling.
“Why do you do it, Zach?”
“Do what?”
“Rescue people.”
“Someone needs to.”
“I thought kidnap was the FBI’s jurisdiction.”
“It is.”
“Do you work for them?”
“I used to.” He could hear her interest pique. The bed shook a little as she rolled to her side.
“You quit?”
“A few years ago.”
“Why?”
“I found bureaucracy too…restrictive.”
“Meaning you’re a rule breaker, and you couldn’t break rules?”
“Something like that. By the book doesn’t always work.”
“So you quit, formed your own team and wrote your own book.”
“That sums it up.”
“Have you been happy with that decision, Zach?”
“I’ve never looked back.”
“And you break laws in your pursuit of retrieving people who are kidnapped.”
“Not necessarily breaking laws all the time but being willing to take risks outside of the manual.”
“Which brings me back to my original question. Why do you do it?”
“And my original answer. Because someone needs to.”
“Where you went this time—were you successful?”
“Yes.” Just barely. The boy was almost killed. But he wasn’t, Zach reminded himself. He wasn’t.
“Do things usually happen that quickly?”
“The first forty-eight hours are the critical window.” She’d asked and he’d answered enough for one night. “Good night, Julianne.”
After about ten seconds of silence she also said good-night.
Later, when he was still struggling to sleep, he felt her come toward him, the bed barely moving, the sheets barely rustling. She stopped just short of touching him. He waited a few minutes then he slipped an arm around her sleepily and pulled her close. She pressed her face against his neck and sighed.
It was too damn bad she fit there so perfectly.