Allison heard noises and rolled over in bed only to realize that Zack wasn’t there, and the dark garden outside the windows told her the power was out.
She sat up and pushed the hair out of her face. After they’d come inside, he’d walked and fed Nicholas Trott so she could shower. It was as if he’d understood her need to be alone. By the time he came upstairs, she was in pajama pants and a cami and tucked into bed.
At first it’d been awkward, but Zack’s smile and teasing way had eased her anxiety. After brushing his teeth, he’d come out of the bathroom in gym shorts and a T-shirt. She wondered if he’d chosen not to sleep naked—which he’d once told her he did—because he knew all of this was a bit overwhelming for her.
Then he went to her fireplace and started a fire. Despite the fact it was August, the rain and AC had chilled the air. The fire also offered a muted light, not too harsh but enough to watch him while he worked. He built the fire, moved Nicholas Trott’s blanket into the room, and crawled into bed next to her. All of which he did with quiet assurance and graceful strength. When he reached for her, she clung to him with her head on his chest and his arms around her. He didn’t pressure her for any more than she had to give, and she was grateful.
The fire crackled, sending shadows around the room. Between the sound of his heartbeat, his heat that scorched and protected, and Nicholas Trott’s purring, her mind slowed. The moment she felt Zack’s breathing even out, she’d allowed her eyes to drift closed.
Except now she was awake, and Zack was gone.
She peered over the side of the bed to see Nicholas Trott missing as well. A noise came from down the hallway, and she got up, throwing on her Tulane sweatshirt. She found Zack at the other end of the hall, standing in the middle of the master bedroom, staring at his phone. His gun lay on the four-poster bed, next to Nicholas Trott, who was in his lounging-yet-observing position. An LED lantern lit up a corner of the room.
She paused in the doorway. “Looking for ghosts?”
Zack glanced at her. “I’m looking for the appendix. Again. Alex texted earlier. He learned that Stuart was the last person to have it. He had to have hidden it somewhere.”
“After his death, I went through this room looking for answers. Every drawer. Every closet. I didn’t find anything unusual. No rare documents, and no sign of his affair.”
“His clothes are gone.”
She stopped in front of the closet that once held expensive suits, silk ties, and rows of leather shoes. “Last week I packed everything and gave the boxes to the church.”
Zack shoved his phone into the pocket of his gym shorts and picked up his gun. “What about personal effects? Loose change? Random receipts? Knives? Keys? Lighters? A wallet?”
“I didn’t find anything like that.” She ran her hand over one of the bed’s carved poles that held up the canopy. “Every drawer had a purpose. Socks in sock drawer. T-shirts in another. Even his closet was color-coded. Stuart didn’t believe in junk drawers or coin jars.”
“That’s not right,” Zack said softly, more to himself than to her. “Don’t you think it’s weird Stuart didn’t keep any personal stuff in his room?”
She sat on the edge of the bed to rub Nicholas Trott’s neck and then got up. She hadn’t been on that bed in two years and didn’t want to remember the time when it’d been hers. “I guess.”
Zack went to the window overlooking the dark garden. “I currently live with eight men above a pirate-themed gym once owned by an old man who was a hoarder. I’ve also lived in barracks, BOQs, Quonset huts, and tents. And I can tell you that men always have tons of things in their pockets, in duffel bags, on tables. Everything from condoms to gum wrappers to lottery tickets. It’s odd that you found nothing like that.”
She stood next to him. “The night after Stuart asked me to leave our bedroom, I returned the engagement brooch he’d given me.” She shivered and Zack put an arm around her shoulder. “When I cleared this room, I didn’t find it either. Now I know he’d given it to Isabel.”
She rested against his chest and watched the lights in the garden flicker on, and then go out again. What was up with the power?
Zack rested his chin on top of her head. “Allison?”
She closed her eyes. “Hmm.”
“Did you ever come back into this room while Stuart was alive?”
She shook her head. No point in stating the sad truth out loud. “When I had a housekeeper, she kept it clean.”
“Did you choose what Stuart was buried in?”
She stiffened. It was an odd question, but she had nothing to hide. “Maddie picked out his suit. After I saw his body at the morgue, I couldn’t come in here.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” He rubbed her back. “No one knows, do they?”
The whispered words struck her heart with the force of a broadsword. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She blinked a few times and her face felt hot. The still air had made it hard to breathe.
No. No one knows.
Except she couldn’t get the words out.
“I know how hard it is to carry a secret. To act normal in public, like you’re happy and everything is great, only to know that it’s all a lie.”
She clenched her fists until her nails cut into her palms.
Was he thinking about what happened to his men in Afghanistan?
She felt him swallow and studied his face. Dark stubble lined his jaw, his lips had thinned, and his gaze was fixed out instead of in, as if he were looking for someone.
“When my parents killed themselves at Bayou Saint George, my grandfather was governor of Louisiana. He was obsessed with things like family name and had never been able to accept the fact that my mother refused to marry my father. Or my mother’s mental illness. Grandfather floated the story that they’d gotten married and, after going to Bayou Saint George for their honeymoon, had been murdered by escaped convicts.”
“You never told me that.”
“My grandfather and Vivienne turned Emilie and me into coconspirators. We were kids, terrified and alone, so we went along with the bullshit story. Years later I went to college and met Stuart. While Stuart’s family can be difficult—”
She snorted.
“—they were emotionally connected. They had traditions and memories. They’d built a foundation that, while not friendly, seemed honest and true.”
She agreed reluctantly. She didn’t like Stuart’s family, mostly because they’d never accepted her and hated Rue, but they stuck by each other.
“That’s when I decided I wanted a real family—a real family who lived by the truth instead of falsehoods.”
Again, she agreed.
“Then I met you, a beautiful woman who had a family history filled with as much violence as mine. Watching you was like looking in a mirror. I saw the pain and loneliness caused by silence and fear. For the first time, I realized how the weight of secrets and lies could crush a person—or at the very least, cause a person to make choices out of fear.”
Her shoulders shook. She sank to the floor and struggled to breathe.
Zack sat down next to her. “You’re hyperventilating.”
Her breaths came out faster and shorter.
“Allison.” Zack held her face between his hands. “Look at me.”
She closed her eyes and tried to lie down. If she could get to the cooler floor, she’d be okay.
“It’s okay.” Zack’s voice softened. “You don’t have to keep this secret anymore. I know.”
Besides Zack and Maddie, no one else knew.
Except for Isabel.
“Stuart is dead.” Zack’s voice was so soft, it wouldn’t even be defined as a whisper. “You don’t have to pretend any longer. Stuart had no right to throw you out of this room, no right to shut you out like you were worthless, like your feelings didn’t matter. And he sure as hell had no right to make you feel like this was all your fault or make you believe you were incapable of loving others.”
She hiccupped a few times before saying, “I couldn’t be what he needed.”
Was that her voice? So shaky and low? Trembling like a daisy stripped of its petals?
“No. Stuart couldn’t be what you needed. He failed you. When he realized that, he was so wracked with guilt he had no idea how to handle it. He shut you out, not because he hated you but because he couldn’t bear to hurt you anymore. Not being able to love you the way you needed to be loved was his greatest shame. Not being able to protect you was his greatest failure.”
“How could you possibly know this?”
“Stuart was one of my best friends as well. Before I left for the army, we used to talk.”
“About what?”
“Things that men talk about.” Zack pulled her onto his lap and held her against his chest.
She turned until she faced him. Nicholas Trott now lay half on her lap, while she was tucked into Zack’s. She was surrounded by the two heartbeats of those she loved the most.
Her chest tightened, and she closed her eyes again. Did she love Zack? She honestly didn’t know.
“Allison.” Zack trailed tiny kisses along her face and down her neck. “You’re not alone. You no longer have to carry the burden of being the abandoned wife in private and the loving wife in public. You no longer have to be anything other than who you were meant to be.”
“Zack.” She barely recognized her own voice. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“You’re not, sweetheart. The sad truth is you never were alone. The irony is that somehow, seven years ago, even the Fianna knew that.”
She was too busy gasping for air to argue. She’d confessed her greatest secret to the man her husband had always been insecure around and felt lighter than she’d ever felt in her life. What kind of woman did that make her?
Zack stood, pulled her up as well, and they followed Nicholas Trott to her room. When they got there, the power clicked on again. The AC fans whirred and the outdoor garden lights bathed the room. That’s when she saw, in the shadows near her bed, a man holding a gun.
* * *
Zack drew his weapon and kept Allison behind him. Of course Nicholas Trott had already welcomed the warrior and was now in his dog bed. This visit was the absolute last thing Zack needed tonight. “What do you want, Horatio?”
The warrior hit his chest with his hand and bowed his head. His other hand held his weapon. “My lord sends reassurance and seeks to remind.”
And Zack came that much closer to the lose his shit line. “How’s my sister?”
Horatio pointed to a photo on the bed. Zack picked it up and his mouth fell open. It was a photo of Emilie standing next to Alex. She wasn’t gagged or bound in any way but her eyes were as angry as he’d ever seen them.
“Your sister,” Horatio said, “remains a guest of the Fianna until you find that treasure. Pray tell, my lord, have you?”
Seriously? “No, Horatio. Because we have shit for intel. What about that man you took yesterday? He worked for Remiel. Did you get anything out of him?”
“Nothing about the treasure.” Horatio motioned to Zack’s gun. As soon as Zack shoved it back in his waistband, Horatio put his away as well. “Lady Isabel failed to appear as well.”
“Wait.” Allison drew her hair back from her face. “I thought Isabel was trading the Pirate’s Grille for her meeting with the Prince.”
“She declined.”
“She still has the Pirate’s Grille?” Zack kicked a pillow across the floor and started pacing. “Fuck.”
Allison took his arm to stop him. “Horatio, is there anything else you can tell us about this treasure?”
Horatio nodded once. “Until recently, ’twas the legend that the Pirate’s Grille and the witch’s examination’s appendix, when used together, deciphered a code that would lead to the treasure of the dread pirate Henry Avery.”
“We know the story.” Allison released Zack’s arm and pointed toward the master bedroom. “If Stuart had the appendix, I would’ve found it by now.”
“’Tis quite the quandary.”
Which left them exactly where they started: completely and utterly screwed.
Horatio walked closer to Zack and said in a low voice, “This search is far larger than you or me. If you wish to learn the truth, ask your lord.”
Ask Kells? What kind of bullshit was that? “Thanks for the tip, but I’m not sure how Kells has anything to do with this.”
Besides, if Zack went to Kells now, there’d be all kinds of hell unleashed.
“’Tis your decision.”
Zack flexed his free hand instead of reaching for his gun, which was what he really wanted to do. “What happens if we don’t find the treasure by Sunday?”
Horatio moved past them with that eerie way of walking. “The Prince will turn Lady Tremaine over to the Fiend.”