Chapter 5 Amelia #2
A man like Emory could have any woman he wanted, but he wasn’t looking at other women. He was looking at her. Emory kept her eyes and nodded slowly. He wanted more, demanded it with the heat of his gaze and his jaw set firm.
Amelia’s heart slammed in her chest. How far was she supposed to take this? As far as he wanted, it seemed. Her fingers crept up the inside of her thigh, just beneath her dress, and her lashes fluttered with a quiet sigh.
No longer smiling, Emory licked his lips and his Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow. He narrowed his eyes with a look that said, “I will eat you alive then fuck what’s left.”
And what if she let him? She could chalk it up to all the anger, fear, and confusion coiling inside her. The truth would claw its way out eventually, though. She wanted it, wanted him.
“Go on. Go talk to him,” Brian said and scrolled through his phone’s notifications. “Dude’s eye-fucking you. He clearly wants you over there.”
What the fuck am I doing? Amelia shook her head and collected her composure, though her cheeks burned and hands trembled. Yes, Emory fascinated her, but some things were better left alone, and she was heading in the wrong direction. She needed out of this mess, not dragged farther in.
“No. I have to go,” she insisted. “What did my mom say?”
“She’s upstairs. Said she’ll be down in ten. That’s plenty of time to go talk to him.” Brian grinned as he shoved his phone in his pocket. “Who the hell is he?”
“No one.”
“No one, but not a nobody. Rich seems to know him. Look.”
Amelia glanced over her shoulder. With one arm slung along the back of the sofa, Emory glared at Rich Dauer.
In years past, Rich planted himself at the party’s epicenter to soak up the attention. His roaring laughter would echo through the mansion, a reliable indicator of both his whereabouts and drunkenness.
Tonight was different.
He rushed through the horde with his eyes downturned and lips contorted in a grimace. Rich had always been a handsome man with sandy hair and a syrupy Georgian accent, thick despite his years in Oregon.
Ashen-faced, quiet horror unseated his sly charm as he gaped at Emory, whose attention turned to two men across the great room. The men looked the part in black suits fit for the occasion, but the facade ended there.
They didn’t drink or smile or speak. There were more men; two near the piano, a few more by the bar. All around the room, they stalked the sidelines like wolves encircling oblivious prey.
A black figure shifted in Amelia’s periphery.
She peered out the window beside her, across low-grown hedges, and into the kitchen.
Like death in the mausoleum, a man stood at the window in a black coat with the hood obscuring his face.
He turned his head and stared at Amelia with one coal black eye.
The other was missing. A heinous smile festered on his lips.
Icy dread spilled down her spine. Amelia spun from the window as thunder exploded through the mansion. The lights cut out, plunging the party into darkness, and shrieks replaced the extinguished music.
Amelia dashed forward, ready to flee just as the lights and music returned. The crowd cheered. Her pulse flooded her ears. It was wrong. Something was wrong.
On high alert, Emory was on his feet and stared down the others invading the room. He issued what looked like an urgent command to his companions. The four of them rushed from the sunroom and followed Richard, who scurried up the stairs.
“What’s wrong?” Brian asked, his face a mask of concern.
Amelia didn’t know how to quantify. The night, the pit in her stomach, the strangers who shouldn’t be there.
All of it was wrong. Horribly wrong.
“There are people here who shouldn’t be,” was all she could manage.
Brian scrutinized the great room. What was there to see? The drunks danced with dizzying delight, blithely unaware of something she couldn’t put into words.
“We never know who most of these people are,” he laughed, but the humor dissipated as Amelia gently nudged him away.
“I need to find my mom and get out of here. You should leave too.”
“Leave? Amelia, what’s going on?”
She didn’t answer. Her legs compelled her forward, and she sprinted up the stairs. The lights flicked out, and the crowd gasped but broke into whooping applause when they powered on again.
Amelia rushed along the third-floor corridor and rounded a corner to another hall. Loud thuds and a pained scream sounded from the room next to the service staircase. Behind the closed door, angry shouts punctuated scuffling, as if two people struggled against one another.
She tiptoed to the end of the hall and ducked out of view a few steps down the service stairs. Behind the door, Richard pled on strained heaves. Amelia leaned in close to listen. The step beneath her groaned. The shouting stopped.
She silently slipped down the stairs, out of sight to the second floor just as the door above flew open and footfalls pounded down the steps. Amelia closed her eyes and crushed herself against the wall. The stomps stopped halfway down.
After a few seconds of agonizing silence, a man shouted, “No one’s out here, Chief!”
She relished a sigh and sunk against the wall as the man retreated. A few moments later, the door above slammed open again and someone hurried down the steps. Her limbs locked as Richard rounded the newel post and barreled toward her, his face red and swollen and blood staining his dress shirt.
“Move! Let’s go!”
Hot bursts of his breath hit her cheek, and his fingers cinched her arm. Amelia squealed and dug her heels into the runner rug as he dragged her down the second-floor hall.
“Stop! You’re hurting me!”
“They’re here for you,” Richard said through clenched teeth, his eyes frenzied and unfocused. “You wanna die tonight?”
Wrenching her arm away, Amelia crumpled to her knees.
Richard abandoned her and limped down the hall.
She ran in the other direction, down the service stairs and to the great room where the music had stopped, but not from the storm.
Soft confusion rippled through the party with excited murmurs and exchanged smiles.
“A surprise guest?” someone speculated.
With her heart beating out of her chest, Amelia opened her mouth to tell everyone to run, go, get out.
But it was too late. Gunfire erupted in the great room followed by blood-curdling screams.