AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And then one day, finally, it was done.
Monique stood up from her worktable and stared down at what she had wrought. For a moment she forgot that she was looking at something she had made and just let herself be dazzled by the thing itself. It was perfect, amazing, the most beautiful thing that had ever been. It was so remarkably flawless in every tiny detail that it just might work. It just might save Riley Wolfe.
Monique smiled.
And then a gigantic battering ram of total fatigue smashed into her and she barely managed to stumble across the floor to her sofa and fall onto it before a great wave of all-encompassing sleep wrapped around her and took her away to a timeless, thoughtless depth that washed away everything.
Monique had no idea how long she’d been asleep. There was no way to know; she’d fallen onto the couch completely oblivious to the hour, day, month, and slept so completely that she could not tell if she’d been out for an hour or a week.
A sleep that deep makes waking to reality seem a little bit unreal, out of focus, and Monique’s waking was exactly that. It seemed to her, impossibly, that someone was leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. Nobody did that to her. Not even her father had ever done something like that.
So she blinked her eyes open with no guarantee that she would see anything that made sense. And for a moment, nothing did make sense. There was just a strange moving blur in front of her eyes, a blur that slowly receded, until it turned into a man’s face standing over her and looking down with an awe-stricken expression. “Monique,” the man said—Riley? “I have never, in all my life, seen such a perfect piece of work.” Yes, it sounded like Riley’s voice. “I can’t even—it’s—it’s completely amazing. YOU . . . are completely amazing.” And he bent over and kissed her on the forehead again.
She pushed him away and struggled to sit up. “What time—Jesus, what day is it?” Her voice was somewhere between a rasp and a croak, and she put a hand to her throat.
“It’s Wednesday,” Riley said, an answer that made her want to kick him, and so did the smile that came with it.
She jumped up abruptly, suddenly overcome with panic for no reason she could name. She ran to her worktable, the sweat already starting on her forehead—and there it was. Monique took a deep breath, and then another, and just looked down at it in wonder.
The Ocean of Light.
For a long moment she just stared. It was the most beautiful and perfect thing she had ever seen. She knew in her heart that she could not possibly have made anything so amazing—but there it was.
A firm but gentle hand came down on her shoulder. She didn’t look to see who it was. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from her Ocean of Light.
“Monique,” a soft voice said—Riley’s voice. “Go back to sleep.” His voice was filled with a gentleness she never knew he was capable of, and she looked up at him and blinked.
Riley smiled, a smile that matched the softness of his voice. “You have done something wonderful,” he said. “Something no one else in the world could ever do.” He put his arm around her waist. “Now come on, go back to sleep. You have earned it.”
Monique didn’t resist as he led her back to the sofa. But she did turn back for one last long look at her creation. It caught a beam of light and seemed to glow from within with some kind of divine fire. “Yes,” Riley said. “It is the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen. Really.”
Monique looked a moment longer before she turned away. And as Riley eased her down onto the sofa, she was smiling.
She was still smiling, soft and gentle, as Riley covered her with a quilt. She closed her eyes and was already asleep when Riley bent over and kissed her. He stood above her for a long moment, staring down at her with a soft smile that matched her own. “Perfect,” he whispered.
Then he wrapped the perfect copy of the Ocean of Light in velvet and left.
* * *
—
Frank Delgado stood in the sunshine and was grateful for its warmth. He still wore his light summer jacket, and it was just barely adequate on this cool late afternoon. There was a definite edge to the wind, a reminder that fall was here and winter was close behind. And here, on this exposed hilltop, he felt that chill.
He didn’t care. He could have been lying nude in an ice bath for all he cared. Because he had been right, and he was here to prove it. It was real, and he’d found it. He was standing in the place where it all began.
He’d found the Big House on the Hill.
Delgado didn’t really need to get out of the car and stand in the yard of the dilapidated old house. In fact, he didn’t really need to come see it at all. He had all he needed. And he knew what his next move had to be. But he had started this trip to find out all he could about Riley Wolfe’s past. He had wanted to dig out puzzle pieces and see how they fit in order to understand Riley Wolfe—in order, of course, to
catch him.
Aside from that, though, there was a very real pleasure in simply looking at this place. And he’d spent enough time and effort finding it that he felt he’d earned a field trip to look at it. It was a kind of reward for a job well done, to see the place that had launched Riley Wolfe.
Not that the job was actually done. He hadn’t even started on the real job, catching Riley Wolfe. But now he could. Now he had a picture of what was driving Riley Wolfe. Sitting there in his car, he flipped open his notebook one more time. Looking over the many notes he’d written, he allowed himself to feel satisfaction. He’d been right more often than wrong, and he was looking at the payoff for all his work.
There was one remaining question. He didn’t know if it was important, and he knew he would not find the answer here, at the Big House on the Hill. Maybe he would never know the answer. Maybe it wasn’t really important. He had to assume it wasn’t because he had enough to go on. Still, it bothered him not to know.
Why “Riley Wolfe”?
