The Woman Who Couldn't Scream

  The trouble with using Benedict as protection was that, other than the fact he had tried to kill her, she liked him. Tonight, as before, they talked, they argued, they laughed. Her hands hurt from signing so much.

  He looked back at the road. “I still believe we’ve met. But how could I have forgotten you?”

  They were coming into town, thank God. She could drop him off at his coach house, park the car and get herself inside where she was safe. Safe from the killer. Safe from him. Not safe from herself, though. She’d just proved that.

  “Maybe when I was young, before my parents died? We traveled all over the world. That way you wouldn’t remember, because I was eight when they were killed and you’re younger than me.”

  She shook her head.

  “According to your online bio, you grew up in Nepal. I don’t remember Nepal, but I do remember India.”

  She shrugged.

  He pressed her. “Your parents were missionaries?”

  As she turned into the driveway, she gestured noncommittally. Damn it. He knew the story Nauplius had concocted to give her a personal history. Should she admit it was all a fabrication? No, if she did that, he’d want to know her real background. If she didn’t answer, he would research her, or think more deeply about where they could have met … He was suspicious already, of course. He was too intelligent not to be.

  In a reflective voice, he said, “We have a lot in common.”

  She wanted to snort. They had nothing in common. They never had.

  He continued, “Our parents were killed and our young lives both altered beyond all recognition. Do you want to come into my cottage for a drink and more conversation?”

  She shook her head. Most definitely not. Not if she wanted to keep her cover story. Not if she wanted to stay out of his bed—and stay alive.

  “I’m not a rapist,” he said.

  She shook her head again, quickly, in surprise.

  “I thought that a woman who can’t scream for help might worry about that.”

  He was the second man in twenty-four hours to worry that she couldn’t scream. Which wasn’t something she had worried about … before.

  She pulled up beside the B and B carriage house.

  He gestured toward her designated parking space. “If you won’t come in, fine, but I’m still going to walk you to your door.”

  She glanced around at the Christmas lights Phoebe had strung in the trees, at the shadows lurking at the property’s borders. Right. Good plan. She drove forward and parked. She started to open her door.

  Gently he caught her arm and when she faced him, he released her. “My poor male ego has been flattened enough by you driving and buying dinner. Don’t you think you should kiss it and make it better?”

  He made her want to laugh out loud. She signed, “Your male ego? Is that what we’re calling it now? It’s deflated? Am I supposed to believe that?”

  “At least take advantage of me for one kiss, on the lips if you must.”

  She examined him in the dim light. He was not handsome, not with those mismatched features and those ears, but that crooked smile and those warm eyes made her want to kiss him. Worse than that, to trust him.

  Silently she sighed. She was a fool, the worst kind of fool. She wouldn’t trust him. But it had been a very, very long time since she had kissed a man in passion—in fact, since the last time she’d kissed Benedict himself. A kiss filled the space where words could not explain or express. One kiss … Leaning across the console, she put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him toward her. She tilted her head and put her mouth to his. She closed her eyes and tried to remember how to do this right … Lips, brushing softly. A careful opening, breathing together, a tentative exploration, then the reward for patience, a taste of red wine and Benedict. A little more pressure, his intrusion, then hers, then his … Both of them breathing faster. Her heart hammering. Her fingers tangled in his soft hair … her arms around his shoulders, her breasts pressed to his chest. She strained toward …

  She opened her eyes. She caught her breath. She pushed away, banged her elbow on the steering wheel, hit the horn for one sharp beep.

  Scream? She didn’t need to scream.

  She needed to swear.

  He’d always been a good kisser, slow, tender, touching, breathing, loving every moment. He’d only improved with time, and what was worse—in this short span of time he had brought her almost to ecstasy. She looked for his hands. They were clasping the car seat.

  She had been ready to fling herself across the console onto the tiny seat and ravage him—and he hadn’t touched her.

  He was a show-off.

  She had been trying to remember how to kiss and got caught up in the warmth, the softness … the long, slow slide into wetness and anticipation … the intimation of further pleasure … Her mistake.

  Now she needed to remember that this man had tried to kill her. This man had been the cause of nine years of unhappiness and abuse.

  Worse, he was a show-off. Show-off, show-off, show-off!

  As she watched, he opened his eyes. He looked almost sleepy. Deceptively sleepy. She knew what that meant: he was ready.

  The car was hot and steamy and this time, no matter what he said or did, she was leaving. She slammed out of the car and headed for the house, half expecting his hand to catch her arm. She readied her best self-defense move, one that would knock him into the dirt.

  He caught up. Didn’t touch her. Walked beside her, opened the back door, followed her as she stalked through the kitchen and escorted her to the door that led into the dining room and her suite.

  She could hear conversation and the clinking of glasses in the sitting room. She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. See anyone right now. Not when she was flushed with arousal. Not when Benedict waited while she worked her way through the locks to get her door open. Too many conclusions—accurate conclusions—would be drawn.

  Then he grasped her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Thank you for a lovely evening. Perhaps we can meet tomorrow?”

  Which reminded her—he might aggravate her, but she was supposed to be using him for safety. She signed, “Want to go for a run in the morning?”

  Maybe her suggestion surprised him. Maybe her obvious irritation intrigued him. Something made his eyes narrow in suspicion. Still, he agreed right away. “Sure. Nine?”

  “Seven.” Want to argue about that?

  “See you then.” Hands in his pockets, he strolled away.

  She shut the door behind her, set all the locks, checked the progress of her program and gave it a nudge—a little more aggressively than usual, but she was frustrated with the stately pace of her revenge. Nothing more.

  Looking at her purse, she hesitated. She didn’t want to talk, but if she didn’t call, she wouldn’t sleep knowing he would call her … and be angry. Maybe if she texted … No. He’d never let her get away with that. Pulling out her tablet, she made the connection.

  He answered immediately. “What do you think you’re doing, going out with Benedict Howard?”

  He’d been watching her. Somehow, watching her, tracking her. Rage hit her like a freight train, the old rage, dark with dreams of vengeance and long years of bondage. She propped up the tablet, signed, “It is none of your business what I do, who I date.”

  “It’s my business if I—”

  “No. No!” She gestured emphatically. “I will not exist under surveillance ever again. If I die, I die. But I will live for the brief moments that are allowed me.”

  “So you’re sleeping with him.”

  Very softly, she hit the disconnect button.

  For one long moment, she stood straight, shoulders back, chin up, fists clenched, hating them all. Then, leaning over her computer, she gave the program another nudge, tiny and subtle, but a nudge.

  The phone rang again.

  She answered and he said, “Come over.”

  She stared at him.

  “I’m sorry. I won’t sa
y anything else. But come over. You need to practice.”

  She nodded and hung up. She changed into dark clothes, pulled on a black hoodie and slid out into the entry. She debated; the front door would take her past the sitting room, where guests still sipped wine and chatted. The back door would take her past Benedict’s cottage.

  She took a chance with the front door. She pulled her hood up over her head, slipped past and hoped no one saw her, or at least no one identified her. The door was a challenge. It creaked. But she got onto the porch without being hailed and after that, it was easy to slip through the hedge and into the yard next door.

  If the bed-and-breakfast looked as if the Addams family inhabited it, this place looked like Hill House: haunted, abandoned, ill-treated.

  But she came here anyway.

  Because he’d told her to. And about this, at least, he was right.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The coach house at the Good Knight Manor Bed and Breakfast suffocated Benedict with its bric-a-brac and ruffles, china cups and flowered wallpaper. Yet tonight, Benedict felt at home. The evening had gone well. Very well. Better than he could have imagined. Sure, he knew that Merida was up to something, using him for some reason. Yet the wine had been excellent, the conversation scintillating.

  He removed his jacket, his tie, his shoes.

  And if that kiss was anything to go by, he’d be glad to let Merida use him any way she wanted, all night long.

  His phone rang. For one brief, forgetful moment, he thought it was Merida. Then he checked the number.

  His aunt. Last he’d heard, Rose and Albert were on a leisurely cruise across the North Atlantic to view the glaciers and fjords. Even if they were in a port, it was very late there and unless there was an emergency, those two believed in early to bed. He picked up. “Rose, what’s wrong?”

  His aunt’s voice held that slight old age tremor she had developed. “Dear boy, it’s good to hear your voice after so long!”

  Right away, his suspicions were aroused. “It’s only been a week since we spoke.”

  “I know, but I recall the days when you lived with us and I saw you every day. I do miss that!”

  “Hmm.” When his parents were killed, Rose and Albert took him in without a single sign of distress and raised him as their own, but Aunt Rose was not one to show affection. “Is Albert okay?”

  “We’re both fine. We’re at sea steaming our way toward the Isle of Man. We may be in our seventies and leaving the corporations to you, but we like to keep our fingers on the pulse!”

  Of course. The business. “What’s wrong with the corporations?”

  “Where are you, dear?”

  “In Virtue Falls, Washington.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Vacation.”

  “I suppose if we are enjoying ourselves more than we should, you can, too.” The old age tremor grew more pronounced.

  Sometimes it was hard for Benedict to believe that he was related to these people, that Benedict’s father, Troy, and Albert had been brothers, and that Rose and his mother, Carla, had been sisters-in-law. Troy had been the younger son, irresponsible, traveling the world, making friends everywhere, handing out the family fortune to anyone who told him a sob story. His mother had been the practical one, insisting they live where Benedict could attend school, making sure they had shelter over their heads and regular meals. Yet Carla had adored Troy and whenever she woke Benedict in the early morning hours and handed him his backpack, he knew he was in for some form of delightful madness. Good times. Even today he missed his parents, the love, the laughter, the spontaneous travels.

  With Albert and Rose, it was all money, greed, profit and an almost psychotic disregard for the world, its people and its future. “What’s wrong with the corporations?”

  “Dear, I was checking the records for the next board meeting…”

  What her on-board Wi-Fi charges must be!

  “—and something caught my eye. Just the tiniest niggle.”

  “What kind of niggle?”

  “The stockholders’ information and the actual records don’t match.” When it profited her, Rose pretended to be a feeble old lady, but she knew her numbers. “Dear boy, you ought to check it out.”

  “All right. Send me the information. I imagine someone keyed something incorrectly.”

  The voice tremor disappeared, and Rose sounded more like the woman who, with her husband, had transformed the family business into a multibillion-dollar corporation. “Heads will roll.”

  “Of course.” She had drilled into him a simple truth: little discrepancies were sometimes harbingers of big trouble. “I’ll look it over.”

  “Tonight?”

  “In the morning. Give Albert my greetings, and enjoy your voyage.” He hung up, more annoyed than he should be, and flung one shoe across the bedroom. With a satisfying punch, it hit the wall inside the closet. When Benedict talked to Rose, she always made him feel as if he was a slacker, a disappointment, a failure. As Albert had once said in his hearing, his father’s son.

  His parents’ deaths had changed Benedict. The joy was gone from the world, and by the time he had struggled up from the depths of his grief, he was living a scheduled life of education and work experiences. That was what Uncle Albert called having Benedict spend his summers in the company mail room: “work experiences.” Albert and Rose taught Benedict their values: earn a profit at all costs, make more tomorrow than today and be damned to joy, to leisure, to love. He had grown up responsible, the valedictorian, a man of measured tastes and careful passions.

  Never again had Benedict experienced anything like his parents’ brand of delightful madness—until Merry.

  Merry was dead, too. Yet lately, she had been on his mind, a sweet, sad ghost. He had never had the chance to say good-bye …

  He wasn’t going to sleep now, so he might as well look over those reports.

  * * *

  Rose returned to their stateroom, where Albert sat at the desk, computer open, scrolling through the reports and making notations. “He’s found her,” she said.

  Albert turned away from the screen. “Who? Benedict? Found who?”

  God, Albert could be annoying. “Who do we not want him to find?”

  “Merry Byrd? Impossible! Why would he even want to find her?” Albert asked the obvious question. “Where’s the profit in that?”

  “Remember when he first met Merry? The way he acted?” Rose looked down at her hands. The skin was spotted, thin, wrinkled. Every bone, sinew and vein showed. “Business took second place to her and her do-gooding.”

  “He’s had other women, more practical women. He needs to marry. He needs to have a son to pass the business on to. Why not one of the women who live for the business?”

  “He said he loved Merry Byrd.”

  “Stupid name!”

  “Yes.” She was too old to deal with this nonsense: from Albert, and from Benedict.

  “All cats are gray in the dark,” Albert said.

  She eyed him: tall, bony, bad eyes and wispy hair. “So they are.” Knowing Albert, he didn’t even start to comprehend the irony of her answer.

  “Why do you say he found her?”

  “He’s on vacation in Virtue Falls, Washington.”

  Albert squinted at her, his reading glasses making his blue eyes wide and round. “Where’s that?”

  “I don’t know, dear. In Washington, I suppose. But Benedict sounded happy, and he refused to immediately look over the reports.”

  “You told him there was something wrong.”

  “Yes.”

  Albert leaned back in his chair and stroked his forehead. “Could be a different woman.”

  “Could be. But she disappeared.”

  “Merry did?”

  “Yes, dear.” She hated when Albert played stupid. “When Nauplius Brassard died, his wife, Helen, disappeared. We know who that really was.”

  “Merry Byrd.”

  “The question
is—does Benedict realize that Helen and Merry are one and the same?”

  “If he’s found her, it’s only a matter of time.” Albert pointed at Rose. “Better take care of that.” Turning away, he returned to his work, muttering darkly as he traced down the discrepancies Rose had found.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Benedict and Merida started out slowly, warming up, their feet pounding the sidewalk, dodging overgrown branches and a bicycle left lying on the sidewalk, avoiding barking dogs. He let her set the route. They ran a mile through Virtue Falls, then turned onto the well-worn path along the cliffs above the Pacific. There he began to stretch his legs, taking longer strides, pushing her harder than her usual pace. For her, it at once became a contest, one she couldn’t stand to lose.

  When she began to pant, he slowed. “I forget. You’re short.”

  She held out her hands, using them like a selfie stick, so he could see her talk. “I’m petite.”

  “Right. Petite.”

  She pointed down the steep path to the beach.

  He said, “Sure. Good idea,” and gestured for her to lead the way.

  She loved this part of the run, leaping down the slippery trail like a mountain goat. She loved more that she left him behind.

  At the bottom, she stopped, placed her hands on her knees and got her breath. When he came up behind her, she straightened and hopped along the rocks toward the pilings of the old dock.

  Behind her, he called, “Great food last night.”

  She nodded.

  “Good kiss.”

  She stopped, turned, signed, “Not a great kiss?”

  “You need practice.”

  She shot him the universal gesture of fuckoffery.

  He laughed. He looked tired, as if he’d been up all night, but he sounded happy.

  She returned to her rock-hopping. She was happy, too. The day had dawned with a rare blue sky, the air was cool, the ocean rolled and sparkled, she was with Benedict and her revenge was coming to fruition. Right now, the fact that she was revenging herself on him seemed irrelevant.