Chapter 3 #2
“Our great-grandfather,” he said, when her eyes caught on the portrait of the man who could have been his double, if not for the weathered harshness of his patrician features and the heavy handlebar mustache. “He liked to hunt.”
“No kidding.” Her voice held a touch of dryness. She looked at the picture beside it. “Who’s that?”
“That was his second wife.” Ben spoke up before he could. Cal had forgotten that he was still here. His brother’s gaze drifted to her bare legs. “Evangeline.”
The word rolled between his teeth like gristle. Nadine tore her eyes from the portrait and gave his brother a wary squint. “What happened to the first one?”
“She died.”
“H-how?”
Cal took a slow step towards her. “From asking too many questions.”
A rusty squeak left her throat and she flitted around the couch, all aflutter with fear. But not just fear. For he could see her eyes, and the flush in her cheeks, and the quick rise and fall of her breast. She wanted him, poor thing.
And that scared her, too.
“She’s getting away, Baby Cal.” His sister laughed delightedly as Nadine hugged the couch in her fright, looking between them like a trapped mouse. “Don’t be a bungler.”
Cal lunged and she screamed—bright as silver, the sound slithered through his veins like a snake of ice as she released the upholstered back of the couch as if she had been shocked. “Where do you think you’re going?” he purred.
Oh. That look, those eyes, those trembling lips.
He could imagine what it would be like. Hunting her. Chasing her. Tracking her through the tortuous paths of Passer Woods before dragging her to the loamy earth and handing her the knife.
If she asked him prettily, he would even let her hold it to his throat.
Intent on his prey, he stalked closer, forgetting that his siblings were even in the room. Her shoulders flinched but she didn’t move. Her eyes were on his, focused and unblinking, as if she didn’t trust him enough to look away. Wise of her, though it wouldn’t help.
He took another slow step. And another.
Her lips had parted. He could hear the breaths that were stirring the wisps of hair around her face, quick and urgent. One more step, and he could touch her.
The fear in her eyes was fading. She leaned towards him.
Yes. That’s it, he thought. Come to me.
“We hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,” Ben said, “but hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.”
Nadine jumped like she’d been shot, ripping her eyes away to stare at the floor. She might have whimpered.
Speaking through clenched teeth, Cal snarled, “That isn’t funny, Ben.”
From the look on his brother’s face, it appeared he found it very funny, indeed. The man who had cried crocodile tears into his scotch over his dead wife was no more; he had snapped back into place like a cracking leather belt, ready to draw blood. His father’s perfect weapon.
“I’m leaving now.” Nadine grabbed blindly for the doorknob, nails scratching at the door. She still wouldn’t look at him. “I’m going home, do you hear me?”
“Where’s home?” He lunged again, and her sizable backside smacked against the door this time when she jumped. She pressed against it like a flower. “Let me drive you.”
“No! I’ll be fine by myself. It’s a short walk.”
“Ooh, a short walk.” Odessa chuckled. “I bet that means she’s staying with Jessica Mayhew. I saw her lurking around the general store earlier, buying up pamphlets and maps.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Is that where you’re staying, Nadine?”
“Yes,” she said miserably.
“Good girl. Now, was that really so hard, Nadine?”
At his teasing, her eyes lifted again, and this time, they were hot with challenge.
Not such a good girl, after all. Even better.
When her mouth tightened stubbornly, he imagined softening those lips with a vicious, claiming kiss, cracking that brittle shell of composure until all she could do was make those breathy little screams that had his blood singing.
Perhaps some of his thoughts showed on his face because she looked rattled, and her eyes flicked past him—not to his watching siblings at his left, but the door behind him.
You won’t make it, he thought silently. I’m much faster than I look.
Ben sighed loudly, dragging Cal’s eyes back to him with impatience. He was worrying at his scarred hands, though when he noticed Cal looking, he shoved them into the pockets of his light jacket. “I’m going out,” he announced coldly.
“Where?” Odessa asked with interest.
“To take care of that thing for father.” He looked at her, ignoring Cal. “Do you want to help?”
“Oh, I love to help,” she said. “I live for it.”
“Help you right into the grave,” Cal said. Pointedly.
Ben’s smugness dripped away like cheap paint. Odessa gave him a scolding look, but the curl to her mouth betrayed her amusement. Still out of Nadine’s sightline, she flipped him the bird while his brother gave him a look that could have frozen stone.
“I suppose you’ll be taking your car.” Nadine spoke up. Acceding to the ride—and to him.
“Just for a little while.” He smiled at her, a hint of wildness seeping through it. “Unless you want to stay?”
“No.” Her eyes flicked to the portrait of his great-grandfather. “I mean, no thank you.”
“Then I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.” He spoke casually, leashing his eagerness from his siblings. To Nadine, he said only, “Come.”
He got another matronly look of disapproval for that, but she was an obedient creature and had perfected the pretense of meekness. She followed him like a sullen little ghost down the hall, her sneakers landing on creaking boards that the rest of his family had long since learned to avoid.
They passed a glass cabinet and the glass captured her reflection so that it seemed that she, too, was just another curio. She studied the dead birds ensconced within, her mouth tight with distaste. “Do you like living here? Or do you just enjoy murdering all the wildlife?”
Cal stopped walking. She nearly crashed into him, and he felt a tug, followed by taut resistance, as she tested the grip that he had on her hand.
“Are we so terrible?”
“You’re—” She stumbled, and so did her fingers, as honesty warred with politeness. “A lot.”
“I bet you could handle me, Nadine.” She blushed again, making a little sound of incredulous disbelief, and he forced himself to turn away so she wouldn’t see his smile.
It was the first time he’d smiled in weeks and it felt very nearly wrong to do so here.
Sobering, he said, “Come, keep up. I don’t think you want to be here when my parents come back. ”
“Where are they?”
“Some donors meeting. For a historical society they’re a part of.” Rather ironically, since the parts of their history that would be of the most interest to the public were the very parts they strove so hard to hide.
“For Ravensgate?” she asked presciently.
“Yes, and others. It was my idea that they join. They get a rather large tax break for the conservation easement.” He ran a finger over the patterned wallpaper, picking up traces of ancient dust that clung to his skin. “This house breathes history.”
She didn’t say anything else but he was aware of her attention as if it were a tangible force.
He wondered what she was thinking. The house had an effect on everyone who stepped over the threshold, but some were more susceptible than others.
Nadine seemed particularly sensitive, studying their possessions as if trying to derive deeper meaning.
He steered her by the shoulder towards the carriage house, where they kept all the cars.
The further they got from his family, the more her confidence seemed to expand.
When she backtalked him about his Rolls and flouted her determination to dig into the past, come hell or high water, he found himself growing amused again. Enchanted, even.
At the wedding, he had been attracted to her face and body, yes—he’d always liked a soft-looking woman who could give him a good fight—but there had been many women he found physically appealing that he hadn’t bothered to pursue.
He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, precisely, that drew him to her, but it had something to do with the determined way she held herself as she navigated her way through the world, and the way she looked at him when she could barely bring herself to meet his eyes.
They were restless, those eyes. She had restless hands, too, except when she was talking and then she held herself very still, as if every word required her utmost concentration.
Very serious. Very earnest. His brother hadn’t credited her for that because he clearly saw her as her sister’s double, but Noelle was no more like her sister than a river stone was a lode of unpolished quartz.
There was a quick mind behind those misty grey eyes.
In the proper setting, he suspected she would be quite striking. She already was.
“I know you know more than you’re letting on about Noelle,” Nadine said, though she blinked at the volume of her voice in the car. “You, and Odessa, and Ben.”
“Is that right? And what’s your plan? Are you going to torture the information out of us?”
“I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she said haughtily.
His laugh was startled from him, like a dark bird taking flight. “Oh, Nadine. You have no fucking idea.”
“You know what I think,” she said, as if he wasn’t half-ready to carry her back into his house and throw her down against his sheets to find that out for himself, “I think you’re trying to scare me. Because you’re afraid of what I’m going to find out about you and your weird and creepy family.”
“Clearly, it isn’t working,” he said. “Or you’d be having an evening nightcap with Helena Peters right now, toasting to my ruin. So if your plan is just to needle me to death with those little kitten teeth of yours, I suggest you revisit the drawing room or find yourself another ally.”
“I don’t like you,” she said sulkily.
“I’m devastated,” he informed her dryly.
Nadine iced him out, gripping her thighs with white-knuckled hands.
Beyond the window, the town was quieting.
Most of the residents had retired to their homes, their lights glowing like yellow eyes where they peeped through the trees.
The tourists and commuters had departed and now the town appeared to be slumbering like a large, lazy beast.
Argentum had an early curfew that had never needed to be enforced.
The town had been dogged by dark whispers of what happened to girls who stepped out after nightfall for years.
They had said that his great-grandfather liked to ride unmarried young women down on horseback, and the rumors hadn’t changed that much, except now he was dragging girls away in foreign cars.
“Fine,” she snapped. “If you’re not going to answer my questions about Noelle, why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on with this town? Why are they acting like you’re—”
“The devil incarnate?”
“You said it,” she told him primly. “Not me.”
“Mm. I don’t think even you could resist me if I was able to get you alone.” He remembered the way she had fled from him halfheartedly, backing far more slowly than he suspected she was able. “All towns need their demons, Nadine.”
He spoke seductively, and was surprised to see a look of devastation on her face. When she turned away, he found himself feeling thwarted and uncharacteristically at a loss.
She didn’t say anything else until they had pulled up in front of Jessica Mayhew’s house, headlights off. There was a flickering light in what he assumed was the living room. Nadine stared at the house, pulling at the loose threads of her shorts. She made no move to leave.
“Some of those rumors are true, you know.” He stretched his arm over the back of her seat, leaning towards her confidingly. “I have taken girls into those woods.”
Her eyes darted involuntarily towards the treeline, and then away. “I don’t care. They’re your woods. You can do what you want in them.”
“How very pragmatic of you.” He smiled when she turned up her nose. “Don’t be like this, Nadine. We’re on the same side. I want your sister found as much as you do.”
The words had a faint ring of truth. Noelle hadn’t deserved to die.
His brother should have kept her safe.
“Do you.” Nadine gazed at him bleakly.
“I do.” He reached out to tug at a soft lock of her hair, twisting it in her fingers. “So tense.” Pulling a little more firmly, he tugged her face closer to his. “What is it about me that makes you nervous? Is it my body? Or just—me?”
Nadine made a sharp noise and yanked on the door handle, spilling herself out of the car and causing the seatbelt to snap back so sharply that Cal had to lean back to avoid getting struck by the metal buckle. He laughed again. “Goodnight, Nadine. Dream of me.”
Her face furrowed. “You—”
With a grin, he peeled away. He saw her take several unsteady steps back onto the curb. It was too dark to see her face but he found that he could quite easily conjure it in his mind’s eye.
As he returned to the looming specter of his family home, his smile faded.
She was clever and no amount of teasing would distract her from her purpose.
Ben already had her in his sights and seemed intent on driving them apart.
Doubtless, his father would only do the same.
She didn’t have the composure of his mother and Noelle.
Nadine would not be content to sit in a glass case and fucking endure while gunshots went off in the woods.
But then, what was the alternative?
He remembered that girl from his youth—the first person he had ever let himself believe he could perhaps one day grow to love.
Though those feelings had long since faded, Cal still remembered the taste of her lips, the shards of sunlight-yellow in her jade green eyes, the soft way she had yielded to him as he fucked her on the forest floor with his hands tangled in her hair.
He had almost been out of his teen years, drunk on the pleasure of discovery and possibility.
But now, he mostly just remembered the look in her eyes as Ben slit her throat.