Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Isat on a chair in the hospital room where Henry and Addie slept, the sedatives the doctors had given them allowing them at least a little relief from the horrors of their new reality.
I pulled the blanket wrapped around my shoulders a little tighter and stared at Henry’s face, wondering how I’d never noticed the resemblance to Whit before. Tears stung my eyes, blurring my vision, and I blinked them away, not wanting the children to see me crying if they should wake up.
A quiet creak of the door opening brought my head around. For one joyful heartbeat, I expected to see Whit standing there, but it was the doctor, wearing that “poor Zellie” look I’d hoped to never see again.
“Have you heard from my husband?” I asked. But I knew the answer before she shook her head.
“I’m so sorry,” she told me. “But I do have some good news for you. All your tests came back okay. The baby is fine despite the puncture wound to your abdomen and the cracked rib. You were very lucky.”
I forced a grateful smile, not betraying the fact that the wounds she’d spoken of were already mostly healed. “Thank you.”
She took a deep breath, clearly stalling the delivery of something else she needed to say, before announcing, “The police have arrived. They want to speak with you about what happened. And, when you’re ready, they will need you to identify the bodies.”
I glanced at Henry and Addie. “I can do that now while they’re sleeping,” I told her. “I want to be here when they’re awake.”
An hour later, I’d given my statement to the police, explaining the blood all over my clothes, my arms, my face, were the result of escaping from the murderous cult that had been living at Dawes House.
Given the body they’d found in the basement wall, the story wasn’t even questioned.
The fire? An accident that started in the struggle.
They seemed to accept the facts much easier than I’d anticipated.
Then I was led to the basement of the hospital, to the morgue where several bodies lay covered by sheets.
The first they revealed was Netty. But the others, burned almost beyond recognition, were harder to identify.
The women were all there—Iris, June, Pearlie, Merilee.
I was able to determine which was which based on what I could make out about their height, a wedding band, a strand of hair that was somehow untouched.
My dagger was no longer lodged in Chase’s skull, but the hole in the top of his head made his identification easy.
Billy Wayne with his broken neck. I held my breath as the attendant peeled back the next sheet and let it out on a harsh sigh of relief.
“That’s Junior Johnson,” I told the attendant who was taking notes, then turned to the final three bodies.
Three.
I wrapped my arms around myself as they pulled back the sheet on the next slab. “Earl Forester.”
“We have a Carter Dean listed as a resident,” the attendant said, checking his notes.
I turned with dread toward the final two bodies. “You won’t find him,” I announced, my voice flat. “He left town with my boss, Dottie Shay, before anything happened at Dawes House.”
The attendant checked off another name on the tablet he carried. “Well, that’s all then. Thank you, Mrs. Proffitt.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
He nodded at one of the remaining bodies. “That’s just bones the firefighters found at the bottom of a well in the basement of the main house.”
No wonder I’d been drawn to that stupid well.
“You’ll probably discover that they’re old,” I told him, suddenly certain I knew who it was. “It’s most likely one of the former residents. A woman named Eliza Dawes Proffitt. She drowned.”
He scribbled it down. “Thanks. We’ll look into that. If they bring in anyone else, we’ll be in touch.”
“What about the other one?” I asked, unable to look away from the sheet-covered body on the remaining slab.
“Oh, that’s from another incident.”
I collapsed to the floor with the enormity of my relief, not bothering to hold back the sobs that wracked my body.
It wasn’t Whit. He was alive. He had to be.
That’s all I needed to know.
The next day, we sat in the chairs at the hospital entrance, Henry and Addie quietly snuggled up against me, while we waited for the police officer who was to pick us up and take us to Dottie’s to retrieve Whit’s car and what remained of our belongings.
After that? I had no idea where the hell we were going to go.
A quiet swoosh of the automatic doors drew my attention to the entrance. A statuesque woman strode in, each purposeful step echoing in the silence of the hospital waiting room. She was dressed all in black, wearing black combat boots and dark shades, her short dark hair slicked back.
Henry sat up straight, his smile beaming. “Hi, Cora!” he called. “We’ve been waiting for you!”
This brought a smile to the woman’s face, softening her harsh features in an instant. “Hello, Henry. I’m delighted to finally meet you.” Then she offered an incline of her head to Addie. “Adelaide.”
When she turned her attention to me, she clasped her hands in front of her, then bent her head forward briefly. “It’s good to finally meet you, Zellie,” Cora said. “Whit has told me so much about you.”
“You’re Whit’s sister,” I said. I’d sensed it the moment she’d walked in, before Henry had greeted her by name.
Maybe it had been something he’d told me before.
Maybe he’d shown me photos. Some of the memories were still a little foggy.
I had so much to learn about him even after all my returned memories came into focus.
I shook my head slightly. “Addie’s sister too, I guess. ”
Cora nodded. “Yes,” she answered simply. “I’ve come to take you home.”
“I don’t have a home,” I told her. “Are you taking us to the house in Charleston?”
She shook her head. “No, Whit had arranged for another house before the unfortunate events of the last two days. I had already planned to arrive today to escort you to safety should anyone try to stop you from leaving. I’m sorry I didn’t arrive sooner.”
There was genuine regret in her voice. And of course it was Cora that Whit had brought in on his plans. Hadn’t he told me that she was the only one he would trust with our safety?
I rose to my feet, a ghost myself as I drifted out to the car waiting for us, my emotions flat, deadened—perhaps a side effect of the shock.
Or maybe a defense mechanism to keep the grief and despair from overwhelming me.
I didn’t care where we were going. It didn’t matter anymore.
As long as Henry and Addie were safe, I didn’t care.
So, I didn’t ask any questions as we drove to the airport or during our flight on the Proffitts’ private jet.
Not even when we sat in the car that drove us to the countryside of what I soon recognized from various signs we passed as somewhere in England.
But when the driver finally turned off onto a winding road, I could smell the ocean, feel the salt in the air.
And soon after, a house came into view—a two story manor with a walled garden with plenty of room for Henry and Addie to run and play. And a spire.
“Good evening, Ms. Proffitt,” a man in a uniform wished Cora as we exited the car. “The manor has been prepared according to your specifications with the additional security measures put in place.”
I heard Cora respond, but the yipping of a puppy drew my attention away. A little brown and black dog that couldn’t have been more than a few months old came bounding out of the house and straight for Henry.
“Daisy!” he cried, scooping her up into his arms, struggling to hold onto her as she squirmed with excitement, eager to cover his face with puppy kisses. Addie giggled and ran over to Henry to snuggle with their new friend.
“Whit,” I whispered as I entered the house, taking it all in.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds to keep the tears at bay, then climbed the stairs to the second floor, peering into each of the bedrooms before finding the master suite.
Off to one side of the room, a set of doors opened out onto a balcony that afforded a view of the rose gardens and beyond to an expanse of land that ended at cliffs overlooking the ocean.
He’d found it. My dream. The house we were supposed to live in together as a family.
I placed my palm flat against my chest, searching for the faint connection.
It was so weak, struggling. It was then that the pain of losing him, the fear of never seeing him again overtook me, and I sank down against the balcony railing, my sorrow too heavy to hold as I grieved for not just the loss of what was but for what could’ve been.
I don’t know what drew me outside that morning three months later. There was something in the air, something that made me restless, that made sitting still impossible.
“Are you alright?” Cora asked, joining me on the porch, coffee mug in hand.
I pulled my cardigan tighter around me and nodded. “Where are Henry and Addie?”
“The nanny is getting them dressed and ready for their lessons,” Cora replied, her brow furrowed much like her brother’s did when he was concerned about me.
I nodded, distracted, but then turned back to Cora and offered her a grateful smile. “Thanks, Cora. For everything. I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”
It was true. Cora had become a trusted friend and sister to me, a loving aunt to Henry, helping me navigate our new reality.
She’d taken care of finding tutors and a nanny who were still loyal to Whit and could be trusted.
Whit had made a lot of enemies, Cora explained, and our safety was her chief concern.
She’d assured me Whit would come to us when it was safe to do so. And after he’d healed.
She hadn’t needed to elaborate on that part. I knew what Whit needed. I tried not to think about the fact that it would be someone else’s blood helping him heal—even if it was just what he could access from a supplier who’d already gathered it from a willing donor.
I’d finished my final class and received my degree. And with Cora’s help, I began sourcing used books for the bookstore I planned to open in the quaint little village where we now lived.
A few weeks earlier, when we were in London at my first auction, I thought I saw Dottie and Carter Dean among those in attendance. Dottie was young again, renewed, but her quirky fashion sense and cat-eye glasses had given her away.
Or maybe I’d just imagined that our gazes had met from across the room because when I was able to squeeze through the crowd to where they’d been standing, they were gone.
Or maybe it was just paranoia that Whit’s enemies would find us, that Cora and our rapidly growing puppy Daisy wouldn’t be enough to protect us.
That I’d have to kill again to protect my family.
My true family.
But that morning, the restlessness didn’t feel sinister. There was an ache, deep in my bones, urging my legs to move. But it wasn’t painful. It was more like…anticipation. Like something was coming.
An intruder? Or visitors, as I call them now that I’m no longer afraid. I’d had several come to me since arriving at the manor, souls who needed my help to tell their stories, mostly women whose voices had been silenced and needed me to speak for them, help them find peace.
But I felt like a fraud some days. How could I help them find peace, when my own soul ached for the vital piece that was still missing?
“Where are you going?” Cora called. “Take Daisy with you!”
Until she’d spoken, I hadn’t even noticed that I’d left the porch and was making my way down the drive. My heart pounded as I increased my pace, bracing my barely rounded belly so as not to jostle the baby when I broke into a jog.
And then I saw him. Walking on the road toward me.
He looked tired, worn down, and his beautiful dark hair now showed hints of gray, but his stride was the same, his smile when he saw me so filled with relief and love that I would’ve known him from a mile away.
But it was only when he rushed to me and gathered me into his arms, holding me like he’d never let me go, that I finally dared to believe he wasn’t just an apparition who’d come to taunt me.
And then he was kissing me, over and over, as if reassuring himself that I was truly there in his arms, until there was only one kiss, tender, loving, perfect. And my heart was whole, my soul complete once more.
Finally, Whit took my face in his hands and pressed his forehead to mine.
I placed my hands over his and closed my eyes, letting his love envelop me, no longer afraid.
There was much to tell, much to discuss, much to work through, but it could wait.
This moment, having him with us again, was all that mattered.
“I’m home, Zellie,” Whit whispered as if saying it louder would shatter our happiness.
Home.
As we strolled back to the house, Whit’s arm around me, holding me close, I finally knew what that meant.