Chapter Five
White Cottage
Scenic Drive
Rory’s skin felt as if ants were crawling all over her. She needed to move…to do something. But all she could do was stare through the windshield at the chalet-style cottage in front of her.
Chance had parked and shut off the engine, but he’d said nothing yet.
She understood. He wanted her to focus on her thoughts, not his voice or his questions. Her feelings and the sensations related to being back here for the first time since that night were what he wanted to hear about.
Her wedding night.
Rory shivered at the memory. This was something she hadn’t believed she would ever need to do again. But, as he said, it was likely necessary. Could possibly even prove helpful. So she would endure the hurt and just do it.
On their wedding day, she and Pete had arrived in his SUV.
He’d parked right where they were sitting now.
Rory closed her eyes. Her brand-new husband had leaned across the console and pulled her into a deep kiss.
And then another and another. He’d whispered between kisses, warning her of all the things he intended to do to her.
She had giggled and whispered her own deepest desires and erotic intentions.
They’d climbed out of the SUV and rushed to the door of the charming cottage he’d chosen for their honeymoon.
They were already tugging each other’s clothes off before they’d so much as gotten through the door.
The frantic, breathless sounds echoed through her mind as if she were back there…
smelling his scent, tasting his lips and his skin.
Hours later they’d come back outside and grabbed their bags. The moon had been big and bright. The moment had felt magical. Nothing else mattered. The whole world had felt a million miles away. It was just the two of them.
Rory opened her eyes. “When we came back outside to get our bags,” she said, turning to the man behind the steering wheel, “I don’t think we locked the cottage door. I’m not even sure we locked it when we first arrived and went inside. Or the second time we went inside.”
He acknowledged her words with a nod.
She reached for the car door and got out.
Glimpses of that night—laughter, stolen kisses and touches—flickered one after the other through her head.
They had meandered along the path to the door, which was actually the back door of the cottage.
The front faced the lake. She paused at the door and studied it.
Chance lingered a few steps behind her.
Her fingers traced the brass welcome sign on the door. Giggles whispered in her head as she recalled Pete trying to open the door without taking his hands off her body. They had lived together for months already, and still they had been crazy for the taste and feel of each other.
Chance reached around her to enter the code for unlocking the door.
She stared at him, her heart pounding, her throat too tight for speech.
She felt too warm, and at the same time, ice crept a slow path through her veins.
He pushed the door inward, and she walked inside.
More of those whispers sifted through her, making the organ in her chest beat even faster.
The door closed behind her, and she jumped.
Rory turned to face the man who’d brought her here. “We didn’t lock the door. I’m sure of it.” She closed her eyes, forced those moments to replay in her head. Pete’s arms had been around her. They had half walked, half stumbled to the bedroom, leaving their bags on the floor by the door.
“We had gone out to get our bags. It was late.” She shook her head. “I don’t remember what time.”
“Did you come back to the door for your bags before the intruders showed up?”
Her forehead was lined with the effort of searching her brain. “Yes. We must have. Because I was wearing a nightgown when they…broke in.”
“Let’s walk to the bedroom you used,” Chance suggested.
She met his gaze, held it for a time. As much as she wanted to argue with the suggestion, she turned and started forward.
The door entered the cottage near the kitchen.
The bedroom was just to the right…only a few steps.
The bedroom, like the rest of the place, was white.
The walls, the floors…everything was white with only a piece of furniture or decor that deviated from the pure white.
Even the exterior was all white, thus the name White Cottage.
The bed wasn’t large because the room wasn’t.
The cottage was small. Built like a chalet with steep vaulted ceilings and enormous windows.
It was beautiful, simple and utterly charming.
When Pete saw how enamored she was with the place, he insisted he would build her a lake house just like this one.
“Cottage,” she had argued. “This is a cottage.”
He had laughed and conceded the point.
“This is where you were when the intruders arrived,” Chance said.
She nodded. “We were asleep. We’d had a lot of champagne.”
“Was the television turned on?”
A small television sat on the chest of drawers next to the French doors that led to the balcony. She shook her head. “No. No television.”
“What about music?”
“We’d had music on earlier, but the battery on his cell phone had died, and we hadn’t bothered to dig out the charger. So no music was playing when I woke up.”
Rory walked to the French doors and stared out over the water below. It was so calm and peaceful. There were no houses on the other side of the lake. There were a few neighbors along this side, but most were rental properties, and none had been occupied that night.
She turned to Chance. “Is it strange that on a Friday night in May, there wasn’t a single other rented property on this street?” Not once in two years had she considered the idea. But now, looking back, it seemed odd.
“Let’s sit down and discuss what you remember about the other houses.”
Rory led the way to the main living area. It too was small. Just a sofa, side tables and a dining table. The space was connected to the galley kitchen. Just a modest rectangle with those same cathedral ceilings. An iron spiral staircase at the other end led to a loft.
She sat down on the sofa while Chance pulled a chair from the table so he could sit facing her without, she assumed, crowding her too much.
“The wedding was at six on a Friday.” She smiled, thinking back.
“We were so busy. We’d considered waiting until later in the summer and taking a real honeymoon in the Bahamas or something like that, but we couldn’t wait.
In the end, we decided to keep it simple.
There would be plenty of time for more lavish vacations. ”
Except there hadn’t been time.
“So you arrived here about what time?”
No doubt he was aware of all these details from her statement in the case file, but she understood that he wanted her to revisit those details in hopes of sparking a new memory.
Maybe he was on to something, because she had remembered not locking the door and the oddity of none of the other rentals in the little cove being occupied.
“Wait…” A frown tugged at her lips. “The detective—Fowler, Detective Raymond Fowler—said if there had been intruders, then surely there would have been evidence the door had been tampered with.” Her gaze collided with Chance’s. “But if we didn’t lock the door, then that wouldn’t be the case.”
“Excellent point,” he agreed. “Think about when you rushed out to find help. Do you recall if the door was damaged in some way? Did you have to stop and open it, or was it already open?”
Rory closed her eyes and summoned that painful memory.
She had carefully lowered Pete to the floor.
She’d been sitting on the floor holding him for a very long time.
Hours surely. Just rocking back and forth with him leaned against her chest. She’d gotten up and walked to the door.
She remembered looking back several times. Then she’d been outside.
“I think…” She replayed the memory again. “No.” She shook her head. “I know I did not open the door when I left, so it had to be open already.”
“You walked out into the darkness,” he said, prompting her to go on.
“It was cool. The moon was big…like last night.” She blinked, prodding her brain for more. “I remember wrapping my arms around myself…and the stones.” Her toes curled in her shoes. “No, not stones, gravel. The gravel was jabbing at my feet because I hadn’t put on my shoes.”
By the time a driver had come along, her feet had been bruised, the flesh ruptured by the gravel and rocks and whatever else she had stepped on.
“I went to the left first. I rushed from house to house. There were no lights on anywhere. No cars…just Pete’s SUV.
I banged on all the doors, but no one answered.
Later the detective said no one was home at any of the other rentals at the time.
” She settled her attention once more on the man watching her.
“Then I ran for a while. To River Drive and… I just kept going until there were headlights.”
“Before you left this street,” he said, “did you hear anything? Sound carries at night. Maybe cars on a road farther away? Dogs? Anything at all?”
She struggled to find a snippet of memory that included some sort of sound. “No. I don’t remember anything.” She frowned. “There was this hollow sound in my head. The echo of my own breath…the pounding in my chest.”
“What did you smell? Smoke? It was a cool night. Maybe from a chimney. Or the lingering odor of an outdoor firepit that had been used earlier in the night. Exhaust from a car.”
“Just that earthy smell after rain.” Her brow furrowed as she searched her memories. “It had rained, I guess. I remember my feet were damp.”
“There was no mention of rain in the case file reports.”
“Maybe it only rained a little, but it rained. I distinctly remember my feet were wet.” She sat up straighter. “The detective insisted it hadn’t rained, but I was certain it had.”