"No big deal?" I laughed in the somber waiting room. Another squeeze from Griffen.
"You got a good one this time. Don't overthink it."
I rolled that thought around in my head for the next few days. While I spent the night in the hospital with Nash, dozing in a pleather recliner to the constant beep of monitors and machines. Through the weekend, while Tyler and Bryce golfed and drank and pretended we didn't exist.
I was so tired of overthinking my life. Couldn't I just let things be simple? I was finally with the man I loved, doing work I loved, living at home with the family I loved. I suddenly had so much of the good in life. Why was I tarnishing it with worry?
There was the whole issue of the door that could have killed Nash. That was something worth worrying about. The doctors had pronounced his heart perfectly healthy, but it could have been worse. I'd assumed Tyler did it, but there wasn't any proof. Certainly not wires or tools in his room or a handy notebook with instructions on how to wire a taser to a door handle. No fingerprints. Nothing definitive.
Hawk and his team were on high alert. He and Griffen suspected it was someone in the house, but without proof, they weren't making any assumptions. My gut said it was Tyler, but, like everyone else, I remembered Daisy's friend JT almost dying after Vanessa mistook him for Royal and stabbed him. In retrospect, Vanessa had raised plenty of red flags, but no one had thought she'd be crazy enough to kill someone. We were all wrong.
The weekend dragged by in a stalemate. I tried not to flinch every time I opened the door of my suite. Nash and I went out for dinner Saturday and Sunday, avoiding the rest of the family, including Tyler. By early the next week, the tension was getting to me. When Tyler had headed out first thing this morning in Bryce's car, laden with fly-fishing gear, I'd breathed a sigh of relief. It was wearing on me, having him in the house all the time.
I'd forgotten how Heartstone Manor could feel like a prison, the walls closing in, filled with malevolence. When I'd lived here before, it had been my father who brought the darkness. When she was alive, my mother could chase off the cloud he carried with him some of the time. After she was gone, Miss Martha had done her best, but Prentice Sawyer had been a force of nature, casting a pall over the entire estate. No, the entire town.
Tyler was no Prentice, but he still made his presence felt. With him safely on the other side of the closed gates, I felt less hunted. Free, if only for a few hours.
"I want you to stay in the house," Nash had said after we got word Tyler had gone fishing.
"But he's not here," I protested. "I can head over to the cottage and finish the cabinets in the kitchen."
"Can you wait a few hours? I have that meeting with Griffen, Hope, and Royal, and you have packages to mail out. Why don't you take care of that this morning and then I'll help you with the cabinets in the afternoon."
I stared Nash down, wanting to argue and not sure I should. "You don't think the door was Tyler?"
"I don't want to take any chances. I can't stop thinking, what if I hadn't stopped you? What if you'd grabbed the handle? The doctor said I was lucky I didn't have any permanent damage and you're a lot smaller than me. If–"
"I'll stay in the house," I said, immediately. I wanted freedom, but not at Nash's expense. Stepping into his arms, I wrapped mine around his waist, pressing my cheek to his chest, soaking in the healthy thump-thump of his heart. "Don't think about what ifs. It'll drive you crazy. We're being careful. Nothing is going to happen to either of us."
"Hopefully, the meeting won't run too long. We can get some lunch after and then finish those cabinets so Billy Bob can re-paint them once the electrician is done."
"Sounds like a plan," I agreed, pushing him out the door of our suite with a long, lingering kiss.
We were right, and at the same time, horribly wrong. We were being careful. True. But careful hadn't been good enough with the door, and it wouldn't be good enough today.
The morning started out quiet. Tyler stayed away. Nash was in his meeting. I packed up several orders, post-marked them, and arranged them in a repurposed cardboard box I'd been using to carry orders to the post office. Maybe Nash and I could catch lunch in town after I dropped them off.
Occupied with thoughts of a trip to town, I strolled down the hall. Stopping at the top of the main stairs, I spotted April damp-mopping the front hall. Diverting, I headed for the back stairs. The house was quiet, save for the quickly fading sound of April's mop swishing across the hardwood floor.
I stopped just before the stairs, eyeing the elevator. I rarely used it, the stairs faster than waiting for the elevator to come from the main level, where it returned after use. Lately Nash had been helping me carry my packages to the car. Shifting the box of orders, I reached out to hit the call button. Why not take advantage of the elevator since we had it?
I never heard him coming. From the strength and size of the hand that slapped over my eyes, I assumed it was a 'him'. It happened so fast I couldn't brace, didn't know how to resist. The hand came over my eyes, the inside of an elbow over my mouth, and I was dragged against a body, pulled off my feet, backwards, into the dark.
I twisted, fought, scrabbled at the man holding me captive. Stomping my foot into an instep, I hoped I'd hurt him enough to make him shout so I could figure out who I was dealing with. Nothing. It wasn't Tyler. That's all I knew. Bryce? Or someone else? How did he get in the house? Unless he was already here...
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but getting away. My mind was racing, my feet kicking and hands wildly slapping, all to no avail. I was dragged back into the second floor utility closet. The door shut, leaving me without sight. I broke free when he moved the arm that had been covering my mouth. He slapped the wall, and a motor whirred to life.
He grabbed me again, one arm around my chest, the other under my knees, pulling my legs up until I was compressed in a tight ball. He didn't feel that much bigger than me. How was he so strong? A sliding sound and I was flying, tossed into a metal box, arms and legs shoved in, the slam of a door ringing in my ears.
It took me a minute to remember. The dumbwaiter. I was in the dumbwaiter. Seconds after I realized what had happened, the dumbwaiter began to move. If it stopped on the first floor, I'd be in the butler's pantry off the dining room. Further down and I'd be at the far end of the lower level.
Neither location was close to where anyone would be working. Savannah and the staff only used the dumbwaiters for food service or, once a week, for moving laundry.
I caught a slice of dim light on one end of the dumbwaiter. The butler's pantry. The dumbwaiter continued its slow descent. One more minute and I'd be at the lower level. I could get out. This was a stupid prank, but I'd be fine once I reached the bottom.
Except the dumbwaiter stopped. No slice of dim light from the lower level pantry. Just inky black silence.
I was trapped between floors. Even if I could get the door to slide open, there was nowhere to go. And this wasn't an elevator. There was no hatch in the ceiling. No emergency call box or alarm. Laundry and food didn't care if it got stuck. The darkness was complete, oppressive, extending forever past the tight walls.
