Tiffany Reisz - The Mistress

“Are you sure?” her uncle asked.

She nodded. “I saw the pictures in Mormor’s box. There was one where she sat by a fireplace holding you. She wasn’t smiling. But it was that room in my locket, the one Tante Elle is in. I know it was.”

“Søren?” Wes’s voice prompted her uncle to look up from the locket.

“Eleanor’s at my half sister’s house. She’s at Elizabeth’s.”

“Your sister’s house?” Wes asked. “Is she involved in this, too?”

Søren shook his head. “No, I told Elizabeth to leave the country and travel, to stay on the move. I’d been afraid something like this would happen. She and her sons left last week. She’s not home. She’s not part of this.”

“We’re sure she’s at your sister’s?” Kingsley asked.

“Yes.” Søren looked at Kingsley, who nodded as if Søren had given him some kind of telepathic message.

“We’ll go, then,” Kingsley said. “I’ll call him right now.”

“Call who?” Wes asked. “Go where?”

“We have a friend who lives near his sister’s,” Kingsley explained as he pulled a phone out of his trouser pocket. “Only ten miles away. I’ll be able to plan better if I’m closer. I may have to come and go several times. I need a base. His house is perfect.”

“A friend of yours? Can we trust this guy?” Wes stared aggressively at both Kingsley and her uncle. For the first time she wondered who he was, what he was to her aunt that made him so deeply a part of this nightmare.

“We can trust him. He owes me. He owes him, too.” Kingsley nodded at Søren as he scrolled through the numbers on his phone. “And he owes our missing Maîtresse most of all.”

Laila sensed excitement in the air. Not excitement, no. More like anticipation and even a measure of relief. They knew something now, something more than they did before. And even more, they knew something the woman who had her aunt didn’t know they knew. They knew where to find her.

“He doesn’t owe you anything,” her uncle said with obvious exasperation.

“He kicked me out of my own bedroom. He owes me.”

“Who is he? Nora’s life is on the line here. If you won’t even let me call the police—”

“He’s on our side, I promise,” Kingsley said. “Trust me, you’ll like him. He’s nice and dull. Married, a family man. He’s even … honorable.” Kingsley said the last word like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“A nice and honorable family man?” Wes repeated, sounding utterly shocked Kingsley would associate with such a person. “Then why are you friends with him?”

“Because he’s kinky as hell, and I used to fuck his first wife.”

“Kingsley, please,” Søren said, scowling.

“This is why no children are allowed in my house.” Kingsley winked at Laila. “You turn everyone vanilla.”

“I’m eighteen now,” Laila protested.

“I was talking about him.” Kingsley pointed at Wes with his phone. Laila smiled at Wes, who rolled his eyes.

Kingsley raised the phone to his ear. Someone on the other end answered as Kingsley grinned like the devil himself.

“Wake up, Daniel. I’m calling in that favor you owe us.”

For what felt like an hour, Nora paced the room with the green curtains. They hadn’t handcuffed her, hadn’t gagged or bound her; they’d simply left her to walk unencumbered. She tried the window first and found it locked and barred. She’d need a blowtorch to get out that way. The door seemed too dangerous. Anyone could be standing behind it with a gun waiting to shoot on sight. Still, if no one came back for her in another hour or two, she’d give it a try. Better to die on her feet than huddled in a corner crying.

She kept moving about the room, trying not to give in to panic. Where was she? She felt like she should know. The furniture was elegant but old and dated. She’d guess someone had decorated the house in the 1960s and no one had bothered updating the decor since then. It gave the room an eerie feel, like she’d fallen into another time. Or that time stopped in this room. When she paced she pushed against old stale air that had probably wasted away in this room as long as the furniture had.

What the fuck was happening? She thought she knew everything about Søren’s marriage to Marie-Laure. Thirty years ago, Søren had brought Marie-Laure from Paris to visit Kingsley in lieu of the Je t’aime that she knew Kingsley had longed to hear. Søren told her that he’d never considered the possibility of marrying Marie-Laure until he’d seen how happy Kingsley became in her presence, and once he’d thought of marriage, he realized it could be the perfect solution. But Marie-Laure had ignored Søren’s cautions that he would never love her back and she’d fallen head over heels for him. Head over heels … how it began. How Nora thought it had ended. Marie-Laure catching Søren and Kingsley in an intimate moment … Marie-Laure running through the winter woods in shock and grief. She slipped on ice, perhaps—or maybe it hadn’t been a simple slip—and plunged a hundred feet to her death, her body shattering on a rock below. Now she knew it had been a lie. Marie-Laure had learned long before that moment she walked in on Kingsley and Søren that they were lovers. Did she think she’d done them a favor? She would die and leave Søren a widower, and he and Kingsley would fall into each other’s arms and be happy together forever?

I gave them my death as a gift … and now I’m taking my gift back .

Nora stopped her caged pacing long enough to glance out the window again and peer between the bars. The stars danced high in the night sky. What time was it? How long had she been here? She wore the same clothes she’d had on in the stables with Wesley back in Kentucky. She still had on her black snakeskin cowboy boots she’d worn riding. Still had on …

Nora glanced down at her left hand. On the ring finger sat a diamond that outshone the stars in the sky outside the window.

“Wes …” she whispered, staring at the ring. God, poor Wesley. He must be out of his mind with panic now. What had he done? She prayed he hadn’t called the police. Getting the police involved would only make things worse. This woman might be crazy but she was dangerously crazy. She had to be intelligent to fake her death and make a life for herself for thirty years. If Marie-Laure wanted revenge on Søren it would be easy enough—kill Nora. She knew Søren would rather see his own heart cut out than allow anything to happen to her. If the sirens started screaming, it would be quick work to slit her throat and disappear back into whatever secret hellhole Marie-Laure had been hiding for the past thirty years.

Footsteps in the hallway alerted her she had perhaps only a few more seconds alone. At one end of the library stood a fireplace, and by the fireplace hung a row of antique bronze fireplace tools, including a poker. She felt a strange something when she picked it up. The heft of it surprised her. There was a weightiness to it greater even than its actual mass. She sensed history in it and didn’t understand why. Didn’t matter. It was the same length as a riding crop and she gripped it just the same. Kingsley Edge had been the first man to put a riding crop in her hand. A riding crop used properly merely stung like fire when applied to the body but it sure as fuck could do a lot of damage if used improperly. Kingsley’s number-one word of warning to her when he gave her the first of her little red riding crops—never go near the face, never go near the eyes. I met a boy in India who’d been blinded when a rich man hit him across the eyes with a riding crop. Don’t get me sued, chérie .