Chapter 11
Amelia
Tom held up a palm to signal Amelia to remain where she was.
As he crept to the bedroom door, she could almost hear her heart pounding.
Noises out of place in an otherwise silent house—that was what fired her fear response.
Even more so than a gunshot cracking past her, though that hadn’t happened until today.
She knew from therapy that you tended to get a stronger visceral response to situations you had experienced than to abstract or theoretical threats.
Except when it came to sharks. Pretty much everyone had an irrational fear of sharks.
Downstairs, a door opened and then snicked again—the back door.
Quick footsteps crunched outside. Tom leaped down the stairs almost in one stride.
Amelia crossed to the bedroom window, but it only offered her a side view: a lawn dotted with trees.
She heard the back door open again, and then nothing.
After a few minutes, she inched down the stairs, wincing when her foot hit the squeaky one, though her labored breath was twice as loud, and keeping silent was probably futile now.
The back door hung half open, swinging slightly in the breeze.
The sounds in the cottage were the same as earlier—the humming fridge, a ticking clock, a faucet dripping into a metal sink—but she heard them with more clarity now, like her ears had upgraded their software.
A succession of what-ifs tumbled through her head, but the one that implanted was: What if Tom didn’t come back?
As tempting as it would be to lock herself inside the cottage, that would be the obvious place for a pursuer to start looking.
It was a small house, and even if she could barricade the doors, it’d be easy enough for someone to smash a window.
Besides, who would raise the alarm if she didn’t get away?
She had to assume that outside help was not coming of its own accord.
She stole through the kitchen, reaching the doorway just as a large figure appeared in it. She was hyperventilating too much to emit more than a squeak. Tom. It was Tom.
“I didn’t get a look at him,” Tom said, closing and locking the door. “He got too much of a head start, and it’s a maze through those trees. Could have gone any direction.” In the distance, a vehicle engine started up, and accelerated away, driven hard. “Guess he made it to the road.”
Even that reprieve wasn’t enough to bring Amelia’s breath back.
“Shooting at us one minute and running from us the next?” Tom continued. “This keeps getting odder. He must have been hiding in Duncan’s study. We should… Amelia? You are seriously shaking.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just…”
“Hey. Hey, it’s okay.”
He grasped her forearms and looked her in the eyes with his moonstone gaze. Healing, calming, and soothing. She’d take all the help she could get.
“I’ll be fine in a minute, honestly… I’m not good with jump scares.”
“You’ve just had a car crash and been shot at. It’s okay to feel shaky, especially on top of your history. I feel shaky too.”
He didn’t feel at all shaky. He felt solid and strong.
He enveloped her in one of his full-commitment hugs, and honestly, she wasn’t sure whether her insides were churning from the intruder just now or the reminder of the robbery or just utter relief at the comfort.
She’d noticed, in the last year, that she would get somewhere relatively safe—to work, to her car—and exhale, and only then realize how tense she’d been.
This was that relief magnified a hundred times.
As with inhaling and exhaling, you could only hold it in for so long before it all came rushing out.
But standing here with him, she could feel herself gaining strength.
A magic spell, and nothing to do with any magic potion, she was sure of it.
She took a breath and forced herself to pull away. Now was not the time to spin a cocoon, and even a guy like Tom couldn’t protect her from everything. “I’m not the ideal person for you to be stuck in this situation with. When it’s a choice between fight or flight, I default to ‘freak out.’”
“You sure about that? Your instincts saved my life back there.”
“They did?”
“Shoving me away from that cliff, before the rifle went off?”
“Oh, yeah. That already feels like it happened several death-defying moments ago.”
“Every situation is different. You did what you needed to do.” He narrowed his eyes, looking at her eyebrow. “Let me quickly clean that cut while we’re here.” He leaned past her to grab a paper towel from a roll on the counter. “When you say you freak out, you’re talking about the robbery?”
“Yeah.”
He dampened the paper towel in the sink. “No one can judge you for that, and you certainly shouldn’t judge yourself.”
“I know, but…”
“But?”
She fiercely blinked her stinging eyes. “Thing is, my freak-out almost got us both killed—me and Rory. That’s the thing I can’t shake.”
He dabbed the wound. She felt the cold of the water, but no pain. “What do you mean?”
“They warned me that if I made any noise at all, they would hurt Rory.” She swallowed, though her mouth was desert-dry.
“They told him the same. But I panicked, I wailed. I couldn’t help it, it was instinctive, I didn’t even comprehend I’d done it.
There was this thud, from the other room, and a muffled scream.
They’d hit Rory—kicked him in the ribs, I discovered later. Broke a couple.”
“That was absolutely not your fault.”
“I know that, in theory, but it’s like you with your grandfather. You can’t help but think…”
“Yeah, I know.” He balled up the paper towel and tossed it into a garbage can. “The cut’s not bad,” he said, looking at it. “It’s stopped bleeding.” He refocused on her eyes. “The men who robbed you—they haven’t been caught?”
“Not a single lead. Of course, I see them all the time.”
“Hang on, you do?”
“It’s never them, of course. Well, I mean, how would I know?
I never saw their faces, so whenever someone looks at me strangely, or just a beat too long…
” She shuddered. “If I’m out walking anywhere and I hear footsteps behind me, I’ll pull over and let whoever it is pass, and of course it’ll be someone hurrying to the subway, or out for a walk with their miniature poodle.
Completely harmless but I get these constant peaks of adrenaline.
I stopped wearing a smart watch because I was sick of getting alerts that my heart rate was dangerously high.
It only really came down when I was locked away in the conservation studio at work.
We have good security—to protect the collections, of course. ”
“An escape from the real world.”
“Exactly. When I was concentrating on the tiniest threads, I felt calm again. I would put headphones on and listen to audiobooks—Jane Austen, of course—and the world vanished. Replaced with an alternate universe with firm rules, in which the villains are rakes and narcissists and snobs, not masked assailants, and the deserving live happily ever after. It might sound crazy, but Jane Austen saved me.”
“That does not sound at all crazy.”
“She filled my head with something that wasn’t fear.
She got me through the hardest moments. Because the worst thing is not that they invade your home, but your head.
They were in the apartment for less than thirty minutes, but it feels like they’ll be in my head for the rest of my life.
And I hate that I can’t get rid of them.
” She shook herself, involuntarily. “Anyway, I’d prefer to be doing something to get us out of this, not standing here falling apart.
Shall we have a look in Duncan’s study, see if there are any clues?
” She scoffed. “And now I sound like Miss Marple.”
He assessed her with sharp eyes and a gentle grin, and gave a quick nod. “His keys could be in the study. When this is over, I’m getting you the best counseling money can buy. Well, the best counseling what’s left of my money can buy.”
“First, I might have to finish the therapy I’m already doing. Supposed to be doing.”
“Supposed to be?”
“I did a bunch of sessions, but then my health insurance ran out and… The thing with therapy… Have you ever done it?” His posture seemed to stiffen. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”
“I have.” It was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it, so she didn’t press it. Something to do with his brother’s crash? Or his military service? “Mind if we walk and talk?” He started for the stairs.
“It turns out it’s you who has to do all the work,” she said, following him to the stairs.
“I thought the therapist would tell me what was wrong and have some magic spell that would fix me—some mantra or something, I don’t know—but she wanted me to relive everything, and …
just the thought of that was… And I don’t think my therapist really ‘got’ me.
Like, when we were talking through the robbery, she suggested I replace the word ‘horrible’ with ‘unfortunate’!
But what I went through wasn’t unfortunate!
It was horrible! Also, I would cry in every session.
Completely bawl. And I’d leave feeling worse than when I went in. ”
As he reached the stairs, he glanced back and took her hand. Gestures like that seemed to come naturally to him, though he couldn’t possibly know the effect they had on her.
“I didn’t want to process those feelings,” she continued.
“I just wanted them to go away. Sometimes it’s easier just to let them swish in and out and wait for them to pass.
Because it’s exhausting to keep the barrier up, it’s exhausting to let it slip and take the hit, it’s exhausting to work through it.
It’s like, take your pick—which variety of exhaustion do you want?
So, yeah, I failed therapy. I know I should go back, but… Well, I decided on a vacation instead.”
“And you had the misfortune to come to my crumbling pile.”