I had an idea. When we were younger, each room’s lock opened with the insertion of a long pin-like key. We often kept them on top of the doorframe. Biting my lip, I looked up the stairs. With the coast clear, I ran my fingers over the top of the frame. As my fingertips made contact, a straight piece of skinny metal fell to the landing.
Surely, there was better security.
Then again, who would find this house?
With another quick look up the stairs, I inserted the metal piece in the small hole in the middle of the handle. Just as it did in our childhood home, the lock clicked and the handle turned. Slowly, I pushed the door inward.
From the light coming from the room I had been in, I saw the desks and screens. It was a computer setup. As I stepped in, I decided it was more elaborate than I’d expected, not that I’d expected anything—maybe a canning room.
I ran my fingertips over a keyboard and a screen came to life.
It was as far as I would get.
The screens were blank, not even a clock in the corner and each keyboard was password protected. Even if they weren’t, Kyle had been right. I couldn’t email my husband. I didn’t know his email.
Dejectedly, I pressed the button in the middle of the knob and shut the door. An unsuccessful twist of the doorknob let me know the door was again locked. Putting the key back on the frame, I resolved that this attempt at rescue was thwarted. Having the door locked would keep that attempt hidden. No one needed to know.
The more I paced, the less I saw similarities in this room resembling Rett’s third-floor suite.
The entire space was as small as the library, and like the exercise room, there were no windows. I’d never considered myself claustrophobic, but with each passing minute, I was beginning to reevaluate that particular neurosis.
I pulled back the covers on the narrow bed.
Everything was clean and fresh.
The same thoughts and questions I’d had when I’d arrived at Rett’s returned.
Why was everything clean and fresh?
Had Jezebel expected me to be here?
It seemed she’d made her trip into the city for the purpose of acquiring me; nevertheless, was she so confident that she had this room prepared?
Removing my shoes, I lay back on the pillow and stared up at what was my ceiling.
No matter what other thoughts came to mind, one dominated.
That seemed appropriate.
Even in my thoughts, Everett Ramses was a dominating presence.
Lifting my left hand, I stared at my wedding rings. “You’re safe, Rett. I know you are.” I was speaking aloud, but there wasn’t anyone to hear. “I feel you. Maybe that’s what Jezebel meant by listening to the spirits. Maybe it’s Miss Marilyn talking to me, reassuring me.” Tears prickled the backs of my eyes. “I am safe, too. Please, Miss Marilyn, if you can hear me, let Rett know I’m safe. I don’t know how or when, but I’ll get back to him. It’s what I want with all my heart.”
The words were off my tongue and out of my lips before I could retract them.
No one else had heard my declaration, but I had.
I believed that it was seeing Liam that confirmed what I was afraid to admit.
Sometime during the last six weeks, not only had my broken heart found its way back together, but it had slipped through my fingers and been given to another. I swallowed the tears, refusing to give them notice. For so long I’d thought I was incapable of feeling love again. To protect myself from reliving the pain of a lost love, I’d taken what remained of my heart and hidden it away in a place where even I couldn’t find it.
And while I was busy, I’d forgotten to guard it, to keep it under lock and key. My mind and energy had been focused on a man I barely knew yet knew intimately. I wasn’t only talking about sexually. Yes, I knew Rett that way and I had no regrets. When we were together it was as if it had been God’s—or the spirits’—plan all along.
Two pieces of a puzzle.
The yin and yang.
But that wasn’t the extent of our connection.