I sigh as I look up at the ceiling. The dimmer light in the chandelier must not be turned completely off, because two bulbs are glimmering a faint yellow.
I don’t see two bulbs though.
I see two eyes.
The rich amber of those dark, evil eyes as they peered down at me out on the side of the hill.
My hand comes up to touch my throat as I remember what it felt like to be under him. His hard body pressed against mine. His breath teasing me with his threats. It was soft but filled with violence at the same time.
I know his name now. Merric. But it took me a while to get that information. It took a lot of innocent conversations with close enemies to tease that out of them. Merric Case.
I called him the soft killer those years in between. Not that he’d kill me softly, if he ever decided to come back. But he whispered his threats that night. I close my eyes and feel his breath, sliding into the shell of my ear—tickling me with fear.
Merric.
Brett.
Merric.
Brett.
My hand slips down into my expensive lace panties and finds the sweet spot. But I pull back and swallow down my sick desire.
Why? Why do I think about him? He punched me in the face. He left me with Garrett that night. He had to know what he was doing to me. But he left me there.
I close my eyes and think of the man I have, not the man who says he owns me.
Brett is nothing like the men I grew up with. My father had some interesting friends and none of that was in a good way.
I’m his illegitimate daughter from a woman he had on the side after his wife died. He and his wife never had any children, so he took an interest in me. He tried to save me, too, I guess. He sent the soft killer to come get me. At least I think he did. It’s hard to tell who was setting up whom that night. Was Garrett setting up Merric Case and his friend? Was the little girl the target the whole time, and my father used Merric to get her father away from her so they could take her out?
But the girl lived. I know that for sure. I saw her on the TV once. Garrett and I never met up with those militia friends again, and for that I can be grateful. If they had been around when he disappeared, they’d have stepped in to fill his role. I shudder at the thought of them touching me.
But now I have Brett. Perfect Brett.
I turn over in my soft bed and close my eyes. I need to try to sleep. Put these old memories behind me. Slip into my brand-new life as wife, and sister, and maybe even mother.
That makes me smile. I picture perfect little Brett babies. Tow-headed kids with blue eyes and cherub cheeks. His sisters all have kids, so I can easily slip one of their faces onto the child that might be ours.
But the dark hair and amber eyes come back to me again.
Stop, Sydney.
Why didn’t he come? Why did he let me live?
My phone rings a tune I’ve never heard before. I’m in a daze as I stare down at it.
It stopped ringing. Did I answer it?
And then I sit straight up in bed as the answer to why Case lets me live comes to me.
He’s going to come after Brett, not me. I can’t marry Brett. I can’t marry Brett. Case will make him disappear, just like he did Garrett. Only this time Case won’t be saving me, he’ll be killing me.
My feet are on the cold wooden floor in an instant and I walk over to the window. He can’t get us here, Sydney. He can’t.
The wind is blowing so hard it whistles through tiny cracks in the window sill. I can feel the draft. It’s the dead of winter at the lodge Brett’s family have owned since it was built in the 1920’s.
And it’s closed. It’s not a ski resort, like most places around Jackson Hole. It’s a mountain retreat. More of a dude ranch than anything else. They tell me that they close for the winter. The horses are sent to a stable near Denver to spend the winter pulling sleighs in the park and carriages on the streets of downtown.
I breathe a small sigh of relief when I see no one outside. But the wind makes a sound like a helicopter and that night at the cabin comes back to me. I thought the helicopter was there to save me. But it wasn’t. It was there to pick him up.
I’ve learned a few things about Merric Case over the years. He’s got money. He’s got resources. And he’s got a network.
The few people who wander into my bar whom I met through Garrett in times past speak his name in hushed tones, if they mention him at all. Not out of respect, either. Out of fear.
I need to tell Brett.
I walk to the door of my room and actually have my palm on the antique glass doorknob, ready to pull it open and walk down the hall to Brett’s room, when I come to my senses. What will I tell him? He can’t marry me because I’m obsessed with a killer? I laugh a little. Will I tell him I was born into a secret organization called the Company? That they have been filling my head with propaganda my entire life? That I’m a danger to him, myself and others and he should run as far away from me as he can get?
What the fuck am I supposed to tell him?
I can’t marry Brett.
No, Sydney. You can’t tell him any of that. He’d never believe you. The best you could hope for is making him think you’re crazy.
Maybe I am crazy.
Maybe I should just admit it.
No. I shake my head. I’m not crazy. That shit happened. I can still feel the tear gas in my eyes. Smell the splintering pine needles when that shot blasted through the trees. Hear the roar of the helicopter in the air above me.
It was real.
That life was real. Those secrets were real. Those people were real.
I walk to my suitcase and grab the pair of jeans I came up here in and pull them on over my pretty lace panties. My hoodie is still draped across the chair and I pull that on over the nightie. And then my boots are on and I’m at the window, the wind still seeping through the cracks as I open it. The snow blows in, bathing my face in a sweet shower of ice crystals.
I need to leave. I need to get the hell out of here before Merric Case comes back to finish what he promised me eight years ago. I throw my leg over the sill and jump down into the snow that has drifted up against the side of the lodge and tug the window back down. I turn into the weather and run across the grounds towards my truck.
With any luck the snow will blow over my footprints and they will not know what happened.
And maybe this is fitting? That I disappear, just like Garrett did.
Maybe he loved me after all? Maybe he left to give me a chance? Maybe he gave himself up to his fate in order to change mine?
It’s a lie I tell myself often. I’m not proud of it, but it eases the hurt of being left behind. Twice. Both times by monsters. Maybe Garrett was a violent asshole, but he was all I had. And what does that say about me that a monster can’t love me? I’m so unlovable even evil men can’t stand to be with me.
I can’t marry Brett.
But I want to. I really, really want to. He’s so nice. And treats me so good. But I can’t marry him if that means Case will include him in his little revenge scheme. I have to protect Brett and his family. They are a good family. Old money. Educated. Upstanding people who contribute to charities and try to make the world a better place.
I hit the truck and realize I left my purse and phone behind. But my keys are still in my hoodie pocket, so I get in and start her up, looking up at the lodge windows for any sign of life.
It’s dark. Like me. Like my past.
Like Him.
I put her in gear and ease forward into the snow. I know this mountain. It’s dangerous in the winter under the best of conditions, and this storm will make getting down into the valley treacherous. But I know this mountain. I know it very well. We’ve been up here dozens of times since Brett and I met. His sisters live here full-time so we come visit every chance we get. So if anyone can get away in this storm, it’s me.